When the clouds are full with water they come closer to the earth. When the trees are full with fruits the branches swing low. Those people who have outstanding qualities become humble, but those people who do not have those qualities, pose as though they have them. They become egoistic and arrogant. They make a show of their qualities. This is the tendency of most people.
In fact, if one analyses the whole affair psychologically, one will find that real humility comes through the understanding of one’s negative personality. When one looks within one’s own self impartially, when one tries to judge oneself impartially, one sees the qualities and what one does not have. Therefore, in order to achieve humility, one has to judge one’s own self mercilessly. If one wants to succeed in this life and in spiritual life, one will have to see one’s own personality thoroughly. No man is perfect, and no man is united in himself. Everybody has a duplicate personality, not only with others, but even with himself.
Can anyone make a confession about himself to himself? No, no one can. First of all, there is no knowledge about oneself. “I am a good man,” that’s what one knows. “I am a wise man,” that is all one knows. “I am a strong man; I am a capable man,” that is what one thinks. When one fantasizes, what does one fantasize? When one imagines or when one builds castles in the air, what does one do? One becomes a great man, the richest man, the most powerful man. Is there knowledge that this is not oneself? One is just a limited human being and has many traits of imperfection.
Even a boy who is in primary school should know his limitations. They are his intellectual limitations. He should not make fun of a professor who teaches at a university. This is precisely the reason there is quarrel in the family. This is precisely the reason there is quarrel in the market place, because everyone thinks they are right, but the fact is that everyone is wrong, because if one person was right, the quarrel would not have started.
There is a joke related to two drivers in Japan. Two drivers were driving in opposite directions. Suddenly, at a U-turn they collided with each other. It was not a great accident, yet it happened. Both of them came from behind the steering wheel and greeted each other. One said, “I am sorry, it was my mistake.” The other driver said, “No, not at all, it was my mistake.” He said, “No, it was my mistake.” That was their quarrel.
Both of them had to report to the police. When they went to the police, one driver reported, “I made a mistake, I was at the wrong side and I collided with this car,” and the other driver also put in the same type of report. The policeman said, “What am I going to do?” Then one of the drivers said, “Please tell me what fine I should pay.” When there is understanding of oneself, then humility comes. Humility is not a cowardly nature. A coward also looks humble, however humility is a dynamic nature in a person.
Humility is having a nature in which one tries to understand one’s mistake in relation to the other person. When there is a quarrel between husband and wife, parents and children, the boss and the subordinate, it is a crisis in humility. The wife is trying to say that the husband is wrong, and the husband is trying to prove that she is wrong. If they go to their mother-in-law and father-in-law, they are trying to press their own argument. Then the quarrel multiplies and amplifies. If one of them would withdraw, it would be painful in the beginning, yet at the end it would pay substantial rewards in the form of happiness in the family, however the ego comes in between. Sometimes the thoughts do come in the mind, ‘Ah, all unnecessary, I should not have done it.’ They know that this is not the way to happiness, yet they do not tackle the problem through humility. If one of them or both of them could search their own selves and try to find out their own contribution to the quarrel, they would gain humility and understanding.
Therefore, humility is dead; it is dead due to one’s hard ego.
One has a personality problem, is suffering from inferiority, or the feeling of superiority, or one sees a certain mistake in one’s husband or wife, or they become careless about each other for too much intimacy breeds contempt.
There are definite ways of developing the virtue of humility. Aspirants should start with the guru, as it is before the guru they bow the head. They have to practise humility with someone first. They can practise humility with God, yet with God there is no problem as he is not there, so they don’t clash with him. With the guru they have to come into a clash for he does exist and he is going to crush their ego. He presses the head and says, “Sit down.” For some time, aspirants do what he says; after some time, they begin to raise their ego a little bit, for ego does not want to be subdued by anybody. Ego is man’s support in life and therefore, to develop humility one has to train one’s ego.