Then I was imagining a world without bowing, where everyone was equal, a true social egalitarianism, one uncoerced by psychpaths. There would be no need to bow, no need to acknowledge inferiority and superiority (which have always obviously continued to exist in Communist societies, which merely make class permanent by lying about the existence of class distinctions).
Then I thought that no truly advanced person needs recognition. They don’t need validation to buttress their egos. The only real purpose of a true spiritual teacher in asking others to bow to them is to teach them to respect themselves, through the process of respecting someone else.
And in my own ridiculous way, it occurred to me that an interesting and counter-intuitive way of expressing respect might be spitting on people, by means of which you convey your understanding that they are beyond pettiness and vanity, and hence superior.
And I was thinking that our psyches are better organized as circles. Jung, I think it was, noted that mandalas contains selves, senses of self.
In contradistinction to this would be the inner stentorian voice, coercing through fear compliance with rules which the organism, the relaxed sense of self which is caged, can never understand. They are the result of varying degrees of operant conditioning, which are the result of varying sorts of psychological and physical torture. Such beings never come into existence in this life-time, and for this reason I think we need to see beyond the lecturings of people who in all too many cases seek a pulpit in lieu of actual personal growth.