Humility

The moment a politician gets to know that he/she is declared a winner, they announce, “I feel humbled”. And then onwards, it is humility all the way! They are so keen about others too having a feel of that humility, that they take the trouble of ‘humiliating’ common man in all possible ways, lest they ‘miss’ that touch of humility!

I was trying to find out the other day, if the youth of today, are keen about staying as a ‘student’ throughout their life, after finishing academics, getting a job, raising a family, stepping into ‘elderly-hood’ etc. So, I asked the ‘requisite’ to retain this ‘student’ nature, within. I suggested to look at ‘humility’ in a very deep sense. We happened to take a look at examples that would help that ‘deep’ look at it. The popular use of it seemed to just give the ‘cosmetic’ meanings, more useful for speech-making etc!

There was that story of the great legendary musician “Saint Thyagaraja”…. He had gained so much popularity that people from all over came to visit him. It seems a frail simple looking man once turned up to have his ‘darshan’, and requested the great singer to sing a song. It seems Thyagaraja was visibly annoyed at an individual coming up and asking him to sing ‘just like that’! The visitor was chided for that audacity, and asked to wait amidst the mob, at some nearby temple, and listen from a distance when he ‘happens’ to sing for the large audience. The visitor meekly seemed to accept the admonition. This further encouraged Thyagaraja to challenge him further, asking him “What do you know about music, that you have the boldness to come straight to me, and ask me to sing for you? Come on, show me what you can do?...” The visitor apologetically and very hesitantly said that all he knew was to sing the same song in 6 different time-scales (kaalaa’s in Carnatic music). And he demonstrated it by singing a song thus. Thyagaraja was not prepared for the shock he felt, at this amazing capability he saw! The visitor was none other than “Shat-kaala Govinda Marar” , a musician famous for this very capability. It is said that the experience went deep into Thyagaraja, and the result was an outpouring of the famous song “endaro Mahaanu bhaavulu” (Countless great persons, I bow to all of them!). But for this visitor, we would have missed that song from the great composer! A deep experience of ‘Humility’ brought out the potential for yet another master piece song! The stretching of potential happened after he became a well accomplished composer!

Another typical example was from the stories about devotional saint ‘Meerabai’. She happened to visit a spiritual practitioner, famous for his siddhis, and such accomplishments. In those days, yogic practices were ‘out of bounds’ for ladies, so Meerabai had nothing to boast about. No formal training in meditative practices etc. All she knew as just total surrender to the divine. She felt that it was her duty to visit such famous people who did rigorous practices, and take their blessings to evolve further. Our expert in Yoga was camping on a hill top, and the very backdrop presented the awesome ambience that he chose to pursue the tough practices. As Meerabai climbed the hill to approach the hermitage of this Yogi, she was stopped en-route by a disciple-cum-guard of the hermitage. She was told ‘Our Master does not permit females to approach him for blessings’. At this, Meerabai had no choice but to return disappointed with the futility of the arduous climb this far. But not before asking that disciple to convey a message from her to his master, “please tell him, I never knew of another ‘purusha’ till now, and I thought there was only one ‘purusha’ in this universe”. Purusha is a word for “male”. The disciple could not guess the deeper meaning of this message, and simply conveyed it to his master without loss of time. The yogi at once got the meaning, and ran down the hill to catch up with Meerabai who was returning at her pace. The Yogi fell at her feet and requested her to accept him as her disciple! ( I hold back further elaboration about that singular purusha aspect, to avoid deviation from subject title).

And one more instance of Saint Ramakrishna. He did not have much of a formal education. His prayers got answered and goddess kaali appeared before him, ready to impart knowledge. He asked the goddess to pause, first convert him into a child and then proceed to impart knowledge. Here , Ramakrishna was referring to the child-like nature of that innocence which enables unhindered inflow of knowledge. The humility within a child is latent, and not tangible. Also, Ramakrishna chose to ask “make me a child”, implying, ‘please infuse a large dose of humility in me’. Scientists concur that the intelligence to grasp things is at its peak during early childhood.

We concluded the discussion about humility thus, for the time being.
Psn(30th July, 2009)