Humility and Prema
I was listening to some devout Christian fundamentalist thoughts of "revival" and was struck by one dominant thought that pervaded the discourse. It might be said to be the essence of the sadhana this particular sect proposes.
In Christianity, one cultivates the sense of being a sinner through constant, ever more subtle self-examination. The purpose of this is to see one's own utter incapacity of attaining salvation from the material condition and to thus to take complete shelter of the Lord.
Humility is this awareness.
If we encourage the person who attempts to express humility by telling him, "you are not a sinner", we are actually not doing him a favor. Because as soon as his ego is flattered, he ceases to take shelter in submission to the Lord. So....
The correct thing to do is say, "Take shelter. You are on the right road. Look at yourself and see how, as a conditioned soul, you have no other recourse than to give yourself up utterly to your ishta devata."
To the path of grace.
The existential problem is that there is no escape from sin, the wages of which are death. Or as we might say, birth, old age, disease and death.
The Jains understood this and it has become the defining problem not only for them, but for all religion: To eat you must kill. For you to live, many others must die, must be harmed. How can you escape sin? It is the precondition for life.
Violence, harming others, i.e., sin, is the condition of life itself. You cannot put a foot forward without stepping on some entity, without killing some living being. Still we have to step forward. This carries on into subtler and subtler realms. You hurt people's feelings.
So you try to minimize hiṁsā. But for the Jains there is ultimately no solution other than to starve oneself to death. Even breathing itself is recognized as a problem for ahiṁsā. Self-annihilation is the only solution.
And sometimes I think that any philosophy that makes one insensitive to others' pain is one step away from a sociopathology. And is the Bhagavad Gita's instruction that it is alright to kill others, who don't die anyway, if you are free from egoism, not one step from such sociopathology? Dangerous territory, for truth is always a sword with a double edge. All truths can be used for good or misused for evil.
Don't be afraid of sin. But be humble.
Recognize that the only reason you can survive sin is the grace of God.
Don't be burdened by guilt.
Do the will of God and leave the rest to God.
Love is the will of God.
It is God's will that you follow Love.
God IS Love. Don't be afraid.
Humility means to do the will of God.
It is to be expected that there will be criticism of any religion. Actually there will always be criticism of all good things. I was pointing out one of the methods that is used in Christianity that seems quite secular, in the instance of the self-analysis, but nevertheless potentially effective spiritually when the goal is understood. Humility is the necessary prerequisite to Grace.
Since humility is a trait that Vaishnavas share with other transcendentalists, I thought that this insight was worth sharing. Not to criticize Christians for not following their own sadhana, but to see how we can adopt this insight into the sadhana of humility.
Sanatan Goswami says that humility and prema have a mutual relationship of cause and effect, so it is important. Is Vaishnava humility the same or different from the Christian version?
In Christianity, one cultivates the sense of being a sinner through constant, ever more subtle self-examination. The purpose of this is to see one's own utter incapacity of attaining salvation from the material condition and to thus to take complete shelter of the Lord.
Humility is this awareness.
If we encourage the person who attempts to express humility by telling him, "you are not a sinner", we are actually not doing him a favor. Because as soon as his ego is flattered, he ceases to take shelter in submission to the Lord. So....
The correct thing to do is say, "Take shelter. You are on the right road. Look at yourself and see how, as a conditioned soul, you have no other recourse than to give yourself up utterly to your ishta devata."
To the path of grace.
The existential problem is that there is no escape from sin, the wages of which are death. Or as we might say, birth, old age, disease and death.
The Jains understood this and it has become the defining problem not only for them, but for all religion: To eat you must kill. For you to live, many others must die, must be harmed. How can you escape sin? It is the precondition for life.
Violence, harming others, i.e., sin, is the condition of life itself. You cannot put a foot forward without stepping on some entity, without killing some living being. Still we have to step forward. This carries on into subtler and subtler realms. You hurt people's feelings.
So you try to minimize hiṁsā. But for the Jains there is ultimately no solution other than to starve oneself to death. Even breathing itself is recognized as a problem for ahiṁsā. Self-annihilation is the only solution.
And sometimes I think that any philosophy that makes one insensitive to others' pain is one step away from a sociopathology. And is the Bhagavad Gita's instruction that it is alright to kill others, who don't die anyway, if you are free from egoism, not one step from such sociopathology? Dangerous territory, for truth is always a sword with a double edge. All truths can be used for good or misused for evil.
Don't be afraid of sin. But be humble.
Recognize that the only reason you can survive sin is the grace of God.
Don't be burdened by guilt.
Do the will of God and leave the rest to God.
Love is the will of God.
It is God's will that you follow Love.
God IS Love. Don't be afraid.
Humility means to do the will of God.
It is to be expected that there will be criticism of any religion. Actually there will always be criticism of all good things. I was pointing out one of the methods that is used in Christianity that seems quite secular, in the instance of the self-analysis, but nevertheless potentially effective spiritually when the goal is understood. Humility is the necessary prerequisite to Grace.
Since humility is a trait that Vaishnavas share with other transcendentalists, I thought that this insight was worth sharing. Not to criticize Christians for not following their own sadhana, but to see how we can adopt this insight into the sadhana of humility.
Sanatan Goswami says that humility and prema have a mutual relationship of cause and effect, so it is important. Is Vaishnava humility the same or different from the Christian version?
dainyaṁ tu paramaṁ premṇaḥ paripākena janyate |
tāsāṁ gokula-nārīṇām iva kṛṣṇa-viyogataḥ ||
paripākena dainyasya premājasraṁ vitanyate |
parasparaṁ tayor itthaṁ kārya-kāraṇatekṣyate ||
Humility arises from the complete maturation of prema, as was demonstrated by the women of Gokula in separation from Krishna. When humility reaches its complete maturation, then prema flows copiously in all directions. It is seen that there is thus a mutual relationship of cause and effect between Love and Humility.Bṛhad Bhāgavatamṛtam 2.5.224-225.
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Kind regards,
M.N.