When Treated With Intense Contempt, One Makes a Firm Inner Resolution for Respect

Pride is such that once a person is insulted to an extreme level, he becomes shamelessly impertinent ( naffat). And if he keeps getting a moderate amount of respect, then he keeps getting validated.

Questioner: Dada, this has been the case from the very beginning, hasn’t it?

Dadashri: It’s been this way since time immemorial, respect and insult! The phenomenon of respect and insult begins from the time one enters the human lifeform, there is nothing like this in other species, in other life-forms. There are a lot of problems pertaining to respect and insult here in the human life-form and in the celestial life-form.

Questioner: Do they forget about respect and insult when they go into other life-forms?

Dadashri: They forget it. They forget from the moment they leave from here, they do not remember it. Do you remember what you ate four days ago?

Questioner: No. But a living being remembers vengeance and hostility, respect and insult and all that, so why does he forget all of this?

Dadashri: No, he does not remember even that. He only remembers anger, pride, deceit, and greed. And those other four sangnya ( instincts) [food hunger, sex hunger, fear and sleep] always remain. Vengeance and hostility ( ver-zer) do appear later on. He does not remember them. When insulted, he kicks up a fuss.

Now, if one receives a lot of respect, then his hunger for maan goes away. If one keeps getting excessive respect, then his hunger ( bhookh) for it goes away. After that, he will not like respect. Do you think people don’t give me enough respect? If you were to get such respect, then your hunger for it would go away.

Now, if a person was given respect in every matter in childhood, then he would not have the hunger for it at an older age. If his desire for respect had been fulfilled during childhood, then he would have no hunger for it later on. A human life can be destroyed if one has been scarred through intense contempt ( tarchhod). If a person is insulted two times, five times, ten times in childhood, and he does not get respect, and he has been treated with intense contempt when it comes to respect, then he decides, ‘ I want to gain respect from these people in any way that I can.’ So his goal changes and he becomes engrossed in trying to gain respect.

So, he makes a firm inner resolution exclusively for earning respect. He ends up becoming extremely proud when he grows up; he becomes incredibly proud. Right from childhood, he decides, ‘Now I want to get ahead of everybody.’ So he puts in a lot of effort and says, “I will get ahead of everybody if it’s the last thing I do.” And he does get ahead of everybody too! Yes, he will do whatever it takes, but he gets ahead of everyone.