PRIDE AND HUMILITY

Pride and humility are opposite ends of the same emotional concept of self esteem. Just as love and hate are the opposite ends of passion. Both ends, or qualities, have their place in the whole and neither are intrinsically good or bad. It all depends upon what you want to achieve with your life. To obtain true self realization, you must understand these two qualities and their effects.

Pride is the joy we feel when we, or someone in our group, demonstrate a survival quality which is above average. When our sons and daughters excel in school or sports, we are proud of ourselves for our part in bringing them into the world and influencing them. We are proud of our leaders when they demonstrate skill in the qualities of leadership. It is also good to be proud of ourselves when we demonstrate qualities above the average. These qualities are the strengths that we must discover in ourselves; and, when we find them, it is good to rejoice. Why then do many feel guilty when they are praised and have difficulty accepting complements? It is because as a society, we have been taught that humility is the best of the two qualities. Jesus said: “Blessed are the humble”, he did not say blessed are the proud.

Pride taken to an extreme is untruth. While it is truthful to see and worship a survival quality in ourselves or in others, it becomes untrue when we think that, because we possess a special quality we are superior to others. It is a temptation for those with superior qualities to feel they are better than other people. This is the danger of pride. To think you are above or better than others keeps you from the state of enlightenment. We are all equal but different in making up the whole. None better or more important than any other. Always remember, if you loose one piece of the puzzle, it is incomplete.

Humility has been forced upon people by those who believe they are superior. A man who wishes to convince others of his superiority, must convince the others that they are inferior and that humility is the quality they should worship. A superior acting person needs humble people to complete his illusion and to bow down to him. People who think and act like this always doubt themselves and need constant reassurance that they are, indeed, better. Most of this behavior was started with the priestcraft of the early religions. Masters and holy men, who supposedly had a closer link to God, used the teaching of humility to further their own ends and to dominate others.

It is good to have pride in our qualities which excel, but it is also important to have the humility to know that you are no better or worse than any other human being. We are all uniquely different, and in this way special.