Respect & Relationship

Once upon a time, the great royal guru Drona was about to storm out after prince Duryodhana insulted him in front of the entire royal assembly. “A teacher who is not respected by the student, has no future there!” Without respect, there is no sustenance. If having differences leads to disrespect, slowly things will crumble, be it in an organisation or in a relationship. The dynamic of respect is worth understanding if we want to make our working and personal relationships deeper and have longevity. There are some principles which must be upheld for this to work.

 

 Hierarchy of Respect

Respect must be mutual. It is not possible for one person to respect the other for a prolonged period of time without feeling some level of resentment or anger, unless of course the person has mastered tolerance. If like most of us, they have a tolerance threshold, this will not last. If one was to be very calculating, one may think there are three possibilities with respect to respect. You may respect the other person more than they respect you. The other person may respect you more than you respect them. Or, you may have equal respect for each other. But in reality it isn't so simple is it? The balance changes, often by day. It is very important to understand that respect does not mean, you just believe that person is greater than you. There are many different levels of respect, almost like a hierarchy. At the most basic level, it means you acknowledge the person. Once I was in a situation where a person walked into a room and talked about another person in the room and referred to him as a third person “Is he coming?” Without acknowledging his name, in a rash tone, he referenced this person. So acknowledging a person, personally, is a basic level of respect. The next level is to appreciate the person’s good qualities. I appreciate Cristiano Ronaldo’s football abilities for example, therefore I have a certain level of respect for him that is beyond just recognizing his existence. Thirdly it means we adjust what we are doing for that person i.e. we will make time in our schedule for that person, or to do work they may want us to do. Fourthly, it means we are sensitive to that persons feelings – we don’t behave in a rash way unnecessarily out of our own mood swings carelessly. This shows deeper respect. When we think about our behaviour before acting, this can be deeper a sign of respect. We can recognize a person, value their greatness, and even adapt our lives to do what they want, but we may not be sensitive to their feelings at a deep level. For most of us, this is our relationship with our bosses at work. We do what they say, we certainly recognize they are our boss, but, we may not really care how they feel. With our partners at home, or our parents for example, the last principle is also likely to hold. This is because it becomes more personal. Respect means personal. Lack of complete respect means impersonal.  

Lamborghini Mentality

I walked into the reception of the building in my exercise gear, some of which quite frankly isn’t so new! I wanted to pay for my monthly rent. I approach the lady and said “Good morning”. She replied with, “Can I see your card please?” I hustled into my pocket and showed her my access card. “Good Morning Sir, please take a seat, how may I help you?” Suddenly I’d become Sir! Was it the first time? Absolutely not. Many times air stewards have addressed me and then realised I had a higher tier seat and then changed their way of interaction completely on its head. The former Chief Executive of IBM was once not allowed into his own building as he forgot his pass until he proved who he was. One friend said to me recently, “Why do we have to do something so impressive in order to be respected?” It made me think of what warrants respect in our world. A chicken in the hand is worth two in the bush as the old saying goes. What we have immediately is worth more than what we can ‘potentially’ have. So many people I know missed out on dormant potential. On the other hand so many people I know went on to exceed what one may imagine was their potential in life. When it comes to respect, what is respected, and what is respectable? Once again, there is a hierarchy. If I turn up at Niagra Falls and expect to be respected because I think I own it, I would be laughed at if anyone found out this is what I was thinking. I recall in London on a Saturday night, people would drive Lamborghini’s near Leicester Square and almost everybody could hear the engine, and would look to see who owns it. It commands a certain level of respect. However, we are not the car. It is almost a statement to say “I am as cool as my car”. But you aren’t the car. My point not being, don’t have a desire to have a Lamborghini, but that our belongings are not us, nor can they ever be part of us. Our body however, is more closely linked with us. We see many people showboating their bodies. It is the same tendency as the Lamborghini mentality. Look at me. After a certain amount of experience in life, a careful thinker will move up this hierarchy. Indeed many people who spend their life trying to own things and extend belongings, end up realising they should take care of their closest belonging; their body! One friend who is also from London who moved to China many years back and was a Karate practitioner who went all over the world to fight, explained how he now does yoga. After mastering the body, it’s flexibility, focus, and literally holding very tough positions for hours in the mornings, he explained to me that he realised that it’s also not about the body. That we are beyond the body. At this stage we can be at peace, we understand we cannot own things, we understand we are also not the body. We understand that our constitutional position is something different to meeting needs and commanding respect. This is where real dynamism and freedom kick in. It is where we can genuinely offer respect to others for things beyond what they supposedly own. The more we see the things around us all day in this context, the more we will be able to have an untainted view of the world.

