If pride goes up, spirituality goes down and vice versa. It is due to Ahamkaram only that man forgets himself. The greatest and the real bondage is to forget one’s own reality. To recognise one’s own reality is the true Sakshatkara or realisation. If there is no change in your attitude, all your spiritual practices like Japa, Meditation, Yoga, Karma, Seva or service will serve no purpose. It is not the man but the mind that should change. The change of character is more important than the change of clothes. (ICS , p. 161)
Man has to overcome the eight categories of pride: pride of physical prowess, material wealth, scholarship, beauty, powers and others. God’s grace is needed to conquer these evil traits because they have such a powerful hold over man. When you wish to overcome a powerful enemy, you have to get the help of someone more powerful than your enemy. To overcome the power of Maya (the delusion which subjects man to the physical and the sensuous) man has to seek the grace of the Divine. Only the Divine (Madhava) is more powerful than Maya. (SS June 87, pp. 151-152)
Narada wanted to teach Satyabhama the supreme greatness of some human qualities of which she was not aware. He brought about a situation in which Krishna was to be weighed in a balance and reacquired by Satyabhama by offerings in the other balance. All her jewels and wealth could not tilt the balance in her favour. Ultimately she prayed to Rukmini to come to her rescue.Rukmini came, prayed to Krishna, saying that ‘if it is true that God submits himself to a devotee who offers with love a leaf, a flower, fruit or some water, let my thulasi leaf turn the scales against Krishna.’
The esoteric meaning of this prayer is that the body should be considered as a leaf, the heart as a flower, virtue as fruit and the tears of joy flowing from the devotee’s eyes as the water offered to the Divine in a spirit of complete surrender. Tears should be shed only for God and not for anyone else. Whatever one’s grief one should not shed tears. Tears may flow out of joy or enthusiasm or ecstasy, but not from a feeling of sorrow.
Narada enacted the entire scene to demonstrate to Satyabhama what glorious qualities Rukmini possessed and the greatness of her devotion. He told Satyabhama: ‘The Lord will not succumb to wealth. He will yield only to goodness. Rukmini is a supremely good woman. Follow her example.’ In this manner, Narada humbled Satyabhama’s pride. (SSS Vol.28, pp. 113-114)
One day, the sage Yajnavalkya came to Vaisampayana’s gurukula. Yajnavalkya was a brilliant intellectual with keen intelligence. Yajnavalkya was proud about his intellectual attainments and this was responsible for his downfall. Pride always goeth before a fall. Yajnavalkya developed indifference to his studies and started behaving in an unbecoming manner. Vaisampaymana was noticing all this. The preceptors of those times would give even their lives for deserving disciples, but would give no quarter to those who were proud and ill-behaved. Displeased with Yajnavalkya’s conduct, Vaisampayana called him to his presence one day and told him: ‘Yajnavalkya! You have no right any longer to study in this gurukula. You must leave it at once. And before leaving, you give back all that you learnt here.’ Yajnavalkya, who realised his mistakes, disgorged all that he had learnt. The vomit was eaten by the Thithiri birds. Then the birds began to recite the Vedic hymns, which came to be known as Taittiriya Samhita. (SSS Vol.23, pp. 188-189)
When wealth increases, pride grows;
When pride grows, bad qualities grow;
If wealth is limited, pride is controlled;
If pride is controlled, the bad qualities would leave.
(SSB 1996, p. 121)