Insignificance

By Jagabandhu das

After reading “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” which resulted from correspondence with a good friend: he asked for clarification on how the very advanced devotee thinks and feels like this, but for the conditioned neophyte devotee, where is the healthy balance?

With “healthy”, he was referring to his own situation as still trying to get rid of the low self-esteem that he considered partially imposed upon him by his mother and elder sister when he was a child, (he knows another devotee friend of who was similarly glorified for his “humility and surrender”, but in fact never dared to say no, and had a very low self esteem).

My friend hoped that I might explain the difference between real humility and things that appear to be “humility”, but that are in fact not. What follows is my meager attempt to do so.

In some sense this question might be addressed by considering that if I’m not able to become genuinely humble and prideless, I won’t be very successful in my attempts to avoid harming others or engaging in various cruelties perpetrated in defense of my false egotistical “self”-identification. What to speak of undertaking true spiritual development.

Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada gives a beautifully concise summary of avoiding cruelty in his superexcellent commentary on the 37th Verse of the 7th Chapter of the Second Canto of Srimad-Bhagavatam as follows:

“Lord Buddha incarnates at a time when people are most materialistic and preaches common sense religious principles. Such ahimsa is not a religious principle itself, but it is an important quality for persons who are actually religious. It is a common sense religion because one is advised to do no harm to any other animal or living being because such harmful actions are equally harmful to he who does the harm. But before learning these principles of nonviolence one has to learn two other principles, namely to be humble and to be prideless. Unless one is humble and prideless, one cannot be harmless and nonviolent. And after being nonviolent one has to learn tolerance and simplicity of living. One must offer respects to the great religious preachers and spiritual leaders and also train the senses for controlled action, learning to be unattached to family and home, and enacting devotional service to the Lord, etc. At the ultimate stage one has to accept the Lord and become His devotee; otherwise there is no religion. In religious principles there must be God in the center; otherwise simple moral instructions are merely sub-religious principles, generally known as upadharma, or nearness to religious principles.”

How is it that I can conceive of myself at the ultimate stage and a devotee of the Lord, if I am not humble and prideless and therefore fundamentally unable to avoid being mean and cruel to other living entities? What to speak of being respectful and tolerant. Or training the senses for controlled action. In fact, if I am unable to express such humble kindness in my dealings with others in the world, how can I truly believe that my consciousness has evolved at all or that I’ve made any real inner progre ss towards the aspirant genuine development of True Divine Love?

There are those who are mistakenly disposed to consider false egotistical cruelties based upon their particular subjective interpretation of Divine Teachings. Unfortunately, history is fraught with many examples of “religious” cruelties. In the time of Lord Buddha, even the brahmanas themselves became so corrupted with an obsessive attachment with the taste for the blood of bulls that they attempted to co-opt sacred Vedic sacrifice to attempt satisfaction of the unbridled lust of their own senses.

This necessitated Lord Buddha apparently preaching against Vedic philosophy in order to circumvent blatant ideological misconception and consequential misrepresentation which had been allowed to flourish to catastrophic proportion in it’s arrogant cruelties manifest against the animals subsequently slaughtered. All in the “name” of religion. Lord Buddha taught that if this vain display was considered religion, then religion itself must be considered a harmful influence on the real inner progressive development of an individual soul. In other words, if my so-called religious practice causes me to become harmful and cruel to other souls in the “name” of God, then never mind about my “religion.”

First, I must learn to treat others with respect, which requires natural humility. And tolerance. If I cannot imbibe such preliminary spiritual teachings as espoused in Mahaprabhu’s Third Beautiful Precept, then possibly my presumed apparent qu alification and inclination to pursue more advanced Divine Lessons or Higher Teachings are merely delusory manifestations of false ego barely disguised as “religiosity” and possibly my so-called devotion is only imaginary. Maybe I’m not really religious after all.

The difference you speak of is one between real esteem as a jiva compared to the false esteem (or sense of false esteem) encouraged by mundane society. True “self”-esteem relies on nothing but the penetrating awareness of one’s own eternal existence as a soul. One can have perception of this and yet still have awareness of one’s own insignificance in the greater scheme of things. To me “humility” means perceiving one’s own eternal insignificance without complaint or fear of losing ultimate intrinsic identity. Common sense will naturally suggest that within the subjective evolution of my own unique individual conciousness there continually remains constant capacity for improvement of my numerous superficial flaws accrued by aeons of mundane conditioning. Or in other words there’s always room for growth and improvement.

Please kindly consider Mahaprabhu’s first three Beautiful Precepts in this regard. Initially, the Holy Name and Sankirtan are glorified because of Their capacity to clear the dust of false ego from the mirror of the mind which consequently extinguishes the mundane false egotistical illusory conception of existence. In direct relation to how much the mind’s mirror has been cleansed of the dust of ahankara: a soul may the n subjectively reflect the brilliant luminosity of the Krishna Sun—which in turn sheds illumination upon all one’s existence and subsequent considerations. In such light one begins to primarily see one’s own superficial mundane flaws and deficiencies without becoming morbidly morose or neurotic (if my “clothes are dirty”, I must simply “wash them” without patheticism). Such as the Holy Name being completely filled with transcendental potency and magnanimity. Yet awakened humility with cause one to ponder that although the Holy Name is so merciful—I myself have no true appreciation for It’s True Glory. And that I have no Love for God or true devotion proper. If one is humble and devoid of false prestige it becomes extremely conducive to always be respectful of all others. And tolerant of all mundane annoyances which then become easier to endure without complaint. In this state of mood and mind—the Holy Name manifests in a very profound and all-encompassing way.

In Sri Chaitanya-caritamrta we are taught that our true perception of the brilliant light of the Krishna Sun is obscured by the cloud of false ego (ahankara). Therefore, I must necessarily divest myself of false ego and become humble (or perceive my own insignificance) in order that I might truly “see” and reflect Reality the Beautiful.

It tends to become semantically problematic because “humility” is unfortunately generally considered as a sign of weakness by worldly-minded persons—when in actuality the genuine demonstration of true humility requires great inner courage and strength on the part of the individual soul, combined with the abiding awareness that this moment and life are in fact not everything and all.

Please consider how Srila Saraswati Thakur has expressed that we must consider everyone superior to ourselves. And that false ego is such a problem that we should be thrashing our own petty minds with shoes and brooms day & night. In this regard, with the application of scathing self-analysis/self-abnegation to the extreme (atma-nikshep), it’s not possible to be “too hard” on one’s real self in order to blast away all delusions, confusions and illusions.

It’s helpful to consider that the “self”-esteem we are generally encouraged by worldly-mindedness to develop since birth is based on false ego and is therefore a great burden in our attempts at true spiritual flight or ostensible illuminatory ascension. Like any burden we must first perceive it thusly before eliminating our false egotistical bondage and casting off on the wings of Divine Faith. At this point I might then begin to experience the unbelievable lightness and brightness of being—infusing and suffusing all my dealings…