How can we practice humility in a competitive world where everyone parades their credentials?

From Dayalu Govinda P

If you dont do it, you end up being projected as a loser or a coward?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Any other questions? Question from Dayalu Govinda Prabhu.
When everybody today is trying to look big, project oneself as great, how can we avoid that without looking like a loser? Answer When we as devotees, we are meant to be humble, that doesn’t mean that we are meant to be let others trample down upon us. Nor does it mean that we just let ourselves be portrayed as having no self-respect or self-esteem or anything like that. No, the important point is that we recognize who is the doer.
As discussed earlier also, humility is not so much about thinking low of ourselves as thinking less about ourselves. Low means I am fallen, I am useless, I am useless. No, thinking less of ourselves.
That means we have some higher object as the focus for our thought and that higher object is Krishna and it is his pleasure and it is his will that we want to actualize. So, Vidura was humble. At the same time, he strongly chastised Dhritarashtra when he saw Dhritarashtra going on the wrong track and that’s how he brought him back on the right track.
So, humility, now trying to look big means that we are constantly talking about ourselves and telling others or making others see somehow the other. What are the great things that we have done? There is no need for a devotee to do that in normal situations and in competitive situations, wherever say a devotee is applying for a job or something, then one has to prepare a CV. Naturally, one will prepare the best that one can.
So, sometimes speaking about oneself, if it is required to establish one’s credentials for doing some service, then that is not considered the attempt to look big. When Shila Prabhupada was organizing, Shila Prabhupada’s disciples were organizing a Pandal program for him in Jaipur, then the disciples over there, some Matajis who had organized the program, they made posters saying Prabhupada and his foreign disciples. So, when Shila Prabhupada saw the posters, he said, why are you saying only foreign disciples? Say American and European disciples.
Why? Because in India, people had a lot of respect for Europe and America. Europe had the countries which had ruled the world, ruled India, especially Britain and America was a rising giant of the world at that time. So, it was already one of the superpowers by that time.
So, now Shila Prabhupada wanted to emphasize that American and European, not just foreign in terms of from any country, there were disciples from there. Now, this might seem like an urge to look big. No, what is the purpose? The purpose is so that Indians, Shila Prabhupada had a strategy that Indians are taking their own culture cheaply.
So, Prabhupada wanted that I’ll go to America and from America, I will get this devote, people to become devotees and get them and when Indians see that Americans are practicing their culture and they will also start practicing more serious, they’ll take it more seriously and it is a part of a well-planned strategy and for that strategy to be executed, Shila Prabhupada needed the credentials to be established. So, this, of course, this was for direct devotional service. Shila Prabhupada directly speaking Krishna Katha, but the, but in our material life also, actually for a devotee, even the pursuance of a career is an important foundation so that there is basic peace of mind and material security by which one can practice bhakti steadily.
So, that is also part of one’s spiritual life only. So, now humility means that not that one has to portray oneself as a loser or not speak about oneself when it is required, but one doesn’t have, Shila Prabhupada mentions in the paraphroto 13.8, that one doesn’t have a, one is not having the anxiety to have the satisfaction of being honored by others. Our desire is that we serve Krishna and for serving Krishna we need facilities and for getting those facilities we need to explain our credentials, we can do that.
But, our primary focus should be service of Krishna not our own glorification. So, if we have that then we are not trying to look big, we are not proud and humility is something which is actually empowering, it is not demeaning. It is demeaning only when a person wants to think about oneself and wants others to think about oneself and when that is not allowed, then it may seem like demeaning.
But, when one has a mission to do in the world or one wants to assist in Krishna’s purpose in the world and one has made that one’s mission, then humility helps one to get the mind of oneself and get the mind focused on the purpose which one wants to fulfill and that’s how humility is actually empowering not at all demeaning. Thank you.