Skip to main content

Humility

 

 Photo by Sean Oulashin on Unsplash

Carl Sagan, scientist and writer, was of the opinion that science has humility in its openness to reality, in its constant readiness to correct itself. Religion, on the other hand, claims to possess absolute truths. Such a claim underscores the hubris of religions.

Humility is an awareness of our limits and limitations. That does not mean that we ignore our strengths. Humility comes from a healthy and clear self-awareness. I am this and only this. You may be sitting on the highest throne in the country. But you must be aware that you are sitting on your bottom.

In fact, humility has little to do with top or bottom. It is not about you at all, so to say. As Rick Warren put it, “True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.” There is no ego, in other words. There is only the clear, transparent self. And that self is aware of its oneness with the cosmic reality, with the billions of gargantuan stars and planets, with the littlest grain of sand on the seashore, with the frailty of the lily of a day. You vanish. Into the infinity of the cosmos. That is humility.

A Catholic priest who was a psychotherapist and spiritual teacher as well as author of many deeply provoking little stories, Anthony de Mello, has a story about a monk who was on his deathbed. His fellow monks gathered around his bed in his last moments and spoke about his greatness. They admired his scholarliness, austerity, self-discipline, perspicacity, and so on. But his beloved disciple noticed that he was fretting. “What happened, Father?” The disciple asked. “What worries you when they all have so many great things to say about you?” The monk replied, “But none of them mentioned my humility!”

Humility is not an easy virtue to acquire. It is an effacement of not only your ego but your self as well. True humility wipes out the distinction between you and the others. You become a mere little drop in the infinite ocean of being. A drop that is the ocean itself.

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 434: When we realise that we are all tiny little dots in an enormous cosmos of stars and giant bodies, we will experience humility. And goodness will follow. #Humility

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanJanuary 23, 2023 at 9:42 PM

    Hari OM
    An excellent synopsis of humility! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. JaiJanuary 24, 2023 at 8:21 AM

    An excellent explanation of what humility really is. It is actually the ability to recognize our true place in this vast macrocausm that surrounds us. Most people think of it as just being modest though it is more to do with our ability to recognize what we truly are. The point you make about Science and religion is also spot on.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ArtiJanuary 24, 2023 at 9:46 AM

    Good Morning from Doha and a Happy New Year Tomichan:)

    The monk's story cracked me up--and how often have we seen such 'humility'.

    This post read like Rumi's poetry-- so clear, so wise and so beautiful that I have to read it at least one more time before I move on.

    Thank you for writing it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalJanuary 24, 2023 at 10:39 AM

      Happy New Year, dear Arti. Thank you for joining me from Doha. Glad you liked this.

      Delete
  4. Rajeev MoothedathJanuary 26, 2023 at 10:35 PM

    Lovely take on humility!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Art of Subjugation: A Case Study

Two Pulaya women, 1926 [Courtesy Mathrubhumi ] The Pulaya and Paraya communities were the original landowners in Kerala until the Brahmins arrived from the North with their religion and gods. They did not own the land individually; the lands belonged to the tribes. Then in the 8 th – 10 th centuries CE, the Brahmins known as Namboothiris in Kerala arrived and deceived the Pulayas and Parayas lock, stock, and barrel. With the help of religion. The Namboothiris proclaimed themselves the custodians of all wealth by divine mandate. They possessed the Vedic and Sanskrit mantras and tantras to prove their claims. The aboriginal people of Kerala couldn’t make head or tail of concepts such as Brahmadeya (land donated to Brahmins becoming sacred land) or Manu’s injunctions such as: “Land given to a Brahmin should never be taken back” [8.410] or “A king who confiscates land from Brahmins incurs sin” [8.394]. The Brahmins came, claimed certain powers given by the gods, and started exploi...
15 comments
Read more

Break Your Barriers

  Guest Post Break Your Barriers : 10 Strategic Career Essentials to Grow in Value by Anu Sunil  A Review by Jose D. Maliekal SDB Anu Sunil’s Break Your Barriers is a refreshing guide for anyone seeking growth in life and work. It blends career strategy, personal philosophy, and practical management insights into a resource that speaks to educators, HR professionals, and leaders across both faith-based and secular settings. Having spent nearly four decades teaching philosophy and shaping human resources in Catholic seminaries, I found the book deeply enriching. Its central message is clear: most limitations are self-imposed, and imagination is the key to breaking through them. As the author reminds us, “The only limit to your success is your imagination.” The book’s strength lies in its transdisciplinary approach. It treats careers not just as jobs but as vocations, rooted in the dignity of labour and human development. Themes such as empathy, self-mastery, ethical le...
3 comments
Read more

The music of an ageing man

Having entered the latter half of my sixties, I view each day as a bonus. People much younger become obituaries these days around me. That awareness helps me to sober down in spite of the youthful rush of blood in my indignant veins. Age hasn’t withered my indignation against injustice, fraudulence, and blatant human folly, much as I would like to withdraw from the ringside and watch the pugilism from a balcony seat with mellowed amusement. But my genes rage against my will. The one who warned me in my folly-ridden youth to be wary of my (anyone’s, for that matter) destiny-shaping character was farsighted. I failed to subdue the rages of my veins. I still fail. That’s how some people are, I console myself. So, at the crossroads of my sixties, I confess to a dismal lack of emotional maturity that should rightfully belong to my age. The problem is that the sociopolitical reality around me doesn’t help anyway to soothe my nerves. On the contrary, that reality is almost entirely re...
14 comments
Read more

Mahatma Ayyankali’s Relevance Today

About a year before he left for Chicago (1893), Swami Vivekananda visited Kerala and described the state (then Travancore-Cochin-Malabar princely states) as a “lunatic asylum.” The spiritual philosopher was shocked by the brutality of the caste system that was in practice in the region. The peasant caste of Pulayas , for example, had to keep a distance of 90 feet from Brahmins and 64 feet from Nairs. The low caste people were denied most human rights. They could not access education, enter temple premises, or buy essentials from markets. They were not even considered as humans. Ayyankali (1863-1941) was a Pulaya leader who emerged to confront the situation. I just finished reading a biography of his in Malayalam and was highly impressed by the contributions of the great man who came to be known in Kerala as the Mahatma of the Dalits . What prompted me to order a copy of the biography was an article I read in a Malayalam periodical last week. The article described how Ayyankali...
14 comments
Read more