When two countries fight, a LOC (Line of Control) is created to restrict entry. When two people fight, is there a LoC? Yes! It is called LoR, Line of Respect. When the LoR is crossed, the fight begins.
Have you ever travelled with a cake box? To the degree you handle it with care and respect, to that degree the impressive shape of the cake is retained till the destination. Time and familiarity makes one careless and inattentive. Relationships are like that cake. The moment you lose respect and care and instead breed familiarity and contempt, you may find a perfect box but a mashed cake.
As soon as respect is taken away from a relationship, life is taken away from that relationship. Just like mystics keep their life locked in a jewel that is safely hidden and thus continue living for very long, the life of a relationship should be kept safely locked within the jewel of respect, thus ensuring its long life. Respect should permeate in a relationship like fragrance permeates a room.
A healthy balance of love is needed between self-respect and respecting others. Love is the force transforming self-centred babies to non-self-conscious mature adults. Craving to love another shouldn’t be at the cost of respecting own individuality. True love is respect in spite of shortcomings.
Just like monkeys patiently pull out lice from each other’s bodies, similarly humans who love one another should respect each other’s weaknesses and help one another overcome them rather than condemning them. A man, who laughs at another’s shortcoming, is like a monkey who is busy laughing away at another’s plight while he himself is infested with lice. The bond that relates two individuals may be that of blood, but the bond that actually connects two individuals is that of respectful love.
In the Mahabharata, Shishupala was born with three eyes and four arms and was looking ugly and abnormal. His paranoid parents consulted wise men and were told that they need not panic; the extra organs would disappear as soon as a special person picked him up and that very person would be the cause of his death. Very soon Krsna who was the cousin brother of Shishupala came by and picked up the child and immediately the extra organs disappeared causing great fear in the heart of his mother.
The disturbed mother was pacified only when Krsna assured her that he would forgive his cousin for 100 lapses every day. Only when he exceeded that disrespectful limit would he punish him. Shishupala’s mother was satisfied hearing the magnanimous LoR that had been drawn by Krsna. She was sure that no human could cross that limit of being disrespectful and definitely not her son.
Shishupala grew up with a natural hatred for his cousin that he made no attempt to suppress. At every opportunity he would shoot a barrage of slang abusive words at Krsna. Krsna would patiently avoid reacting in keeping with his promise and Shishupala would religiously stop before the LoR was crossed.
On the day of the Rajasyuya yajna of Yudhishthir, Krsna was selected to receive the highest honour and respect in the prestigious assembly of the most important men in the world. Shishupala’s envy for his cousin peaked and he inadvertently crossed the LoR that Krsna had drawn by firing a volley of more than 100 abusive words at a stretch. As soon the LoR was crossed, Krsna severed the relationship with His disc.
Important relationship should be preserved judiciously like a priceless jewel. When one mistakes priceless relationships to be artificial jewels and treats them like artificial jewels, one crosses the LoR. Crossing the LoR harbingers the disc of time to sever the relationship forever.
Love needs respect right in the beginning and in the middle of a relationship but not in the end of it. When respect ends, love ends. Disrespectful verbal violence is like a relationship suicide-bomber. The need to be respected is far greater than the need to be provided for. Relationships seldom break because the other is unable to provide for one's needs. In fact, when there is struggle for basic things in life, relationships solidify baked in the fire of cooperation. But when one is unable to cater to the need to be respected, relationships crack under the weight of small-mindedness. Without respect, love is a dramatic expression of self-interest.
Respect in fact is the greatest form of expression and means of strengthening of divine love. Just like plants require space to grow into trees, similarly healthy relationships require space to flourish. When one tries to stuff himself into the life of people he loves, the relationship tends to suffocate. When we respect boundaries, we value the relationship. When we step into boundaries without being welcome, we only value ourselves.
