Psychological effects of being humble??

[Govindaram 1]

 

Haribol!

 

If we be humble and people can maybe tend to walk all over you, can you not soon develop Psychological effects?..sooner or later?.i.e like in bullying

[Dervish 0]

One simple thing we need to keep in mind is that while the Acharyas were humble, they are not to be bullied, even if the scorpion like personalities try. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur had to deal with Mayavadas, Cast Brahmanas, and the like, and yet even through his humility, he could refute their bad points.

 

Srila Prabhupad had a worldwide mission, and nobody could push him around.

 

I think humility as a mundane trait in its most tamasic levels can make one prone to bullying, but coupled with proper spiritual development, it could lead one to be humble, yet an indomitable spirit /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[livingentity 0]

that just because a devotee is to be humble does not mean he is to be walked all over and a push over.

 

Does anyone have reference to the time in India that the deities were in danger as the "owner" of the land came in to evict them and began to tear down the shelter that was built for the deities? The devotees had to physically protect the deities with their lives!!

 

Also, there was the time that the building contractors were taking advantage of the devotees and selling them cheap inferior products. The devotees had to deal with unscrupulous contractors and had to force them to provide what had been paid for.

 

Those are two instances that Prabhupada taught the devotees how to handle people trying to take advantage of there "humbleness".

 

 

[Govindaram 1]

 

Hare Krishna

 

"I think humility as a mundane trait in its most tamasic levels can make one prone to bullying, but coupled with proper spiritual development, it could lead one to be humble, yet an indomitable spirit"

 

Thats nice P.ji

 

 

[Gauracandra 1]

I wonder if humility means understanding the proper weight of various situations. I'm not sure it means you must let people walk all over you, though that may be humble as straw.

 

I've always thought that the key is cultural rules. When you have rules, you know when someone breaks them, and what your reaction should be. In such circumstances, its not hard to be humble, because so long as everyone agrees to the rules, you know what your reaction should be. So there are certain rules for greeting guests, certain rules of courtship, rules for loaning money etc.... So culture would make being humble easy without getting bullied.

 

Not to get off topic, but I think this break down of rules is important. In Western culture, when a man would take off his hat in front of a woman, or stand up at a table when the woman stood up, or open the door for a woman, these were all rules to keep men in line. Feminists seemed to think it was about keeping women in line. There were rules also for women to follow and it kept them in line. But people decided rules were too restricting and so now everyone does what ever they want. The problem with that is there are no more cultural signals as to what is good and proper behavior and what is bad behavior. This gives a greater leeway to boorishness. Thats my impression. I don't know if we can ever get back to these rules. They seem so restricting, but they served a very valuable purpose.

[Guest guest]

I think humility is seeing God in everyone and if people are criticizing your actions then samjo (think) that God is criticizing. Try to change for Krishna and if the criticizer mundane self is showing forgive him/her in your heart, thinking that he is God's spirit soul, just like you. So, Humility is actually a state of consciousness where you have a higher understanding, which makes you not care for the "small stuff" and just take the essence of a particular situation.

 

 

[Govindaram 1]

<font color="red"> One Must Chant in Humility </font color>

 

Explanation of the "triad api sunicena" verse of Siksastaka:

 

To chant the holy name always, one should be humbler than the grass in the street and devoid of all desire for personal honor, but one should offer others all respectful obeisances. A devotee engaged in chanting the holy name of the Lord should practice forbearance like that of a tree. Even if rebuked or chastised, he should not say anything to others to retaliate. For even if one cuts a tree, it never protests, nor even if it is drying up and dying does it ask anyone for water..."One who thinks himself lower than the grass, who is more tolerant than a tree, and who does not expect personal honor yet is always prepared to give all respect to others, can very easily always chant the holy name of the Lord." Raising my hands, I declare, "Everyone please hear me! String this verse on the thread of the holy name and wear it on your neck for continuous remembrance." One must strictly follow the principles given by Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu in this verse. If one simply follows in the footsteps of Lord Caitanya and the Gosvamis, certainly he will achieve the ultimate goal of life, the lotus feet of Sri Krishna.

