All of us
has pride. Pride complicates our lives. It makes our personality artificial and
hypocritical. And the more humble we become everything falls into place.
The day true
humbleness comes, that very day the soul will become God-realized.
In the Bhagavad
Gita, Lord Krishna has declared
Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 9, Verse 29
“samo ’haṁ sarva-bhūteṣhu na me dveṣhyo ’sti na priyaḥ
ye bhajanti tu māṁ bhaktyā mayi te teṣhu chāpyaham”
Arjun I am Samadarsi,
equitable towards everybody. Nobody is particularly dear to me nor am I hateful
towards anyone.
But the same
Lord, Naradji is saying, hates one thing and loves another thing.
What is it
that he hates?
It is the ego,
the pride and what does he love? Humbleness.
This pride
is extremely ugly. Even in the world, all the fights that happen are because of pride.
There is a
book called “What they don’t teach you in Harvard Business School” written by
Mark H McCormack. It was a very famous book in the 1980s. There he writes that
most executives are a ball of ego with hands and feet sticking out. That is the
reality of the matter. And that is the cause of all tensions and anxieties.
About a few
decades ago, some educationalists in America launch the self-esteem
movement. Their proposition was that if people have good self-esteem, then
naturally they do well in life.
So, the goal
of the teachers and the parents became to boost the self-esteem of the
children. And hence, nobody was allowed to be failed whether they do well or they
don’t, they would keep getting promoted.
Now, they
were creating these people who were coming students, who are graduating from
the education system with bloated self-esteem, thinking that this is good for
them.
But
unfortunately, the world does not support their own view and when they came in
touch with the world, that self-esteem was pricked and then they were in all
kinds of trouble.
So, the
self-esteem movement was stopped but remnants of it are still there. If you
read all these self-help books in American Coaching circles, they will tell
you, you need to have healthy self-esteem.
What
self-esteem do we have to have?
We are the tiny
little parts of God. Any kind of self-esteem is a lie. It is falsehood.
The real
self-esteem is “I am a servant of God”. That is, the self-esteem of Hanuman,
the lord.
‘as
abhiman jai jani bhore |
mai sevak
raghupati pati more ||’
(Ramcharitmanas)
He says that
I am proud to be the servant of the Supreme Lord. I am proud of that.
This
humbleness, the more we develop the healthier our personality will become.
You know,
some people have an inferiority complex. Where does it come from?
A desire to
be superior that is not getting fulfilled results in an inferiority complex.
And if you destroy the pride, who am I, what is there to be Proud about? All
the inferiority complex will also finish.
Now, stage fright
is considered the biggest fear in the world after death. Right? But if you get
to the root of it, then analyse why does this come, it is all Pride.
What will
the others be thinking about me? So what I wish to say is that pride
complicates our life. It makes our personality, Artificial and hypocritical.
And the more humble we become, everything falls into place. Most importantly, we
attract the grace of God.
That is why
this word Ego is an acronym- Edging God out.
Why is the
ego coming?
When we are
forgetting God.
A firefly (Jugnu) can have pride, “Oh, look, I’m a light creating creature.” It can be proud of it. But when the Sun rises, Can the firefly be
proud any longer? Of course not! It is only in the absence of the Sun that the Firefly can think “yes, I am something.”
It’s the same way, we make one house and say, “See, how wonderful work I did”. That’s because we forget that Lord Brahmaji made the whole world and Lord Maha-Visnu manifests infinite universes.
If we bring the greatness of
God, to our mind, we have absolutely nothing to be proud of. So ‘pride’ means
forgetting God and that is why God dislikes it.
The moment pride
enters, his grace disappears.
That is why
Saint Kabir said,
Jab Mein Tha Tab Hari Nahin, Jab Hari Hai Mein Nahin
When I was
there then God was not present. Now God is present, the ‘I’ has disappeared.
Prem gali ati sankari, tamein dou na samai
The street of divine love
is very narrow. Only one personality will remain there, either keep the ‘I’ or
keep God.
Pride is of two things primarily.
1. WHAT I HAVE
What I have, although we don’t
have anything, whatever it is, our intellect in the material state is
making a big deal out of it.
Yauwanam dhana sampatti prabhutwamabivekata
ekamapyanarthaya kimu yatra chatusthayam
यौवनं धन संपत्ति: प्रभुत्वमविवेकिता।
एकैकमप्यनर्थाय किमु यत्र चतुष्टयम्।।
The basic thing that causes pride is Youth age. In youth,
it’s natural to feel proud. In youth, if somebody is proud, it is understandable.
But that kind of Pride doesn’t last too long, because after you get married and have children then the pride
starts getting worn off and when you grow old and the back gets bent, then naturally pride disappears.
So, in old age to go in the direction of God
is natural. But if somebody in youth is going towards in the spiritual path
that is highly creditable. That person has got very strong Sanskars from the
past.
So youth, wealth, some kind of mastery over
some skill or some knowledge, they all cause intoxication. We don’t realize it
but all of us have pride.
You see the
pride resides in the intellect. So the intellect is unable to know that I have
pride. It is only the guru who can understand this pride is causing the
problem.
Such is the state of the human intellect in the “mayadheen avastha“, in this material bondage. We all have our pride in little things.
1. PRIDE OF DOERSHIP
And the second is the pride of doerhip. You do
something and become proud of it.
There’s a story that one man from Greece. He
went to Socrates and he was talking about the big house that he had made. So,
Socrates got a map of Greece and he said, in this map where is the city where
you live in to, in a map? The city was a little dot. In that, where is your
Colony? The colony was obviously a dot within the dot. And in that Colony, where is your house? That is a dot within the dots within the dot.
Is that what
you are proud of?
So this
Pride that I am the doer and I am like this.
The humble thoughts are the
reverse of this?
Yat kritam yat karishyami na tat sarvam maya kritam
Twaya kritantu phalbhaka tvameva Madhusudana
O’ Shri Krishna, whatever I did. I did not do it. You
enabled me to do it because you are the source of the power and the enjoyer of the fruits of this work is also you.
We need to repeatedly practice
these humble sentiments. Now you ask yourself. Do I have pride? And you get the
answer? No, I don’t have.
Whom did you ask? I ask my intellect.
You see, the intellect will not be able to figure this one
out. You will have to ask the Saints and the scriptures.
We are all intoxicated in it and we don’t realize that pride is the number one obstacle on the spiritual path. It is what is
preventing us from speedy progress.