Respect …

Generally when we talk about Respect then we get reminded about our expectation of getting Respect from others. We start thinking about our current state of Respect, who all Respect us, who do not, who is more Respected, who is less, what are the different criterias for ensuring more and more Respect and many such things. Generally we feel Respected when more and more people know us and more and more people feel and think good about us. When it happens then we feel happy and we feel that we have lot of Respect. When somebody appreciates us we feel good/respected, when somebody scolds us we feel bad/disrespected. When we are in front of a person who is “less” in any way than us then we feel good or respected or superior, when we are in front of a person who is “more” in any way than us then we feel bad or disrespect or inferior.

The thing which comes here in notice is, generally our criterias and notions of Respect are relative. We feel more or less Respected relative to others. We see ourselves through the eyes of others. When we see ourselves through our neighbor’s or our friend’s eyes and we find ourselves good then we feel good or respected otherwise we feel bad or disrespected. When we feel that people around us think and feel good about us then we feel Respected. When we see that people around us do not feel or think good about us then we feel disrespected.

Now here the rat-race starts. To feel good about myself or to ensure more and more Respect I keep trying several methods. Since according to my understanding of Respect when other person feels of thinks good about me I feel Respected so, his notions of feeling good or thinking good about someone become my notions of ensuring Respect. I try to do all possible things to rise myself in the eyes of other person so that I can feel Respected. This way we all become drivers of each others lives!

Generally in society 5 things are considered as the criterias for ensuring more and more Respect. They are, Beauty (Roop), Position (Pad), Power (Bal), Money (Dhan) and Intellect (Buddhi). We see in the society that people appreciate or Respect others on the basis of these criterias. A person who has more of it is Respected more and a person who has relatively less is Respected less. With such kind of notions floating in society we try to be “more” in any or more of above criterias to ensure more Respect. This effort to accumulate or ensure more and more of any or above to get respect from others is one of the major root causes of problems which we see in society and unfortunately we all are indulged into it. The sad thing is in spite of ensuring Respect this way by accumulating/ensuring more with us, we still feel insecure about our Respect. As soon as somebody else in our surrounding becomes “more” than us we start feeling “less”.

It is the Relative Evaluation which is the root cause of our insecurities, fears, pressures and unhappiness.

Such kind of insecurities give rise to Inferiority, jealousy and other such things which spoil the relationships.

Whenever we try to ensure Respect from an object which can be separated from us or which has the factor of relativity or “more” or “less” then we feel insecure about our Respect. Till the time we make such an object as basis of our ensuring Respect, relative evaluation is bound to happen. With relative evaluation we are bound to feel insecure.

Now the next question comes, why do we see ourselves though the eyes of others? Why is it that I feel Respected when others think or feel good about me and disrespected when others feel or think bad about me? How come other is driving my life?

We all want Respect. Respect is such a need which is there within us continuously. Continuously in the sense there is never a time when I desire for disrespect or there is never a time when I feel that it has been a long time since I have been getting respect so lets leave it for some time.

We want Certainty, Consistency and Continuity of feeling of Respect within us.

This desire for Respect is there within us continuously which we can see now. Now lets try to understand what is Respect.

We all evaluate ourselves. We feel that we are “this much”. When other person sees us or evaluates us the way we consider ourselves or have evaluated ourselves then we feel Respected. When other person sees us less than what we have evaluated ourselves then we feel disrespected. When other person sees us more than what we have evaluated ourselves then also we feel disrespected since we have fear or insecurity or uncertainty of retaining that evaluation in other person’s mind since we know that we are not that much what other person has evaluated us. Here one thing we can notice is, we feel Respected when we are “Rightly” Evaluated. Here “Right” evaluation according to us is what we have evaluated ourselves.

We feel Respected when we are Rightly Evaluated by other person.

Here also the thing to notice is, the factor of relativity still persists. Our feeling of Respect is being dependent on other person. His right evaluation of me makes me feel Respected. So question which comes is, how is it happening and how can I get rid of this dependency?

The “Right” which we feel is “Right”, is generally not “Absolutely Right”, it is “Relatively Right”. We evaluate ourselves and we do not have self-assurance that this is “Right Evaluation”. In lack of such kind of self-assurance when other person evaluates me less than what I feel I am then I doubt myself and that self-doubt takes me to under-evaluate or over-evaluate or otherwise-evaluate myself and I feel disrespected.

I can have such self-assurance towards my evaluation only when my evaluation is “Absolutely Right” and NOT “Relatively Right”. With such kind of self-assurance towards my evaluation I will Have Respect rather than to Expect it.

It is not about Getting Respect from others it is about Having Respect within ourselves for others.

When I am able to evaluate myself right then I am able to evaluate others also rightly. When I have my absolute right evaluation with me then I have respect, then I do not expect respect from others.

To understand Right Evaluation, Respect, Trust, Relationships and Happiness we need knowledge.

Knowledge includes,

Knowledge of the Self.

Knowledge of Entire Existence.

and Knowledge of Natural Human Conduct.

