In Asian cultures modesty and respect for others are conveyed through the simple gesture of bowing. The hands-together bow is used throughout Asia: in Japan (gasshō), China (héshi or hézhǎng), Thailand (wai) Viet Nam, (hiệp chưởng) and India (the añjali mudrā or namaste).
Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshicha (1765-1827) used to say that everyone should keep a piece of paper with “for my sake the world was created” in one pocket, and a piece of paper with “I am but dust and ashes” in another. The Rabbi was expressing an existential truth: each individual being is important, but not self-important.
The root word of Humility and Humble comes from humus which means 'from the earth' or 'grounded' and just like a tiny a flower thats springs from earth, celebrates its beauty as much as the big birch. I continue to learn that there's always this self, this ego that stands like a guard against some of the necessary naturalness of the soul. And thats not really a fault - it's rather a survival mode developed by our brains in order to protect, the one of the frailest flesh and bone of animal kingdom.
Darwinism aside, on one hand it would seem that humility is rather under-valued—not to mention difficult to find—in modern life today. On the other hand it is quite Humean (it was Hume, after all, who famously disparaged humility as a “monkish virtue.”) Doesn’t humility involve putting ourselves down? Doesn’t it conflict with pride, and with confidence, both of which, surely, do have some positive value, at least when appropriately felt and expressed? Moreover, doesn’t humility involve pretending to think worse of ourselves than we really do, thus committing us to dishonesty and insincerity?
A very commonplace fallacy constructed, and rightly so, when humility while being a virtue inculcated in pupils; began to be abused for power, as a mental and emotional gaslighting through ages, societies and civilization.
With industrial and then technological revolution some of these societal threats have now lessened. However, it would take a few more decades (if we survive as a species) for HomoSapiens to truly explore some of the amazing things our mind-body continuum is capable of without cannibalism in any form.
Like all things of high calibre and sophisticated conceptual construct - humility like true meditation isn't about belittling self it's rather about knowing that whilst we are our own creator's of reality - there are zillion of other realities AND we have neither the accoutrement nor can we fathom the vastness of things that there are. It is about celebrating the fact of being alive and evolving together with the rest of the life around us.
It is finally about acknowledging that we don't know all and it is okay to not know all and it is okay to continue to be a learner or even sated with oneself without the need to compare self with any other living thing.
Here's wishing all of us a way to be find humility in our hearts
Copyright©Neerja Yadav