Today’s quote:
Pride is seldom delicate, it will please itself with very mean advantages; and envy feels not its own happiness, but when it may be compared with the misery of others.
– Samuel Johnson
..and now, Kabir on pride (day 23)
Couplet, transliterated:
Kabira soi surma, mansun maon jujha |
Punch payada pahilai, door karai sub dooja ||
Translation:
Says Kabir – he is the real hero, who has freed his mind of pride |
Gained control of the senses five, and has ridden all negativity from within ||
My understanding:
Here, Kabir is looking at the contribution of pride in the mental makeup of a man. Samuel Jackson expressed the same thought in his quote above.
As Kabir says, pride tends to blind us the reality and distances us from understanding and compassion. Without understanding and compassion, one cannot be of service to anyone – not even oneself (since pride prevents us from accepting even our own errors / mistakes). Humility, then, is a core fundamental treasure that one should covet and retain.
The five senses – sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste – can all be blinded by the mind as we often experience. Kabir is asking us to rid ourselves of these blinders since we need these senses to report reality back to us in order to be correct in our resultant action. Unsaid here is the blinding of hidden senses of understanding and compassion – pride can completely block out these finer feelings, and needs to be banished for man to flower into his true complete self.