October 16, 2019 – Humility Before the Divine

“…Only when Eternity takes Time by the hand,

Only when infinity weds the finite’s thought,

Can man be free from himself and live with God.

I bring meanwhile the gods upon the earth;

I bring back hope to the despairing heart;

I give peace to the humble and the great,

And shed my grace on the foolish and the wise.

I shall save earth, if earth consents to be saved.

Then Love shall at last unwounded tread earth’s soil;

Man’s mind shall admit the sovereignty of Truth

And body bear the immense descent of God.”

Sri Aurobindo

Savitri, Book VII, Canto IV, page 516

Humility Before the Divine

What is the right and the wrong way of being humble?

It is very simple, when people are told “be humble”, they think immediately of “being humble before other men” and that humility is wrong. True humility is humility before the Divine, that is, a precise, exact, living sense that one is nothing, one can do nothing, understand nothing without the Divine, that even if one is exceptionally intelligent and capable, this is nothing in comparison with the divine Consciousness, and this sense one must always keep, because then one always has the true attitude of receptivity — a humble receptivity that does not put personal pretensions in opposition to the Divine.

The Mother, Questions and Answers 1953, CWM volume 5, page 45.

All extracts and quotations from the written works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are copyright Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry -605002 India
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