“We are all one family in the world. Building a
community that empowers everyone to attain full potential through each of us
respecting each other’s dignity, rights and responsibilities, makes the world a
better place to live in.”
These
words were spoken by Pope John Paul II, the
recently canonized Roman Catholic pontiff, recognized as one of the world’s
most successful religious leaders, and a staunch supporter of the achievement
of mutual respect among peoples and nations, worldwide. During his tenure he
was able to significantly improve the respect and understanding among all the
great religions and to reduce the levels of antagonism between nations. He
spent his whole life preaching on the need for mutual love and social justice
among all people, and the importance of mutual respect to all.
Mutual
Respect is the very foundation of every successful relationship. Not only does
it ensure current understanding and respect, but it serves as a guide post for
subsequent behavior. It is the most fundamental value of any society, and when
present, will allow people of all types to understand and respect their
differences and their boundaries, create closer bonds, and ensure peaceful
co-existence in an atmosphere that is mutually beneficial to all. When
decisions are made and actions undertaken in a spirit of mutual respect and
responsibility, the results are invariably more satisfying to all, and even
more, serve to encourage further trust and satisfaction. In this setting,
relations will grow stronger and will inevitably lead to support and respect
for each other, and encourage help to the weakest to ensure success to all
parties.
Far too often, people have preferred to reject this
principle and instead, choose to take different roads guided by personal greed
and self-satisfaction. These people are motivated far more by a need for
self-protection at all cost, with a total disregard to the needs and aspiration
of others. This approach, whether adopted by an individual, group or nation, is
doomed to produce continued disagreement, strife, and conflict, and invariably cause
more pain and dissatisfaction. This is the single, most important causative
factor in most of the current socio-religious conflicts that are raging among
the world’s nations and religions. It has resulted in extensive damage to interpersonal
relationships of people, and widespread political and inter-religious distrust
between nations. In all of them, the root causes are less to do with
insurmountable factors, and much more to a selfish desire for personal gain and
accumulation, and an accompanying unwillingness to respect and understand the
needs of others.
Mutual
respect does not require nor does it insist that there must always be common
agreement on all things every time. It will only survive however, when there is
goodwill among all parties, a level of trust, understanding and respect for
different needs and boundaries, and a genuine and a sincere effort to
accommodate them. Whenever this happens, there is always an aura of harmony and
a sense of loving, caring and mutual enhancement that encompasses all the people
concerned. As the internationally respected Buddhist Leader His
Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama so very wisely noted:
“The message of love and compassion will travel far
and wide if all who follow a spiritual path work together in harmony and mutual
respect”
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