Modesty, Humility and Pride
-- Cutting through the Confusion

Modesty and humility too easily fall into inverted snobbery

Modesty and humility are upheld as virtues in the teachings of the vast majority of religions - including those of Buddhism. On the face of it, this looks like commonsense, for seeking to impress others and feel that one has status is clearly problematical. However, if you stop and think about it, a lot of this doesn't really add up. It comes down to morality speak, which is about following rules and judging on people and not living a life of love, empathy and fully aware and responsible free choice, which would all arise naturally from our core essence if we allowed it to do so.

If we have special roles (such as being a teacher of self realization), or particular strengths, undoubtedly any ostentation in flaunting these publicly would not be a positive or helpful thing for our self realization process. When I talk about ostentation here, I really mean, making people aware of your particular special role(s) or abilities without regard to whether it is actually helpful and positive in effect in that particular situation at that particular time for you to do so. On the other hand, the so-called modesty and humility taught and practised widely in religions is very negative in two important respects:

• 'Ego trip'
  It actually 'feeds the people's egos' (i.e. it actually cultivates people's desire to try to be seen as 'superior'), because instead of accepting and acknowledging in a relaxed fashion their strengths and any special roles of theirs, people are then showing off to others around them with the implicit message, "Look what a virtuous practitioner / highly spiritual person I am with all this modesty and humility and self denial!"
  

  Yes, it's a sort of inverted snobbery or 'egotistical' showing off. It's also plain dishonest. For a distinctly realized teacher (not mentioning any names!) to say "I have little [or even no] realization" or, without qualification, "I'm just an ordinary monk / person" (a particularly strong custom rife among supposedly advanced practitioners in Tibetan Buddhism and publicly exemplified by the Dalai Lama) is simply telling lies. Pretence and true self realization do not mix.

• Negative programming
  It gives people a lot of negative programming, which actually stunts their self realization process and prevents them from manifesting their unique gifts and true abundance and potential as enlightened people, making them instead fixated on their practices and following the path laid down to them by their guru, 'master' or religious cleric. Actually, to be able to stand our full height and in relaxed fashion to openly acknowledge our strengths where it is appropriate and constructive for us to do so is an essential part of letting go of the negative patterns and self beliefs that we carry.
  

  Once we are clear of negative programming, our natural and most healthy and enlightened state is that of joyfully celebrating in and using our unique 'gifts' - not bowing our heads in 'humility' and pretending that we have no such 'gifts' - a mockery of the beauty and splendour of our true nature. To me, the common slight stoop and slightly bowed head of so many Buddhist monks (as in the photo of the Dalai Lama on this page) is an abomination - a travesty of what a true self realization path is about. It is also harmful for one's body and one's whole energy system to maintain such a distortion, so why on earth go doing such a crazy thing? All those monks would do well to take up the Alexander Technique!

  Although I mention this here in relation to Buddhism, I must stress that the same thing in different forms is happening generally in religions and so-called spiritual paths. Whether any supposed higher beings that they defer to or worship be great buddhas, angels, archangels, Jesus, Muhammad, God, Allah, Shiva, Krishna, ascended masters, guides, or any other name or description, the astral ('dark') forces are involved, and the only effective and indeed safe way to open to 'the Ultimate' is through ceasing such deference and indeed ceasing even to recognise those supposed higher presences any more, and instead opening to our core essence (which is actually 'the Ultimate' as far as we can ever know anything) and letting go of any notion of apparently external beings of any kind. To relate to a supposedly higher being in any way whatsoever is straightaway disempowering yourself, implicitly denying the true ultimateness and absoluteness and of your very own true nature and that of all living things, and thus demeaning yourself and empowering the astral forces over you.

I would go as far as saying that, far from being virtues, modesty and humility are actually scourges upon Humanity. Apart from the elimination of ostentation and showing-off (which can be achieved in other ways), there is no positive or worthwhile purpose served by those so-called virtues, and they simply program people into being untrue to the stature of their true selves and to live pathetically diminished travesties of the lives that they could be living and which would be enlightened manifestations of their true nature as manifestations of 'the Ultimate'. If you are living on the basis of love, empathy and aware and responsible free choice rather than attachments, desires and compulsions, then you have every worthwhile reason to manifest ALL your personal power* and splendour.

* I'm NOT referring here, however, to the willful use of 'special powers' (i.e. 'psychic' or 'paranormal' powers), because any tendency to do that gets us embroiled with the astral or 'dark' forces again, and also immediately cultivates people's attachment to personal or social status. Indeed, as I explain in Astral Entities - Interference and Attacks from 'The Dark Side', it is very likely indeed that it was very early human-type beings (long before Earth was here) starting to use 'special powers', that resulted in the inadvertent creation of the so-called 'dark forces' in the first place - i.e. ALL of the massive problem that now exists within the astral sub-reality and so far has screwed up and eventually destroyed every human-type civilization, whether in this or any other universe.

