Love and Respect

I think maybe I'm too negative on this blog.

I have a fear of being thought naive and so I make sure to let people know that I'm not all stary-eyed about things.

But really, what's so bad about being naive?

I can think of people I have known who have seemed very naive and devoted to this flowery, unrealistic idea of hugs and love and just frustratingly cheery. As much as I might think they were strange or misguided, I couldn't help having respect for their conviction and their general happiness. Maybe they have been right all along.

In Hinduism there are four ages, called Yugas, of the world. They get progressively worse. Right now the world is in the last age, the Kali Yuga. This means that it is very hard to sort out the truth and that people in general have become more self-centered and greedy. It is a dark world.

But I remember a talk once at my organization growing up where someone said that we can choose to live in the Golden Age. A lot of the negativity is perception only. We can see a better world and live there.

It's like one of my favorite TV shows. My idol and hero is a character named Delenn from Babylon 5. I would like to be just like her. She is calm and full of faith and strength. Once someone said of her, "Delenn does not walk in the same world that you and I walk in. She does not see the same world that you and I see. In her world, we are better than we are. We care more than we care. We act towards each other with compassion. I much prefer her world to that of my own, and I will not allow anything to threaten that."

As part of letting go of what other people think, I need to be okay with people thinking I'm stupid. If I live with conviction toward what I love, people will have to grudgingly respect that on some level!

Sometimes going out into the world feels combative and that is a terrible attitude to have in my mind. I need to remember that I am doing what I do out of respect.

I love Hinduism with all my heart and I love Indian culture and I'm not going to let a fear of looking naive, misguided, or stupid dampen that.