“Oh Lord it’s hard to be humble, when you’re perfect in every way…” – Mac Davis

From my own personal experience, I can understand how difficult it can be for someone who has an inherent inclination to “arrogance” to allow the understanding of humility. It feels like a loss of identity, a sense of deep defeat/failure, a strong feeling of vulnerability and helplessness – in fact, when-ever you get these feelings you can be sure that you are learning a lesson in humility. The mind has a feeling that arrogance is a positive deal and hence it constantly defends this attitude, in fact this arrogance gives you a sense of power and letting it go can feel highly counter-intuitive, and very much against the survival instinct. In fact, growing in understanding of life, and coming to inner stability, can also cause one to feel more arrogant even if it’s just a subconscious feeling – it’s very natural that power, or sense of freedom, breeds arrogance. This can make it even harder to allow the lesson of humility, because it feels like a regression or a backward step.

The only deal is that you won’t stop being given the lesson until you learn it – much as you would hope that life would just give you a break, it doesn’t. Sometimes, what feels like an achievement or a build-up of success or an experience of joy ends up being a setup to bring you the lesson of humility – what’s called the “high before the crash”. If you allow the intended growth you wouldn’t need to learn the same lesson again, but most of us are too hard-headed and hence there are a few repeat lessons until we finally learn. The lessons usually come from the things that you value the most – for example, if relationship is what is most important to you, your lessons will come from your experiences in a relationship, and if career is what’s most important to you, you lessons will come from the field of your career.

When you feel “helpless”, it’s the perfect opportunity to allow it in, using it as the energy that burns through your arrogance – just allow this feeling of helplessness, instead of trying to fight it with a stand of aggression. Depending on how strongly ingrained you are in arrogance, it can take a while before humility seeps in fully – it can be quite a painful process especially when we keep resisting this lesson. Every fiber in your being needs to learn the lesson of humility before the learning is done with. The reason why the physical plane is the best place to learn this lesson is because only this plane affords the “fear of uncertainty” (and other fears), and there is nothing as powerful as fear to create a sense of helplessness which, when allowed within, causes you to break through the rigid structures of arrogance, thus, bringing in humility.

In all religions there are very evident teachings towards humility, and ironically the fanatics of religion usually miss this very core teaching.

• In Christianity people are asked to dress up formally for the Sunday mass. This formal dressing is like an act of respect or humility towards the place of worship. There is also the tradition of saying grace before the meal, as a practice of humility (this tradition is also ingrained in many religions).
• In Hindu religion there is the teaching of removing your foot-wear outside the temple and walking bare footed. The act of folding hands in prayer is a teaching in humility as is the act of prostrating before the deity. There are also many other traditions that indirectly ingrain the teaching of humility – touching the feet of elders and folding hands as a sign of greeting are some examples of it.
• In Islam, the way a prayer is conducted is by itself a strong directive towards humility. Here also there is the tradition of removing the foot wear, and even assisting in washing the feet of other people in the mosque, before the prayer.
• The Chinese tradition of bowing down when you meet another person is a teaching in humility, also the traditional way of eating in silence as a sign of respect to the food.

You can find these teachings of humility in all religions; it’s just that a lack of understanding causes people to misinterpret these teachings as a directive towards “meekness”. Humility is not meekness, it’s a balance of power. You are not being asked to be fearful and meek, you are simply being taught a mindset of humility so that you don’t end up becoming arrogant.

In monasteries, the students are not imparted the core teachings until he/she has been seen to gain an understanding of humility. They are made to take care of mundane chores and be of service to the monastery, sometimes for years, before they are given the teachings. The reason is simple, when you come to “truth” there is bound to be freedom, and when you sense freedom there is bound to be power, and power has the ability to take you over in the absence of humility.

One of the most important understandings, we come to gain, through our physical journey, is the lesson of humility. The truth is that power can/will become corrupt in the absence of humility. As the famous spider-man dialogue goes – “With great power comes great responsibility”, and without a sense of humility we cannot stand true towards using our power responsibly.

When you are thick skinned you usually need a strong lesson, whether you like it or not. If you get a feeling that you are being beaten up by life, there is a very strong chance that you are being taught a lesson in humility. A common attitude people develop when they are challenged this way is to develop the “warrior attitude” of trying to fight back from a place of anger/hate, with a strong resentment towards life – basically this only causes you to delay learning this lesson, and your struggles continue. It’s important to understand that arrogance is an imbalance in the dark nature, and “power” is also dark nature, and humility is the light nature that’s needed to balance it. Without humility, power will always take you into imbalance as is evident in the lives of some many powerful people who have tragic endings.