So, what I mean here by personal power is the natural healing power of your love, positivity and clear thought, which would tend to catalyze the opening up of those qualities in other people around you and with whom you interrelate, and which would naturally be powerful in interrupting, dismantling and dissolving the effects of the astral forces' interferences, and indeed to a certain extent weakening and dissolving the astral forces themselves.

Let's be clear about pride

Okay, now I've got so far, let us bring in the dreaded 'P' word - Pride. A clear distinction needs to be made between what people might call egotistical pride on the one hand and, on the other hand the self esteem and rejoicing in oneself (and others) that is intrinsic to a balanced, enlightened and self realized being.

I have seen this latter use of the word in some teachings in the Vajrayana Buddhist tradition, and then it was called vajra pride. While I'm actually happy with the use of a different expression* for the positive meaning, in common usage the two meanings are hopelessly confused under use of the one word, and teachers (if they really must 'teach'!) would better make those two meanings clearly distinct and use different terms for them, so that full, unqualified self esteem is never confused with problematical tendencies. This is what needs to replace all the culturally based and dark-force instigated stuff about humility and modesty. Let us stand our full height and tune into such a self view as "I'm great, unique and beautiful - you're great, unique and beautiful too".

* but NOT 'vajra pride', because the vajra (sorry to say) is just one of the countless symbols and emblems of the astral ('dark') forces that permeate the religious and 'spiritual' traditions - notwithstanding the fact that in Tibetan Buddhism it's supposed to represent the most direct path to enlightenment. In reality, the moment you go using a symbol, emblem or device to represent that, you are already diverted by the 'dark forces' away from the most direct path to enlightenment - in just the same way that you are diverted from it by externalizing fundamental consciousness ('the Ultimate') and making it into a god, such as in Christianity, or into 'Spirit', as in various mystical and paganistic traditions.

Personally, I prefer generally not to use the word 'pride' at all, because using it tends to have religion- (and thus astral-) sourced connotations of disapproval, and, as noted above, it really covers various things and thus it tends to confuse issues. Therefore, I prefer to use more specific and objective terms for what I'm referring to - such as 'self esteem', 'status addiction' or 'self righteousness'...

Now, about that photo...

Tenzin Gyatso and Rowan Williams are both lovely guys, brimming with love and great intentions. I'd greet either with a warm, affectionate hug and joyful laughter anytime. That's as true as anything can be in this life experience of ours.

However, what you see in this photo is not just those two lovely guys, but something that is ugly and menacing in a way that only the so-called dark forces 'know' how to achieve - there to strike a chill in the heart of all who truly have 'eyes to see'.

As well as those two lovely guys, the photo shows the so-called Dalai Lama and so-called Archbishop of Canterbury - both of them in their superficially very different ways being icons of power / control hierarchies of the 'forces of darkness'. They are potent images / stereotypes and (unawarely) creators / deliverers of powerful thought forms that attach to all people who countenance or hear them, to affect them in one way or another for the primary purpose of helping divert them away from genuine self realization and into religious or 'spiritual' traditions, which, complete with any power/control hierarchies of theirs, are ALL sourced from the astral ('dark') forces for an extremely troublesome purpose that I detail in Astral Entities - Interference and Attacks from 'The Dark Side'.

In that photo are classic stereotypes of self righteousness with its two primary faces:

• Up-front self righteousness;
• Up-front, visible, humility, which is the sneaky, covert, form of self righteousness ("Look everyone, how ordinary and humble I am!").

What a couple! Well may they shake hands in agreement to each continue his unthinkably serious errors! (i.e. serious in their consequences)

Note particularly the stereotypically slightly bowed head ('humility' message) of the Dalai Lama. If that beautiful, lovely man Tenzin could but take on the Alexander Technique and also get using a Clarity-Sphere, together with my set of affirmations for genuine self realization, and thus get clearing from himself his remaining distortions and still pretty strong (but I'm sure fully unaware) astral or 'dark side' control and interferences, he could progressively and remarkably rapidly get himself free of 'the dark side' and standing his full height as a genuine self realized person. He is not yet the latter in a healthy and balanced way (even though he's enlightened, I'm pretty sure), despite all the claims that are made about him because of the great title with which his 'tradition' has unbalanced and stunted him.

Similarly, note particularly the stiff uprightness of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Rather than the "Look how humble and modest I am" posture and 'vibes' that the Dalai Lama presents, the Archbishop of Canterbury projects an 'aura' of a formal, righteous self importance - "I'm in Holy Orders and an ambassador of God".

Another thing that sticks out like a sore thumb is the contrived 'love' that he is projecting. I don't mean at all that Rowan isn't a loving man, but the archbishop's posturing, and its very serious underlying cause, are not allowing his underlying, innate love to emanate and show itself in a natural, undistorted way, and so his posturing tries to compensate for that by putting on an appearance of being loving. That still further hides his real love and lovingness, which is something that cannot be forced nor contrived. He then finds it 'natural' to look to supposed higher presences such as Jesus and God to find any representations of the perfect love that he would like himself and others to have - not understanding that that very love is of the essence of every single human, including him, me, and indeed Osama Bin Laden. It's just got a bit covered up and needs uncovering - that's all!

