Pride

The root cause of a person's suffering is their pride. Even if someone makes a sacrifice, they can still get caught up in their own pride. What is the point of such a sacrifice? It is pride, or ego, that should be sacrificed. That is where true happiness and bliss are found.

Brahman won a victory on behalf of the gods. In that victory of Brahman, the gods became proud.

Having gone at the age of twelve, he studied all the Vedas and returned at twenty-four, conceited, thinking himself learned, and arrogant. Then his father said to him:

Yogic practices alone are not enough; purification of the heart is essential. Self-reflection is necessary to eliminate faults and bad habits. Correct your flaws, such as selfishness, pride, jealousy, and hatred. Cultivate your heart by sharing with others and engaging in selfless service, which will lead to a pure mind.

The truth is that occult power inevitably leads to pride, and pride causes one to forget God.

Pride, whether based on caste, state, language, or the strength of one's body, mind, or wealth, always gives rise to feelings of hatred and jealousy.

If God enters one's life, the feelings of hatred, jealousy and pride disappear and then all the material progress of the world becomes a source of joy. Nobody appears to be an enemy, nobody remains a stranger.

Now the senses disputed among themselves about who was superior, each declaring, 'I am superior, I am superior.'

We should treat all our assets physical, intellectual and material, as gifts of God and we should not be proud of them at all. A man with ego is never found welcome in the realm of divinity.

When the whole world is a falsehood, an illusion, then why feel proud of it? All our pride based on the physical, intellectual and material assets vanishes as soon as we align ourselves with God.

A person with ego or suffering from pride can never do service. In fact, he who does the service does not even claim any credit for doing it. He treats it as a blessing of the Almighty.

After all, what are you being proud of? The body? If this was under your control, man would have never become old or died. If you are proud of your wealth, if you are using it for oppressing others, if you think you can purchase or win over anybody else with it, all your pride is meaningless. A small incident may snatch away the wealth and cause pain.

These organs, disputing among themselves about who was the greatest, went to Brahman and said: 'Which of us is the most excellent?' He said: 'That one of you after whose departure the body is thought to be the worst off is the most excellent among you.'

The modesty with which he wore his scientific fame repeatedly reminded me of the trees that bend low with the burden of ripening fruits; it is the barren tree that lifts its head high in empty pride.

A proud person never sees his own fault, never admits his own fault. The proud one cannot even accept that he is bad, and not seeing one's own faults is the very root of all faults. To see one's own faults is the mark of humility, the sign of meekness.

Whether the pride be of caste, of region, of language, or of the strength of body, mind and wealth, it only gives birth to the feeling of malice, as a result of which a person falls from his status of being human. But one in whose heart dwells the feeling of humility, the feeling of being a servant, becomes truly great.

Pride is the greatest obstacle on our path; it is the real cause of our distress. If we renounce wealth but then grow proud of that renunciation, it will be said that you gave up wealth but did not give up pride. Only by renouncing every kind of pride can the bliss of devotion be tasted.

The root cause of sorrows is man's pride. A man renounces all sorts of things, only to become trapped in the pride of that very renunciation. What is the use of such renunciation? If you must renounce, renounce the ego, abandon pride. In this alone lies happiness and bliss.

So long as there is mist of pride and nothing is visible, we do not attach importance to others. We can see only ourselves and we think that we have become superior to all. But as we travel down to the level of humility, we come out of the pride, we start realising the importance of others.

Ignorance is the root cause of pride. The day man gives place to God in his heart, the day he realises the Truth, all the disputes will end automatically.