Perhaps the most valuable quality or personality trait in the world is humility. The clearest symptom in anyone that indicates any degree of maturity on the path of enlightenment or self-realization is humility. This is because humility clearly indicates that you have understood, that you have realized, that you know the truth.
Lack of humility shows that you've failed to comprehend the truth, that you have a lot to learn. Thus any teaching, religion or doctrine that tells you that you are better than any other person is bogus, flawed and fake. That is a fact.
A philosophy that teaches you to think that you are superior to the other is corrupt and spiritually stunted. It shows the sins of pride and arrogance. It shows massive inflated egotism which is the opposite of self-realization and enlightenment.
If you think that because you're a Hindu that you are somehow better than the other, just by birth, then you're in illusion.
If you think that because you're a Jew, then you're God's chosen race, superior to all others who are no better than cattle compared to you, then you and your religion are spiritually blind and bewildered.
If you think that because you're a Muslim that you can belittle others and steal from them, then you're lost in lies, all taught to you by lying ignorant foolish mothers and fathers who know no better because their doctrine in shallow, superficial and ignorant. It's dead.
The vast majority of people are being led by blind teachers and doctrines into thinking they are superior to the other by mere dint of their birth and culture.
And they live under this illusion in blissful ignorance thinking that they're God's gift to humanity, that the gates of heaven await then because they are more special than the other. They believe that they can exploit and abuse the other while alive, without consequences because their religion, priest and God tells them so. What tragic blindness, all perpetuated by blind teachers.
This is the root cause for war and abuse of the other today, this misguided sense of superiority. It is a symptom of ignorance. It shows how powerful the illusion is. It shows that you think you are this temporary body, that you are an Indian, or a Pakistani, or a Jew or a Christian, when actually you are none of those things. You are an eternal spirit soul, eternal consciousness, temporarily living in the Indian body, or whatever nationality, race, religion or gender you possess. But that is not you.
Identifying with your externals is a sign of ego. It shows lack of self- realization. It divides all into us versus them. It shows that you don't understand yourself, your real religion or your god.
And it allows you to be abusive to the other because it inflates the ego. If your doctrine teaches you that it's fine to treat the other any less than yourself, then it's bogus.
Sadly most of religion is bogus, all religion. It's taught by flawed priests who have little real wisdom, who parrot memes that flaunt their superiority and inflate their ego while leading their flock to hell in the name of religion and their version of God.
This is not only my opinion. This is clearly stated in the oldest religious text in the planet. This is the mature insight of anyone who has glimpsed the truth of their own identity via long study and long meditation or self-reflection. This is the most obvious and self evident truth that is staring us in the face every day.
I can't state it more urgently that this is the most important fundamental realization in the world. It's the basis and beginning of any process of spiritual awakening, growth and maturity on the path of liberation for everyone.
Without this first insight, the rest of life is on the wrong track. If your first principle is flawed, then all your further reasoning will be flawed. If you see yourself as better than the other, then it opens up the door for you to engage in all sorts of crimes and sins in the name of your abusive lies couched as gospel.
The truth is that we're all equal in the eyes of our creator, in the eyes of God, under the sun. It's as simple as that. This is because all life is animated by spirit. All beings have the same spark of consciousness as you.
Our body and mind may be different externally, but at the core, you and the other are sister and brother. If your doctrine tells you otherwise, then it has failed to teach you the truth.
And that's why humility is the first symptom of true self-realization. When you have knowledge, based on study as well as internal realization, then you will know who you really are and you will see life for what it is. And thus you will act accordingly. You will see the other as one who is just like yourself in quality, despite being different externally.
When a teacher or teaching promotes superiority over the other, then I know to run in the opposite direction because it's a lie taught by one who is ignorant and thus not fit to teach.
Of course we still discriminate. We don't embrace the tiger just because it's also a spirit soul. But we never abuse our exploit any other living entity. That is the vision and action of a self-realized soul. That's why doctrines and religions are like clubs or societies that you can join or swap whenever you like because they're not the real thing. They don't imply truth or any guarantee of authenticity. They are superficial, like nationality or gender. They only identify the body, not the eternal soul within the body.
Certainly we use laws to keep order. We use national boundaries, claim ownership, discriminate between man and woman based on the body. But that's for safety, just like we build fences to keep out wild animals because some men and animals behave savagely sometimes out of lust and greed. That's common sense.
But to exploit the other - whether human or animal - for our pleasure is a sign of lack of insight into who we are as living entities. Even worse than that is to teach a doctrine that justifies exploitation of the other because you are somehow better than them, that you are more favored by your creator than the other. That is gross criminality in the name of religion. And that's sadly how shallow most religion is today. It shows how our wisest teachers have been hijacked and led into ignorance.
Fortunately the truth is still available in the ancient Wisdom texts, and it's also self evident in the heart, to be glimpsed by those who make the effort to look.
Bhagavad Gita ch5:18
विद्याविनयसम्पन्ने ब्राह्मणे गवि हस्तिनि ।
शुनि चैव श्वपाके च पण्डिता: समदर्शिन: ॥ १८ ॥
vidyā-vinaya-sampanne
brāhmaṇe gavi hastini
śuni caiva śva-pāke ca
paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ
SYNONYMS
vidyā—education; vinaya—gentleness; sampanne—fully equipped; brāhmaṇe—in the brāhmaṇa; gavi—in the cow; hastini—in the elephant; śuni—in the dog; ca—and; eva—certainly; śvapāke—in the dog-eater (the outcaste); ca—respectively; paṇḍitāḥ-those who are so wise; sama-darśinaḥ—do see with equal vision.
TRANSLATION
The humble sage, by virtue of true knowledge, sees with equal vision a learned and gentle brāhmaṇa, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater [outcaste] .
PURPORT
A Kṛṣṇa conscious person does not make any distinction between species or castes. The brāhmaṇa and the outcaste may be different from the social point of view, or a dog, a cow, or an elephant may be different from the point of view of species, but these differences of body are meaningless from the viewpoint of a learned transcendentalist. This is due to their relationship to the Supreme, for the Supreme Lord, by His plenary portion as Paramātmā, is present in everyone's heart. Such an understanding of the Supreme is real knowledge. As far as the bodies are concerned in different castes or different species of life, the Lord is equally kind to everyone because He treats every living being as a friend yet maintains Himself as Paramātmā regardless of the circumstances of the living entities. The Lord as Paramātmā is present both in the outcaste and in the brāhmaṇa, although the body of a brāhmaṇa and that of an outcaste are not the same. The bodies are material productions of different modes of material nature, but the soul and the Supersoul within the body are of the same spiritual quality. The similarity in the quality of the soul and the Supersoul, however, does not make them equal in quantity, for the individual soul is present only in that particular body, whereas the Paramātmā is present in each and every body. A Kṛṣṇa conscious person has full knowledge of this, and therefore he is truly learned and has equal vision. The similar characteristics of the soul and Supersoul are that they are both conscious, eternal and blissful. But the difference is that the individual soul is conscious within the limited jurisdiction of the body, whereas the Supersoul is conscious of all bodies. The Supersoul is present in all bodies without distinction.
Reference: Bhagavad Gita As It Is, translation and commentary by Swami A C Bhaktivedanta, original MacMillan 1972 edition.
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