Whoever has the temerity, or American slang is “guts,” to speak about pride, if you have ever suffered from pride, please come. If you have at any time suffered from exorbitant pride, unthinkable pride, unspeakable pride, then come. And now for that, perhaps your sincerity is telling you to feel sorry. Only the brave, braver, bravest soldiers come!
(After disciples speak about their experiences with pride, Sri Chinmoy shares a few anecdotes.) My pride started, as far as I am conscious of it, when I was about six years old. My brother Mantu was nine or nine and a half. He was quite tall. I was very short, even at that time. So my father decided to give us cycles. For Mantu it would be a real bicycle. For me, it would be with three wheels. My pride was so badly hurt.
My father had the capacity to cure people in various ways. If any meat or fish bone got stuck inside a person’s throat, by just rubbing the throat my father could cure the person. Medical science needed an operation. He could also take away any kind of headache. My father used to use a very small, tiny stick. Then he would touch the forehead of the sufferer, and very gently move the stick from one side to another. In this way my father used to cure the patients, and it was absolutely true.
In my case, when I was seven or eight years old, I said that my father taught me how to cure headaches. I knew nothing, only I remained very serious and used the same kind of tiny stick, moving it the same way. My aunts were really suffering from headaches, but out of sheer compassion, they used to say their headache was gone. So I developed real pride! There can be compassionate human beings who will support your pride. Sometimes these people, out of their sheer compassion and affection for me, would invite me to cure their headache. Then always they used to say they were cured. Afterwards I realised that alas, alas, it was not true, and I had only developed pride. This was in my Chittagong life.
In my Ashram life, I had many, many stories about pride. My English and Bengali handwriting were quite good. My Bengali teacher used to give marks for handwriting. I used to get four out of four. For handwriting and for writing essays and all kinds of things, I used to stand by far the best, and my teacher appreciated me.
Once on my birthday, the poet who wrote Tomari Hok Joy [Sri Biren Palit] came to my house early in the morning with a poem for my birthday. Such a blessingful poem he wrote, but his handwriting was far, far better than mine, so my pride was smashed. In my English handwriting, I also took tremendous pride. Everybody said my handwriting was excellent, excellent. Alas, when I first saw the English handwriting of Shantiniketan’s Sisir-da – Mahatapa’s maternal uncle and Vidagdha’s professor – my pride was smashed into pieces.
There are many, many stories that I have told about the Ashram. I am just telling a few that show how my pride was smashed. Again, there were times when I wanted to smash my pride. Over the years I worked at various places. I was so happy when I was working washing dishes, although my friends did not like it. I said, “This is the golden chance for me not to be bothered by the mind, to obliterate the mind, and to conquer all my pride.”
But after that, in a very clever way, Nolini, the Ashram Secretary, chose me to work for him, translating his writings and assisting in other ways. Many people had tried translating for him, but he rejected and rejected them, and he chose me. When you want to conquer pride, this is what may happen. God may beckon you in the form of Grace.
Another story I have told many times. For 12 or 13 years consecutively, I won the 100 metres, always standing first. One year I felt sorry for the second and third sprinters. I had such sympathy. I said, “Now this year let me be very spiritual. Let me suffer the pain of the second and third person or those who fall far behind – how they suffer. I have enjoyed running. I have come first, first, first. Let me conquer my pride and enjoy suffering.”
I was so sincere. In those days, I had the power or capacity to give a fever to myself, so I gave myself a fever. I did not eat anything. Five o’clock was the race. I became so weak, and then I did not warm up at all. I said, “Ah, today will be the day. Today I will be last. I will fall down, and then I will be last. Then I will be able to sympathise adequately with those poor runners.” I had no warm-up, no food, I was weaker than the weakest. With great difficulty I rode my cycle to the sports ground. Again, if I did not join, people might say unkind things. They might say, “This year perhaps he thought that he would lose. That is why he is not participating.”
The starter for the race was Pranab. He said, “Get on your mark, set, go!” I was absolutely sure that I would stumble, I would fall down. Alas, as soon as he gave the start, I ran faster than the fastest, and again I came first. Here I wanted to conquer my pride by becoming last and suffering the loss – to experience the sufferings of the second, third, fourth and last-place runners. But God did not want that. God wanted to make me first. Sometimes God somehow keeps our pride. That God has done many times.
Once there was a relay race. I was the captain of our team, with four runners. The captain has the choice to take excellent runners according to their timing. Nolini’s son, Rabi, was nowhere near the good runners; his timing was quite poor. I said, “I will take him on my team because Nolini is so kind to me, so affectionate to me.” Everybody was shocked and said, “How can you take him?” Immediately they said that it was just to get appreciation from Nolini. I said, “Who cares? Even if I lose, at least Nolini will be happy.” His son Rabi was three years older than me. I said, “At least I will be able to make my boss happy, and also his son and his dear ones and relatives.”
