The Pride of Humility

 

Paradoxical, isn’t it? That a vice could be used to qualify a virtue. Umm, just as much as you can feel within yourself, it’s not all that bad—the description. Yes, pride is a vice, but there is a subtle feeling of presence when we pronounce the word, especially when it is translated in the notion of a healthy context. The pride of humility—very catchy title. Pride in itself is not nearly as bad, insofar as balance is maintained. Balance is the surname of the universe; it is always present in the resolution of universal dualistic polarities. I don’t know how true it is, but I once heard that the word “Christ” is derived from “Christos,” which is a Greek translation for balance. Hmmm, quite interesting if that’s true because it simplifies many dualistic complexities that plague modern man’s spiritual and philosophical quests. 

Yes, to balance the polarities, i.e., to find the most subtle and loving way to be proud and humble at the same time. Is this really possible? I think it is, if we find a premise that healthily highlights a separation between the individual and the collective: that we should take pride in the essence of who we are and the gratitude of being a unique, incomparable component of creation, and yet be humble enough to see how small we are in the grandeur of things and acknowledge the sophistication and universal intelligence that governs our affairs independent of our will. I guess that’s quite illuminating, at least a little. 

The Pride of Humility—the self-promoting awareness that we radiate in the knowledge of our divine self. Haha. Please pardon me before I saturate the plot with so much embellishment and bother you with “assumptive” facts which I myself have not verified before writing this piece. But really, questions arise in this domain regarding the true nature of these ideals. What is pride? What is humility? Are we defining them from the perspective of the second person? In a world of manipulation and exploitation, is humility really a virtue to be mastered as a result of loyalty to the collective, or is rebellion spiritually ethical in such a situation? Many questions arise from the rationalization of what humility and pride are and when one should be proud or humble. It’s a paradox indeed, one that invites our curiosity to unravel.

Humility is a conduct of self in an agreeable and collaborative way, even when one is aware of being above the station of the engagement or in possession of leverage above the contraption. Humility tends to make one fuse themselves into the alchemy of the inevitable and accept whatever comes after as a consequence of the co-participation of the whole. Co-participation, meaning that humility allows one to agree to the constant of a superior agency governing the entropy containing one’s consciousness. This definition puts humility as a virtue that is in the power of the individual to wield; that the individual is aware of the necessity for humility in order to interface with their reality without any hitch in their flow. But is this really the case all the time? That humility is a function of the individual’s knowing? Not exactly. In a world where social and cultural conditioning is rife, an individual’s realization of the insight of “absolute” knowledge of humility is not usually the case. Humility is often translated through the lenses of religious obeisance, cultural ordinances, and various social power metrics. This begs the question: If humility is a byproduct of an imposed requirement of an individual, does it still retain its purity?

Of course not. Humility that is feigned and contrived out of a non-individualized volition—which is usually for the purpose of socio-cultural validation and political correctness—is nothing but a hypocritical manifestation. This is because the individual does not act out of the authenticity of their being but as a mechanical reaction put up to stay in stasis with the herd status quo.

This is quite a dangerous antecedent, for the sake of the individual being preyed upon by narcissistic, energy-depleting elements who manipulate people mentally by guilt-tripping them through the use of the individual’s reverence for socio-cultural ideals that they believe in and hold dear. This very despicable act is achieved by hijacking the mental centers of what the individual believes in, all for the purpose of CONTROL—to manipulate the individual to do their bidding. As is clear to see, that inasmuch as virtue can be pure and beautiful, when mischanneled, it can become a fragile vice through which a person’s sense of self-power and sovereignty is compromised. An example of how humility can be weaponized is when a religious leader enforces the role of humility and submissiveness to religious scripture, leading to a hijack of the individual’s sense of critical resolution, resulting in exploitation through guilt-tripping the gullible devotee into unholy financial obligations; the list goes on.

Humility is too pure to be a function of obligation to whatever ideal, tribe, conditioning, etc. Moreover, humility is not a virtue to be preached as a “good” which should be practiced by the individual to find favor with God, a person, or a group. Humility is a self-oriented agreement that takes into comprehension a person’s absolute reality and their place in the grand scheme of things. It is a personal knowing and not reaction-invokable from fear or whatever non-self-aligning commitment. The individual does not have to act humble to feel good about being a good person; the individual has to understand that humility is a virtue that is good for them—mentally and spiritually. So, one does not have to act humble or try to be humble. No! One must understand that being humble is common sense reality and being prideful is a delusion that is detrimental to the self. Our humility is for no one—not for any religious entity, leader, or ideology. Our humility is the divine understanding of our place in the absolute and why surrendering to the will of God is for our own peace of mind and bliss of spirit.

Now, this is the pride of humility: that we feel a sense of oneness and identity with creation when we are humble, and this in turn affords us the clarity to comprehend the magnificence and beauty that surrounds us and everything. Yes, this is the pride of humility—that we bask, shine, and take pride in the knowing of our infinite, divine, and unique essence, which gives us a healthy sense of self-worth and appreciation while appreciating other people in the knowledge that we are not better than them, they are not better than us, and we are all incomparably unique, worthy, and necessary in the grand scheme of the wholeness of creation.