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Love is different from respect

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When you start loving Existence, it begins responding to you in beautiful ways.

 

 

 

 

 

Very often, love is confused with respect. From a young age, children are brought up to always show respect but never to show love. You can hear people teach the children, ‘You should respect your elders.’ You will hardly hear, ‘You should love your elders.’ That is the problem.

With respect, there is fear. With love, there is authentic respect as well as the scope for deep understanding to happen.
Respect sows the first guilt in you that you are something inferior. It makes you feel separate from the other person to whom you show respect. On the other hand, love sows the seeds of joy and unity in you. It makes you feel connected with the other person and with everything in Existence. With respect, there is fear. With love, there is authentic respect as well as the scope for deep understanding to happen. With respect alone, not much understanding is possible. With love, there is a possibility for tremendous understanding and transformation to happen. Love by its very nature is transforming. It softens and melts you.

The scholar Professor Nicholson, composed a Sufi* verse on love: ‘Love, Love alone can kill what seemed dead, The frozen snake of passion. Love alone By tearful prayers and fiery longing fed, Reveals a knowledge schools have never known.’
Only love can melt your hardness. Only love can keep you porous.
Any stone heart can be melted with love. Only love can melt your hardness. Only love can keep you porous. “With pure respect, the appearance of love is forced and may never be authentic.” Respect creates distance between you and the other. Love bridges the distance between you and the other. Only because people themselves have not experienced love, do they give respect as the rule of acceptable behavior. Respect is easier but not real. Love might be difficult only because not many know how to go about it, but it is real. With love, respect is automatic and authentic. With pure respect, the appearance of love is forced and may never be authentic.

Glossary:

Sufism – Mystical dimension of Islam.

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