How can we cultivate humility without becoming negatively self-centered?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you.
How can we actually make people humble? What purposes should we have? Humility is at two different levels. One is, it’s a cultivation, the other is it’s an emotion. Cultivation is to try to cultivate humility also.
The other is actually, it’s an emotion that we have. Now, in both cases, whether it’s a cultivation or it’s an emotion, it is Krishna’s sentiment. Now, when great devotees, when I was giving a class in Columbus, Ohio, so they were able to ask, why do devotees speak lies? Then what do you do? He said, Krishna’s mentality was strongly saying that I am more sinful than a jagai matai, I am more sinful than an insect in a bowl of soup.
It’s obviously not true. So, I don’t know, in the name of humility, why do devotees speak lies? So, I explained that in the transcendental realm, truth and falsehood don’t work out in the way we normally think of them. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, He, we see every lake, every river, He sees that.
Every hill, He sees that. Every forest, He sees that. That’s Vrindavan.
Now, is that forest Vrindavan? If it’s not Vrindavan, then is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu making a mistake? You know, we say that conditions of life have their own effects. God does not make mistakes. And is God making a mistake over here? Actually, we see that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu saw that lake as Vrindavan, that river as Yamuna, but He didn’t stop there.
He still went on the other way. So, when we see that Chaitanya Mahaprabhu saw that river as Yamuna, the point is, normal is actually right or wrong. The point is, how deeply is consciousness absorbed in Krishna.
And, in the transcendental realm, rightness and wrongness is not so much in terms of actuality, as it is in terms of affinity of the heart to Krishna. So, the supremely correct thing is that our heart is attracted to Krishna. And that in Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, that is what it is demonstrated.
Actually, this is, it is now called Krishnamurti. Similarly, when there are great devotees, who say like this, that, oh, I am more sinful than a boy in the stool or a guy in Madurai. What is, what are they thinking? Actually, the name of Krishna, and they are so absorbed in Krishna, they are thinking, that Krishna loves me so much, Krishna has done so much for me, and in return, there is so little that I am doing for Krishna, that actually I am not reciprocating Krishna at all.
I am so worthless. And so, it is because of the awareness of the greatness of Krishna, and the infinite nature of Krishna’s love, and the utter inadequacy of their reciprocation of Krishna’s love, that they think, oh, I am so sinful, I am so worthless. So, factually, what they are saying is not true.
But, in the spiritual realm, actuality is not as important as the affinity of the heart towards Krishna. And these expressions of humility are, at least not in actuality, but they are a bit more transcendental affinity with the heart towards Krishna. So, that kind of humility, if we try to artificially imitate that, if we say, that I am more sinful than a guy in Madurai, I am, we try to be artificial at our stage.
At our stage, we are not conscious of Krishna like that. So, that humility is a result, that humility is an emotion, is a feeling that naturally comes in the heart. The more we understand Krishna’s greatness, and the more we understand our smallness in comparison to Krishna’s greatness, naturally, humility emerges in the heart.
So, the ultimate way to develop humility is to become more and more Krishna conscious. The more we understand Krishna’s beauty, Krishna’s sweetness, Krishna’s love, Krishna’s mercifulness, the more naturally we can understand our smallness and humility will grow. Till that time, till the humility comes as an emotion, we do have to have humility as a cultivation.
But the cultivation of humility doesn’t mean that we always keep talking, that I am fallen, I am fallen. Rather, we have to make sure that we don’t put ourselves at the center of things. Yes, we do services, but when the results come, then we offer the result to Krishna.
Krishna, by your mercy, has given you this. When some good thing can never be good, we offer the correct Krishna to his devotees. And at our level, those which are the visible symptoms of pride, talking too much about oneself and one’s achievements, and taking credit for what one is doing, and trying to prove how one is greater than others, and aman and aman, that is the opposite of what we would want to do if we are proud.
We want to aman de mani. Not giving respect to others, we want respect for ourselves. So we avoid those kinds of behavior which lead to pride or which express pride.
So at a practical level, we focus on serving Krishna, being conscious of Krishna, and whenever we are able to do anything good, we offer the credit to Krishna and the devotees. And in general, we try to cultivate behaviors which do not lead to pride. We offer respect to others, don’t talk too much about ourselves.
Gradually we cultivate humility. So our focus should be more on serving Krishna and keeping our consciousness in the center. Humility will actually be preserved by that.