Dear Editor,
Which quality has mostly been misunderstood since ages? It is undoubtedly humility! Two groups of people ~ hypocrites and defeatists ~ have abused it in two diametrically opposite ways.
While hypocrites feign humility to get puffed up inside with a feel of vanity, defeatists use it to extract masochistic
pleasure. It is either our superiority or inferiority complex that uses humility in the wrong way. In both of these cases, it is humility before human beings.
But true humility is humility before the Divine and not before any human being. As the Mother (spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo) said, “True humility consists in knowing that the Supreme Consciousness, the Supreme Will alone exists and that the I is not.” One can attain such an unalloyed humility if one realises that everything is One in this infinite universe and to mark oneself as a completely separate entity is a falsehood.
We must reflect on the fact that the atoms of my body will constitute other individuals/ animals/ trees/ materials after our deaths. Even the atoms of our nail and hair clippings become part of other bodies and things during our very lifetime!
As a matter of fact, humility does not belittle us. As C. S. Lewis had said, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” Indeed, we must not think that we are less capable. Just like a small banyan seed that has a magic blueprint within it to grow up to become a very big tree if it gets a field to grow; every human being has immense potentialities to become a great person with the help of perseverance if she/ he gets a level playing field to nurture her/ his talent.
But we must not think only about ourselves as it is a falsehood to separate ourselves from the whole universe. By thinking of ourselves less, we will actually be able to enlarge us to live infinity and live oneness where there is no room for little vanity, little self-complacency and little self-pity. Humility, as it were, hatches the ego – egg to break the hard shell of the ego to give birth to a psychic conscious being.
Sujit De,
Kolkata