Respect is not love
One more thing: we all confuse love with
Love needs to be a total celebration, not a duty. respect. When you love totally, nothing that you do can appear disrespectful. You see, when you closely observe respect, you will find that when certain people do certain things, it appears absolutely normal, while the same thing, when some other person does it, appears disrespectful. The energy behind the person doing the act is what causes the act to seem respectful or disrespectful.
When the energy behind you is total, when you are just a loving energy, you can get away with anything. When you are not sure of yourself, you will be caught with the problems of respect. I am not asking you to be disrespectful. I am only saying that when your being resonates with love, your body language will be such that your actions can never seem disrespectful.
But if you get caught with respect instead of love, you are missing the whole thing. Then instead of being loving, you will start pretending, and when you pretend, you are not total.
When you are centered in respect, you will pretend because respect is societal and it keeps changing in its definition. But if you are centered in love, then respect becomes a pleasant by-product. So center yourself in love and respect will automatically happen.
Remember: Respect is dead. Love is alive. Respect creates a distance; love knows no distance.
People are trained to be so fearful and respectful of God. They are never taught to love God. They are not allowed to touch the idols in the temples. They are expected to stand at a distance and bow down. They are taught to be wary of God. Understand, the first thing that children should be taught is to love God.
If you cannot embrace God, there is nothing left to embrace, because God is everything! When you teach your child that you cannot embrace God, you are actually teaching him that God is different from the rest. By putting God on a pedestal, you are actually alienating the child from the whole of Existence.
Just have some social intelligence and play the game of respect in an intelligent way when required, that's all. Mind you, this kind of respect will happen with deep awareness and intelligence. It will not cause you to be less loving.
Respect is dead. Love is alive. Respect creates a distance; love knows no distance.
A small story:
A mother went with her child to a public function.
Somehow, she lost track of the child and they got separated in the crowd.
The mother got very panicky and started searching all over for the child.
Suddenly she heard behind her a voice, 'Maria! Maria!' She turned around and saw her daughter.
She ran to her, hugged her and asked, 'But why were you calling me Maria instead of mom?'
The child replied, 'That would have been of no use. There are so many moms around here!'
Children are still centered in themselves and they are more alive and alert than us. Their innocence, their love, their body language speaks for them, not their words. Because of this, whatever they say or do always seems innocent, never disrespectful. Once the mind steps in with societal conditionings, this innocence disappears. Then we have to make it up with words and pretensions.
When love becomes a duty, it becomes a burden. And when it becomes a burden, it is no more a celebration. You will always be under pressure to keep it up.