Humility means cultivating an attitude where one is ready to offer all respect to others and doesn’t want any in return. Humility really means honesty. Humility is about simply being truthful. What do we have to brag about? If God does not make the sun rise, what will you do? Did you create your brain? Did you create your eyes to see? Did you create your heart to beat? Did you create your arms to act? As they say in British parlance, do not be proud of borrowed looms. Whatever we have is not ours. In our timeless Vedic texts, it is said that there is one supreme eternal and all others are subordinate to that supreme eternal. We are always subordinate to the supreme.
Classic examples of humility can be ascertained from acts of the Supreme Lord Himself. Whereby through His personal example, He teaches us the value and joy of being truly humble.
The Supreme Lord has been described by those possessing knowledge as the omniscient Supersoul of every being, as the soul of the Vedas, as the foremost of all existences in the universe, as the origin of all things, as the cause of all causes, as that in which all things come to be resolved, and as the lord of the past, present and future, the dispeller of all fear in times of distress and the annihilator of all foes. Inspite of being the Controller of the Universe, during the Rajasuya Yagya of King Yudhishthira, the Lord out of His own will chose to take up the service of washing the feet of the priests and sages. Other instances that portray the Lord's humble nature is when He took His father Vasudeva's shoes and placed them on His head, when He massaged the feet of his dearmost devotee and beloved Shrimati Radha, when He washed the feet of His poor Brahmana friend Sudama, applied medicines on the wounds on his feet and when he chose to reject the opulent food offered to him by the puffed up Duryodhana. On the contrary, he accepted the banana peels offered to Him with humility, love and devotion by Vidura's wife.
The pain we feel when seeing our sinful nature comes from pride and self-love. We think we are great, but our faults show us the mirror. For the saints, when they remember their sins, do not remember the sins but the glory of God, and therefore even past evil is turned by them into a present cause of joy and serves to glorify God. In real humility, our sense of unworthiness is eclipsed by the wonder and happiness of understanding that God or Krishna has blessed us despite our faults.
But yes, we have the free will to use what God gives us either in a good way or in an evil way. And according to how we use it, Karma is going to come back to us. Still, all the facility we have to either use properly or misuse is coming from a power way beyond our own. Let’s take the example of Hitler. The Lord gave him that mind and body, but he totally misused it. He used it to kill others, torture others, and thus he accumulated mountains and oceans of abdominal karmas for himself. Ultimately he was dead and gone, and his soul had to go to the next place to meet his karmas. Another example is Alexander the Great. He came and conquered parts of India. But where is he now? He was conquered by time. So everyone is subordinate to the power of God. So to be humble means to be realistic and honest. To be proud is to simply be dishonest, ungrateful and unrealistic. To be proud is an illusion. Of course, in the world today, people like proud people. But the fact is it’s an illusion. And it’s a miserable condition to the heart. So humility means to have enough integrity to be honest with the reality of our life and surrender ourselves to the Lord. To achieve the highest perfection of life this joy of humility has to be practiced and cultivated.
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