Pride has become your nearest and dearest friend. It is always the first one to pat your shoulder even on the smallest accomplishment and never leaves you. It constantly buttresses your ego to make it rich and fat. Had that been your goal, Pride would definitely be the best companion that one could get. But if spiritual upliftment and self-discovery are your objectives, this is an enemy in disguise that constantly hinders you from advancing. The worst part is you are in complete entrustment and have no clue about the damage it has been doing. Any attempt to dissociate it from you would result in fierce reactions in the beginning. It has to be handled with patience, and intelligence.
Pride makes You Feel Terrific
In your childhood when you have no relative idea of what’s praiseworthy, you hear your close ones saying “I am proud of you”. When your intellect has matured enough to distinguish, your mind doesn’t wait for anyone else to appraise your work. You immediately feel proud of yourself. You fall in love with your output, creativity, looks, charm, eloquence, etc. Doesn’t it happen so naturally to everyone?
You have considered pride as the intimate friend that forms your shadow. It makes you feel pleasant and high. The inclination pumps you up instantly to experience your greatness. What a terrific emotion to feel that way. Faster heartbeats, happy hormones, rush of blood into the brain. If that wasn’t enough, your mind gets new ideas and so many thoughts of greater involvement, appreciation, growth, and so on.
You don’t have to move a finger. Just sit on a chair and think about one of your works. Pride will take you on a marvelous ride for free and keep draining your dopamine as long as you want it. Nay! As long as your mind doesn’t find anything more interesting to do.
Behind the Scenes
On the surface, it all seems amazing and sounds like a great companion. You need a friend like that besides you who would make you feel at the top of the world. Don’t you? But thoroughly captivated by the superficial grandioseness, you have lost the guard of your inner world. Behind the scenes, a deeper psychological & behavioral problem has been silently strengthening without your slightest knowledge.
This seemingly benevolent friend guards you 24*7 and controls every incoming communication. Any minute criticism or disapproval is fiercely reprimanded and generates upheaval reactions. The core, or the real intelligence remains unimproved and misses important opportunities for growth. Instead of training it with critical inputs and upgrading, it has not only remained complacent with its existing knowledge but falsely assumes itself to be superior. You begin to stop listening and lose essential, wise company.
Constantly making you feel important, your mind gets habituated to it. After all the mind is a creature of habit. You begin to expect it badly and feel anxious. While restlessly seeking and engaging in some activities out of desperation, you may lose originality, and follow the herd. Your pride takes you away from your inner self. Without your consciousness, you become pretentious and dishonest and you are oblivious of its harmful effects on yourself as well as others.
Dangers of the Company of Pride in Spiritual Growth
At every step of the wonderful journey of spiritual ascension, there is a potential for self-discovery. The light bulb moments of becoming aware of your mind’s intricate workings can fill you with joyful contentment and act as vital stepping stones for the next discovery. If you have harbored pride as your dependent counsel then these essential moments are significantly hindered. The opportunity cost of not being able to give up pride is extremely high on the spiritual path.
Firstly, a calm and equanimous mind is impossible to ensure, if pride has a strong hold over your mind. In a real-life scenario, every other day there would be someone trying to trample on your ego. But if you are thrown away easily then you have to start from the ground again. There is no fortification of your inner work if you trust pride as your watch person.
Secondly, this path demands the withdrawal of attachment from the results of your actions. But earlier we discussed that pride keeps you anxious and drives you toward pretension to shift the end result in your favor. Your habituated mind is restless and achieving concentration from such a shaky base is extremely difficult. Moreover, the most important aspect of complete surrender so as to tap into the pure emotions of your heart doesn’t happen when you are under the hold of pretension. These complete surrenders are the moments when the insights surface from deep unconsciousness and the enemy in disguise is working hard to prevent that.
How To Conquer Pride
When you know how to control your mind, it is the most powerful thing you possess, and if you have no clue how to handle then it can lead you to destruction. You have to systematically develop the discerning ability to identify the activities of your pride. Otherwise, pride won’t let you detect its play. This has to be done by associating with wise people, contemplative meditation, and journaling. You can read thousands of books on these but without practice, they are all useless.
Without the first step, any attack on your pride will always lead to retaliation and strong reactions. But as the discriminating capability of your intellect improves, you begin to witness the game of pride as an observer. The reactions would still be there in the mind but they become short-lived. You are not too much affected by them now. It would take time and patience to defeat it as it has been secretively working for decades leading to strong habits.
There is a two-fold strategy that needs to be employed in this feat. First, your mind continuously bolsters pride’s network by reminding you of your old accolades or shame/guilt of losing face on account of an attack on it. These are the real fuel to the fire. You have to acknowledge that you have a beautiful present now and dwelling on the past is nothing short of stupidity. You have to gradually work towards freeing your memory. Mindfulness practices like mindful breathing, mindful walking, and yoga are extremely important tools in tackling this.
The second one is to train your mind to shake the pride’s fortress. You avoid every such person or situation that would hurt your ego. But in your spiritual path, your real friend is not the one who fattens your ego but hurts your pride. They offer you real-life opportunities to test your intelligence. Otherwise, you would be floating in your imagination alone. Your mind will constantly nudge you to run away but hold and face it with equanimity. This is the best possible way to conquer your enemy behind the curtains.
Be vigilant and aware! Consistent work is necessary for you to gain victory. But be mindful of not being violent with yourself. It has to be done compassionately. Your foes and friends including yourself, all deserve your compassion.
Wish you all the best!
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