I knew well there was no chance for our team to win. Then again pride started entering and I thought: “I am the fastest runner. I am sure that somehow I will manage to defeat the rest of the teams.” There were three other teams. Reality could have been most ruthless. I was the fourth runner, and usually the weakest runner goes third. The first runner is usually the second best on the team, and the second runner will also be very good, but nowhere near the first and last. Then the third runner will be the weakest, because they say that, even if the third runner is late in handing off the baton to the last runner, the last runner will somehow run very fast and try to defeat others who are ahead.
Can you imagine? The third runner on my team, Nolini’s son Rabi, was eight metres behind the other runners when he gave me the baton. The runner who was second best after me, was already six or seven metres ahead of me. Even now I cannot imagine how I raced that fast. I passed the second-best runner, even though he had been six or seven metres ahead. Pride entered into me that I would be able to defeat the other teams, which were of a good standard. In this case also, God allowed me to keep my pride. Usually on Sports Days, Nolini would give me one rasgulla sweet in the evening after I performed. On that day I got two rasgullas from my boss.
There are many, many stories in my life when pride entered, but unfortunately or fortunately, God sometimes allowed the pride. Then again pride can come in a divine way also. I may feel that it is beneath my dignity to stoop to jealousy, insecurity and all weaknesses. That kind of divine pride is good, but sometimes it is very difficult to differentiate between human pride and divine pride.
Sri Ramakrishna’s dearest disciple, his darling, was Swami Vivekananda. Swami Vivekananda exercised mostly divine pride, but this is one incident of human pride. When he was in South India, a young Muslim man came to him to be his disciple. This particular seeker had a spiritual Master, but that spiritual Master was far, far, far inferior to Swami-ji. There was no comparison. Swami-ji’s realisation was much higher than this fellow’s. But this fellow had some kind of occult powers. The seeker who came to Swami Vivekananda was very sincere. When he heard that Swami Vivekananda was world famous, a great orator, a world shaker, he wanted to become Swami-ji’s disciple.
In my case, when I hear that a seeker is already someone’s disciple, I usually discourage them from following our path. Yesterday also I did not accept someone as my disciple for that reason. I said, “No, you should stay with your Guru.” Again, on rare occasions under some circumstances, I have accepted one or two disciples because their Master from the inner world would beg and plead with them to come and be my disciples. In such a case I have accepted one or two disciples, when their Master was not in the physical.
To come back to Swami Vivekananda, when this particular seeker became Swami Vivekananda’s disciple, his Guru became furious and gave only two weeks’ time. He said to his disciple, “In two weeks’ time he has to tell you, since you are my disciple, that he will not accept you as his disciple. Otherwise, I will punish him.” Vivekananda’s pride, human or divine, said, “He is a silly fellow. What kind of punishment will I get from him?” He told the seeker, “Now you can become my full-fledged disciple.” So Swami-ji accepted him.
Alas, at the end of 15 days, Vivekananda started vomiting blood, and his pride was deeply hurt. Then the fellow who had become Vivekananda’s new disciple went back to his former Master, either because he did not want Swami-ji to suffer – we do not know – or because he felt that his Master had more spiritual power, occult power. God alone knows why he went back to his Master.
Then Swami-ji was sulking and sulking. His pride was hurt. At that time Mother Sarada Devi was alive in the physical. He went to her, saying, “Thakur is a liar. He told me that I was his dearest disciple. How can I be so badly humiliated by a silly fellow?”
Sarada Devi had such wisdom and presence of mind. She said, “Look, sometimes it hurts the father, even if the father is a spiritual person. In the ordinary life also, it hurts the father if the father sees he has the capacity to teach the son, but the son goes to somebody else to get instruction. You should not have accepted that person as your disciple. If somebody is very dear to you, and if that person for some reason is displeased with you and wants to go to some other Master, if you have wisdom, you will say, ‘All right, go, go, go, as long as you follow the right path.’ But again, if you do not have wisdom, then you will be hurt that your son has gone to somebody else.
This man’s Guru had occult power, spiritual power. In terms of the real spiritual life, your spiritually far, far surpasses his spirituality. But it is not advisable to accept someone who has already found his Master. You made the mistake.” In this way, very compassionately Sarada Devi consoled Vivekananda.
Pride can be human or divine. If it is divine pride, you say, “It is beneath my dignity to remain in ignorance-night.” If you can say, “I am for all, I am for all,” from the divine point of view, that pride is good. But if you say, “I am only for myself,” that pride is destructive.From:Sri Chinmoy,Only One Reality Sri Chinmoy, Agni Press, 2025
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/oor