“Full knowledge means that the jīva-ātmā, the living entity, must know both his position and the Supreme's position. That is full knowledge.” Srila Prabhupada, Srimad Bhagawatam 4.20.7 purport

 

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Prada (Want) vs 7/11 (Need)

No more Queuing Up
It was a bright summer morning as the queue formed outside our apartment for the morning shuttle bus to get into Central. Although only a 30 minute journey, the queue is typically half of that duration. As the bus engine turns on, a neatly dressed lady runs to the queue in a frantic hurry and through a rude shrug, asks the less well clad lady standing at the front of the queue to be on her way. They swapped positions and it was clear that they lady now in the queue had made her maid wait in the queue so it would save her some time in doing whatever else she was doing. To my surprise, cooking, taking care of kids, cleaning, and now even waiting in queues can now be looked after by the maid. Finishing off putting her make up on, she got on the bus and quickly applied her nail polish. Chanel, Gucci and Prada were amongst the brands in her attire as they are with many who live the good life in and around my area. Thinking not too much of the situation except the fact maids can also be made to queue up for you, I went on with my day.

7/11 to the Rescue

After a few days of strong heat, it is normal for bursts of heavy rain to follow. This time there wasn't a very long queue for the bus, and the same lady who I had seen replace her maid sat next to me. We looked at the rain pour down, and as we arrived at the stop, from which there is a 30 odd meter non-sheltered walk, the lady realised she hadn't taken her umbrella. After some rummaging through the handbag she was sure she hadn't taken it. The Gucci, Prada and Chanel pieces were ever-present, even in the rain, but the umbrella wasn't. I was on the way to boxing, and the total value of my clothing and everything in my bag was probably somewhere close to the value of this ladies make-up. Although the way this lady put herself across was as though she was extremely self-sufficient, she looked toward the umbrella I was holding. I had bought the umbrella from 7/11 for no more than £3. She looked at me in quite a look of desperation, asked if she could walk under my umbrella with me to the station for those 30 meters. I said sure that's ok. I had such little, she had so much. Yet I had one of the few things that was needed in this situation. It is important to caveat that in and of itself, I don't believe it's a negative thing to have many brands or even having a maid queue for you for the bus, however the context and understanding of wants vs needs, is important. His Holiness Bhakti Rasamrita Swami, mentioned on his recent trip to the UK that we should at no cost 'outsource our consciousness.' This perfectly summed up what this situation made me more aware of, and it's implications in the way we live and the way we work, are big.



Remember the Umbrella

In prioritising what we have on our to do lists, a practise I've got used to doing lately is setting the must haves verses the optionals. The danger is, as life gets busy, that things which bring us immediate gains are prioritised over long term tasks. Relationships will bring us long term success, not administrative tasks, so seeing these as musts is important. Administrative tasks will keep us out of trouble yes and they also must be done, but we often forget the 'umbrella-like' tasks which we don't need on the way to the bus stop, but we will find we need once we get off. To view this principle of relationships even more holistically, we should never use relationships for personal materialistic gains. Because if this is our motive, we will be not find a deep level of satisfaction since purely materially driven pursuits are tinged with fear and worry. Fear of the competition outdoing you, fear of cost or depletion of resources, fear of not achieving what you wanted to get. We should not forget that people are people, not just a means to an end. If we view the relationship in this way, we will tend to deal with integrity and not with exploitation, and people will tend to have a genuine appreciation for this because they will likely have dealt mainly with other more superficial motivations.


Do it Anyway

Within the first two years of starting working, I once asked one of my mentors who is a very successful Partner in London, what if we keep doing the right thing and helping others but they don't reciprocate in this way back, and exploit your helping them. He said, keep helping them and keep helping people. I said that it's not really worth it though. He said, it doesn't matter, it's the right thing to do. Of course, the Partner was exceptional at what he did but where he got a chance he would always help people. This has long stayed with me and I can say with all confidence it works, even when you help seemingly extremely ungrateful people. There is an inherent power locked within doing the right thing. When we see needs and wants within such personal context of doing what's right, with the proper treatment of people, which doesn't mean just being nice all the time, but also the appropriate disciplining where required, then we will feel more fulfilled and break a satisfying balance in life and work. To conclude this peice, the poem called "Anyway" by Mother Teresa is a wonderful offering.

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.