 

This practice of forbearance (triad api sunicena) is very difficult, but when one actually engages in chanting the Hare Krishna mantra, the quality of forbearance automatically develops. <font color="blue"> A person advanced in spiritual consciousness through the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra need not practice to develop it separately, for a devotee develops all good qualities simply by chanting the Hare Krishna mantra regularly... </font color>

 

When chanting the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, in the beginning one may commit many offenses, which are called namabhasa and nama-aparadha. In this stage there is no possibility of achieving perfect love of Krishna by chanting the Hare Krishna maha-mantra. Therefore one must chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra according to the principles of the above verse, triad api sunicena taror iva sahisiuna...Chanting is very simple, but one must practice it seriously. Therefore the author of Caitanya-caritamrta, Krishnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami, advises everyone to keep this verse always strung about his neck.

 

Sri Caitanya-caritamrta Adi-lila 17.26-28, 31-33

 

From Folio Infobase

[lover_soul 0]

/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Govindaram 1]

 

Hare Krishna

 

Being humble is easy, if you don't get angry /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

/images/graemlins/laugh.gifchant:

[Priitaa 0]

First, I think this is a common misunderstanding amongsts devotees - that humility means "Please walk all over me." ha Then if you stand up for yourself, some criticize - you are not humble. The way I see it, thats their problem. As one poster pointed out, the many past acarya's were all humble, yet they were not bullied or walked over by others. Humble doesn't mean no boundaries. At best we could learn nicer ways to say things, that would be humble. But when boundary issues come up, that is a time to put your foot down (properly - we don't have to go the other extreme either).

 

Secondly, this is something I just contemplated one day and makes sense to me. No shastric quotes or anything, but once I was also thinking about how humility has been made so important in our teachings, and why that is. After all, so many took advantage of us because we were trying to be humble, right? (Actually wrong. It takes time to learn what is real humility, and am still working on it, but anyhow...... ) Thinking of the many stories of power some pure devotees have exhibited, I also began to see this too could be a reason we must be very humble druing our entire Krishna consciousness and get use to taking the humble position - because before we achieve the level of pure devotee, maya always sends temptations, offering us mystic yogic powers and such, so we must not want these things, must stay on track, and reamin humble. Otherwise we could even hurt someone! That initially sounds left field, but think about how, with the little power we have, some in big positions have used that post to cause pain to another; as well as those not in big posts have done so. We tend to justify such actions, so best that much power does not come our way in the first place, with part of that safetynet being that we reamin humble (which teaches us to reject it). -- Just an idea that hit me one day.

[Govindaram 1]

 

Hare Krishna

 

Your 2nd paragraph mata is spot-on, no sastric, but this is your realisation according to sastra, so you could say its good as sastric?..(praising devotees is cool), I heard a lecture in which a devotee was saying that, when Krishna left for Goloka, then the extrodinary power that Sri Arjuna had was taken away from him, because he had no need for it. Hare Krsna

[Priitaa 0]

If you are referring to my last post, I wasn't claiming to be showing shastra and stated this was only something I was one time thinking about and did 'not' have a quote on it. Matter of fact, I wouldn't want anyone to think of it as shastric. With that said, this doesn't mean we can't have realizations.

[Govindaram 1]

 

Hare Krishna

 

What I meant to say was if we have realsisations according to sastra that thats ok, what I mean by this is, we all have our own way of thinking, putting things together in our own mind, making analogys etc, anyway, if I am wrong in this please correct me. jaya prabhupada!

 

[Priitaa 0]

Oh, that's ok. I am not sure my realizations are all the great anyhow. haha And I do think mine was on a lower level, yet it felt, at the time, a necessity because I kept wondering why it is we are to be so humble in our religion yet often the result is that we get pushed around. Then I next thought of how much more pushing could happen if those doing the pushing didn't at least somtimes try to be humble. And then I even thought of mystic yogic power. ha So there you have it. Not exactly the highest understanding, but it helped me figure things out -- I think. lol