Respect Seniority : A Divine Mandate for Longevity !

In the book of Exodus in the Old Testament Bible, the Ten Commandments that God gave to the descendants of Abraham are given. Out of these ten commandments, only one commandment is with a promise. It is the verse 12 of Chapter 20 of the Book of Exodus. It reads like this:

" Honor your father and mother that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you" 

In the Old and New Testament Bible, this commandment is stressed many times.

It is a divine mandate that each and every one in this world respect and honor their parents. If they obey that divine wish, they would have a long life in this world. That is an assurance from God. 

Thus, for longevity, one of the main requirements is that one should honor his or her parents.

Since parents are seniors to us by a generation, I would extrapolate that commandment a bit further. I would say, that the divine mandate to us is that we should respect all our seniors for receiving divine blessings.

I have been privileged to read and know about the divine organization that governs the whole of the Universe. The revealed knowledge provided in my favorite book of life guidance (The Urantia Book: about which I have written many times in my previous blogs) has been the source of that privilege.

In this book too, I remember reading a divine mandate that is given to the celestial or spiritual personalities who exist and work in different capacities in the Universal Administration of God. 

There are innumerable orders of personalities who are normally invisible to us humans, but are doing innumerable tasks in the innumerable worlds in the vast universe. They talk of the divine injunctions that the higher orders of spiritual personalities have. 

They talk about just three such injunctions that they have from God and the following are the first two:

1. They should always show adequate respect for the experience and endowments (God given powers) of their seniors and superiors.

2. They should always be considerate of the limitations and inexperience of their juniors and subordinates.

The above are applicable to each and every living being in this universe.

From the above, I presume that it is God's will that we give due respect to our seniors and superiors. 

It is also God's will that we give due consideration to the limitations and inexperience of our juniors and subordinates.

Every one of us is either a child or a parent or both. Similarly, we are bosses and subordinates at the same time. We are both seniors and juniors at the same time. We are all either elder brothers or sisters or younger brothers or sisters to some others.

So, if we wish to lead a good life and want to ensure longevity, it is necessary that we follow the divine mandate of respecting and honoring the seniors and being considerate to the juniors. 

If this simple rule is followed in the simplest organizational unit of the human society-the family-then we are bound to have happy and prosperous families. Starting from the family, this rule should be extending to our immediate neighborhood and to the whole fraternity of human groups and organizations. 

When we keep this simple divine mandate in our minds and act accordingly, our society would be happy and prosperous. 

In turn our nation would be happy and prosperous. Our business and governmental organizations would have long existence. They are bound to perform well. 

Now, those thinking of the other way are perhaps going against the divine mandate.

Many of our corporate business leaders and management experts think of making quick returns and results by going against this mandate. 

They think it is better bypass seniority in the organizational ladders with dynamic juniors for getting quick benefits. 

Quick benefits they might get. But then longevity of the organization would be the casualty. 

Would it be wise to make the son the head of the family in place of the father just because the former has acquired a university degree the latter did not have ? 

Would it be wise for the son to disrespect his father in such a case? 

In our world today, such things are happening. 

Juniors, sons and daughters are getting too impatient. They want to occupy the seniors' position in the shortest time. 

Respecting the seniors is not an important thing for a good number of people. 

At the same time a good number of seniors do not consider it as important to be considerate to their juniors. 

Same is the case with many parents with regard to their attitude towards their children.

When we do and act this way, we are violating the divine will. 

When we deviate from the divine mandate, we start losing the divine blessings. 

Without that blessing, our life would become more and more difficult. 

We may lose our longevity and the goodness of life!

In my opinion, it is very beneficial to give respect to elders regardless of their social status or position. Similarly, elders too need to learn the art of respecting their juniors. And when this is done, it has to be a sincere effort and not an artificial act.

Those who sincerely know how to respect others reflect a kind of divine aura that envolope them always as an invisible protection.

In reality, respect is nothing but a sincere fraternal love and consideration that is mandated by God.

Blessed and happy are those who know this secret of life!