Trust or Attachment?

Generally when it comes to Trusting people then we do it by seeing their work and behavior. We generally have different criterias for declaring a person good or bad. When a person fits into some or more of those criterias we set a level of Trust to them. When I see that, “Yes this person seems to have nice behavior with me”, “he talks to me well”, “he helps me when I am in need”, “he understands me when I tell him my problems”, “he doesn’t leak my secrets to others” etc. then I Trust the person. Criterias may be different or similar but the method is generally the same.

These criterias which we use are generally which we like. These are nothing but our own likings and dis likings. According to our training or conditioning which we have had in past in our environment, education and experiences we have different criterias for defining good. The thing which we define good are generally those which give us pleasant feeling, pleasant taste, pleasant gesture, happiness etc.

This desire for pleasant feeling, pleasant taste, nice experience, something new every time and continuous happiness is there within all of us. It is ever actively present within us. We are every time in search for some pleasant feeling or taste. When we are getting a pleasant feeling due to our association with some object then we like it and we want our association with that object to be continuous so that we can continuously keep getting the pleasant feeling, taste or happiness. When we are doing something which we do not like then we do not get that pleasant feeling and we want to get rid of that feeling and want some pleasant feeling again. It just implies that this desire for some pleasant feeling or happiness is there within all of us continuously.

Now if we look back to our understanding of Trust then we see that we set a level of Trust to the other person on the basis of our likings and dislikings. When we feel comfortable or get some pleasant feeling in the behavior of the other person or when other person behaves with us in accordance with our likings then we start Trusting that person. We feel comfortable with that person. We find the behavior of other person soothing. We can open up in front of that person, we feel like we have been unconditionally accepted. This feeling of being unconditional accepted gives us security. This is generally our basis for Trusting people.

Now the issue comes, when the behavior of other person starts changing, our notions of likings and dislikings start getting violated. Now the other person is not behaving in accordance to our criterias of liking. Since our Trust on the other person was dependent on our own likings and dislikings, so till the time other person keeps behaving in accordance to those criterias we are able to Trust him and as soon as his behavior changes our Trust shakes.

The thing here to notice is, we were getting pleasant feeling, comfort, happiness with the other person due to his behavior being in accordance to our notions of likings. We have been trying to derive comfort, happiness from the other person’s behavior. This is similar to deriving happiness or pleasant feeling by eating pizza. If we have spent a long time with a person who’s behavior with us has been in accordance with our notions of likings and when suddenly that person’s behavior starts changing then it really hurts us. In most of the cases we are not able to tolerate that change of behavior. It is similar to the case when a child is deriving immeasurable pleasure by eating an ice-cream and suddenly his mother snatches and throws away that icecream from him. We have been deriving happiness from other person’s behavior with us, it was giving us pleasant feeling and we also had expectations of other person’s behavior being consistent so that we keep getting that pleasant feeling and happiness continuously. The more and more time we spend with that person our expectations with the other person to remain the same keep getting stronger and stronger and we are most of the time are not even aware of it!! But, when the behavior of other person changes suddenly we get extremely hurt, our source of happiness is like snatched the same way ice-cream was snatched from the hand of that child. We want other person to behave with us the same way. We want to get that happiness again. When we are not able to get that then we blame that other person for our unhappiness. In fact we sometimes even become violent and that violence is also to restore the conditions back to as they were before or to vanish the other person who has been responsible according to us for our unhappiness.

Search for continuous happiness in an object which can not give its continuity is called Attachment.

The thing here to notice is, till the time we try to derive happiness from a thing which can not give its continuity we are bound to get hurt and get unhappiness. We want happiness and its continuity. When we get happiness from an object anytime then we desire for its continuity through that object. This happens unknowingly. Those expectations of deriving happiness and continuity from that object keep getting stronger till the time we are able to derive happiness from that object. When those expectations are violated we get hurt. Behavior of other person is the same thing. Other person’s behavior is not in our control. With the expectations of happiness and its continuity through other person’s behavior we give our state of being or our keys of happiness to other person and same thing happens with other person too mostly which ultimately becomes the source of our unhappiness.

Trust is defined as,

Total assurance that the Intentions of the other person are unconditionally good, is called Trust!

With the change in behavior of other person we doubt on his intentions and get hurt.

There is a need to look at our notions of happiness, relationships and Trust again in order to ensure them continuously since we want them continuously. Desire for happiness is such a desire which we can not kill or we can not suppress. This desire is ever actively present in us. We want happiness continuously. For continuous happiness we want such a thing which can ensure its continuity. We want our association with such an object which gives us happiness and keeps giving it continuously and which can not be separated from us so that we keep getting happiness continuously. Any object which is outside of us can not be associated with us continuously and even if we are able to associate it we will not be able to derive happiness from it continuously which we can experiment with us and come to know.

Object which can give us happiness and its continuity is proposed as Knowledge.

Knowledge includes:-

Knowledge of the Self.

Knowledge of Entire Existence.

and Knowledge of Natural Human Conduct.