Please note, however, that I'm not meaning to imply that he needs not to be standing his full height or looking loving. The issue here is that he's doing so stiffly - in fact posturing - to further an agenda, and indeed one of control. That is extremely unhealthy, both physically and mentally. Now, if he took up the Alexander Technique, theoretically he could learn to stand his full height in a relaxed, poised way that is not a posture at all but a poised and balanced dynamic state - like me in the photo below taken in 1999 (the loose poise still easily maintained despite the uneven ground of the top of Ben Nevis and the unbalancing force of my wearing that rucksack).

No posture in sight - just balance, poise,
and lightness and ease of being.
(No grounds for complacency here -
my head is slightly pulled back, which implies
some neck tension still to release - and I'm
much less ready to use a walking stick nowadays.)

It's for a quite specific reason that I say 'theoretically' about Rowan's being able to effectively use the Alexander Technique. Whereas Tenzin appears to me to be a direct incarnation of fundamental consciousness and thus what I call a no-soul incarnation, and thus to lack any underlying programming from the astral forces (although he has been led astray by them), and so to have innate great flexibility and the deepest possible level of awareness and the greatest capacity for rebalancing himself towards full and balanced self realization, Rowan has a much bigger problem.

He has already been forced (through programming by the astral forces) into reincarnating via the same soul several times*, so his depth of awareness is distinctly 'capped' by that programming, and his whole outlook and life experience is thus much more rigid and compartmentalized and viewed in terms of categories, and governed by rules and notions of things being 'right' or 'wrong'. This indeed is the state of affairs for any person who is devoutly religious in the theistic traditions, and it is indeed that state of affairs that makes a person to be like that (though it is the cause of all sorts of other limited and problematical outlooks and lifestyles in other people).

* I explain about this phenomenon in Astral Entities - Interference and Attacks from 'The Dark Side'.

Sorry to say, but the likes of him, even if they tried the Alexander Technique, would be extremely unlikely to really understand it and thus to make truly effective use of it. However, theoretically all is still not lost for Rowan, because various other of the methods that I give in Healing and Self Realization - The Safest and Quickest Way, if used well in an ongoing fashion, would progressively dissolve his astral-sourced programming and thus steadily open him to letting go of all postures and posturing, and thus moving in the genuine enlightenment and self realization direction, even though at the moment he doesn't really know what either of those are. I particularly commend the already mentioned Clarity-Sphere and set of affirmations for that purpose.

However, that programming of his would most likely keep him unmotivated to persist with such methods, and indeed he would find my set of affirmations eye-wateringly challenging and indeed bewilderingly uncountenanceable because of his relative inflexibility. Most likely, if he had a Clarity-Sphere it would at an early stage find its way into some drawer for odds and ends that he doesn't really know what to do with - and of course it would be off its transmitter base and so doing just about nothing for him. I'm not saying that that would necessarily happen, however. Indeed, I say it here as something of a challenge to him to GOYA (i.e. get off his arse) and push through his apparent limitations and out of his sad and sorry self righteous path of 'darkness' that pretends to lead to 'salvation' - his path of the very 'Satanic' forces that presumably he would at times have been preaching against.

I warm a lot to Tenzin's ebullient and informal manner - but the other side of that is the Dalai Lama's affectation of humility in the "I'm just an ordinary monk and not even enlightened" subtext that he is constantly putting out to everyone. Not Tenzin's fault, of course - except that, as already noted, he could, if he chose, actually do things to get out of that situation.

I warm less to Rowan's 'mouth full of hot rice pudding' sort of manner of speech, as it is so affected - pretty well every syllable telling us all how holy and righteous he supposedly is (Sorry, but true!). That's another bit of his unaware posturing. These religious clerics have a marked awareness block that prevents them from actually listening to themselves and waking up to how absurd they sound, and also how self righteous and 'holier than thou' their speech affectation really sounds. I'm sure that there are some priests whose speech I would not be able to recognise as having "I'm in Holy Orders" sound, but they must be in a very small minority. Interestingly, the previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie*, also seemed to have some hot rice pudding in his mouth, which leaves me wondering whether prospective Archbishops of Canterbury are trained to speak in that way - or, perhaps, whether their already speaking that way is one of their qualifications for that most Holy position in the Christianity branch of the astral or dark forces' universal agenda of control over all humans.

* As also did his one-time envoy Terry Waite.

N.B. As you can imagine, in a real life situation it's unlikely in the extreme that I'd actually say all the things that I say in those purely fictional phone conversations related in the above panel. In general, I'd quickly recognise the agenda that the person is running, and the negativity and embittered self righteousness of the energy that the individual is projecting at me, and would pretty smartly close the conversation, even hanging up with the person in mid-sentence if they are clearly trying to keep it going.

So, the two examples given in the panel above are for the purpose of lovingly hinting to would-be complainants about this page that they would be wasting their time and energy by making fools of themselves and becoming actual complainants.