CC daily 169 – 6.253 – Humility means to not delight in one’s glory

Chaitanya Charita Amrit Madhya Lila Chapter 6 The Liberation of Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya, Text 253 Prabhu Shloka Padi Patra Chindiya Felila Bitte Dekhi Bhakta Sab Shloka Kanthe Kaila so here Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya had while sending Prasad to Lord Chaitanya also sent a couple of verses that he had composed to glorify Lord Chaitanya when Chaitanya Mahaprabhu saw those verses he felt embarrassed and out of his out of his embarrassment he tore the sheet, the leaf on which those verses had been written on seeing this the devotees although they they they knew the nature of Lord Chaitanya they knew that Lord Chaitanya would not like his own glories to be broadcast and yet they relished the Lord's glories and so Mukunda had very proactively very intelligently beforehand and taken copied those verses that leaf and copied those verses on another sheet, so now the devotees knew that sheet may also when Lord Chaitanya sees that sheet he may tear that also so devotees were not just reading that leaf but they were outside memorizing it, Kantastha so Kanthe Kaila now in the past the method for memorization was not the word itself was if you see it was not so Kanthe Kaila, now we translate Kanthe often as it's often translated as memorized, Prabhupada puts both words, Prabhupada in his word to word translation used throat for Kanthe and then he kept the words within their hearts also he says, so what this means is that the verse is both the the verse is both transcendental and non-transcendental sorry nothing to do with transcendental actually in the past the tradition for memorization was recitation, as we keep reciting more and more and more and it just recites, if we just keep reciting it again and again not only does it reside in our head, but it resides in our throat at any moment we can speak it now if we want to recite we want to memorize verses, reciting them is a very very sound strategy for memorizing them and in fact till recently and to some extent even now there are traditional scholars Vedic scholars who memorize the full Rig Veda by reciting it repeatedly and they recite it, recite it recite it and just by that daily repeated recitation memorization becomes just a natural result we don't have to do anything special to memorize because that repeated recitation itself serves that function so like that for us also it may seem very difficult to memorize verses but if we just recite those verses again and again then we can also memorize many verses and just as the devotees here were concerned that the lord may out of his humility which paradoxically would express itself as aggression now tearing something is an act of aggression and normally we think of humility as something which is very unaggressive which is the opposite of aggression but it's paradoxical that lord Chaitanya's humility expresses itself as aggression so how is that that is because without humility one does not know what is true humility so people often have stereotypes of humility which are actually not just stereotypes they are often caricatures of humility so people think that humility means to just become very passive become very deep, become very effeminate and to not be enterprising anything but real humility means essentially to not delight in one's ego humility means that the ego's pleasure or displeasure is not the primary basis for one's functioning and when we are humble we primarily do not want our basis for decision making, our basis for acting is something quite beyond the considerations of the ego we act based on considering what is the best for our service to Krishna how can we ensure that we act according to our principles and move onwards steadily in our relationship with Krishna so that is our primary purpose when we try to serve Krishna so now the critical thing for us to understand is that Lord Chaitanya his humility meant that he was not delighting in his ego so now of course he is transcendental and he has no false ego he is setting an example for all of us and he said that don't delight in one's own glories the devotees when others glorify them, the devotees don't delight in their own glories, they think that actually it is Krishna who is using them who is utilizing them for his purposes and that's how they are grateful for that for Krishna kindly using them.

Lord Chaitanya wanted to set an example that no one should use that we should not delight in our glories he tears away the words now at one level if the devotees keeping that words a violation of Lord Chaitanya's intention not necessarily because the devotees are focusing on fulfilling the Lord's inner import that we should all delight in the higher taste of devotion and thus the devotees preserve those verses thank you.