Respect

 Respect, by Haripada dasa

In chapter five, verse 18 of The Bhagavad Gita it is said that one who has spiritual vision sees with the same equality a humble priest, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater, this is to have true respect. Today people do not respect anything or anyone because they do not respect themselves, the other day a young woman was driving her car all drugged up and ran over 3 cyclists and killed them. Respect is the basis for coexistence, when respect is lost, offenses enter, people do not know how to live without offending others. There are no educational institutions that teach people to be peaceful and respectful, and parents do not want their children to be peaceful and respectful, once some parents told me that they had to take their son to a psychologist because they saw that their son was very strange, he didn't go after women and he didn't go to discos, he went to the mountains and he was a vegetarian, so they were very worried.

 Political leaders don't want people to be peaceful and respectful, political parties are made to spread materialism and atheism, nowadays they do hate trials, they don't believe in the law of karma, the law of karma means that any suffering that you do to another living entity, that same suffering you will have to suffer in your own person, violence begets violence, animals follow the laws of nature in a natural way, it is an act of hatred when one kills a animal because by killing it you are interrupting its evolution, I mean, if an animal had to live 20 years, and you kill it when it is 10 years old, that soul that lives in the animal has to be reborn in the same species to complete its 20 years, to understand this point the example given is that I go to your apartment and break everything, that is a criminal act because I am causing inconvenience to the person who lives in that apartment, non-violence means that you let the animal live and die naturally, and act of hate is that you kill the animal. If you want to eat meat, fine, you eat it when the animal dies, but don't kill it, because killing is an act of hate. Why don't they prosecute everyone who eats meat, fish and eggs for acts of hate?

Srila Prabhupada says in his books that just because of the killing of innocent animals, the karmic reaction to this is that every once in a while there is a world war and millions of people die. Nowadays people don't believe in anything, they are worse than animals, they only believe in money and power. Usually people do not awaken to a higher consciousness because they are full of envy, fear, doubt, fanaticism, speculation, prejudice, and are full of sinful activities, and they have no interest in purifying themselves. I end this message with a beautiful verse from Srimad Bhagavatam that says don't be a father or mother, don't be a ruler, don't be a spiritual master, but you are capable of liberating your dependents from the cycle of birth and death.