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Please note that the text below was written by the feeling-being ‘Peter’ while ‘he’ lived in a pragmatic
(methodological), still-in-control/same-way-of-being Virtual Freedom before becoming actually free. |
Pride
Pride: The quality of having a high, esp. an
excessively high, opinion of one’s own worth or importance; inordinate self-esteem. A consciousness of what befits, is due to, or is worthy
of oneself or one’s position; self-respect. Oxford Dictionary
Peter: Good old pride! Instilled in us as a value from childhood, one is
taught to be proud to be ‘me’, proud of winning, achieving, possessing, fighting, etc. – the more the better. One is first endowed with a
social identity to be a fit member and participant in the ‘human race’ and then encouraged to be proud of this ‘self ‘despite the fact
that one had nothing to do with it in the first place. One had no choice in the matter at all. One was fettered by nurture to be who you think
you are and fated by nature to be an instinctually passionate being – who you feel yourself to be. To be taught to feel pride in this ‘self’
only locks one into misery, resentment and despair. Pride’s partner in the affectation stakes is called humility, a value taught to balance
the excesses of pride for one is always taught to ‘not too uppity’. The religious and spiritual people in particular place great value and
emphasis on being humble – so much so that they are very proud of being humble There is none so proud or self-righteous as the spiritually
humble, those of the ‘I am more surrendered and more humble than you’-fame.
Pride has been the trap for genuine seekers of freedom since time immemorial, as
the only path to date has involved devoutly and proudly practicing humility and bowing, scraping and surrendering to some fictitious god (or
his earthly representative). Pride has to be seen for what it is – a demand for recognition and validation of one’s identity and a refusal
to be exposed as the fake and fraud one knows oneself to be deep down inside. As a feeling it is but an ultimately futile attempt to masks one’s
deep fears and insecurities with the continuous need for praise from others.
The only ‘success’ that one can have in the spurious spiritual search for
freedom comes when one realizes that one is indeed God on Earth and can convince others that this is the case – one then gets one’s
ultimate reward for surrender and sacrifice – to be praised and worshipped by others for being so humble as to declare oneself to be God! T’is
a very weird business, this Guru worshipping. The gilded promise of an after-life has forever stifled intelligence and common sense.
In journeying on this new path to freedom, pride is one of the major stumbling
blocks as an actual freedom lies 180 degrees in the opposite direction to the tried and failed concepts. The path to freedom involves the
demolition of one’s feeling of pride – and humility – as one recognizes that everything one has believed or held dear is nothing but an
elaborate fairy-story taught from birth and given false credence by Ancient ‘Goobly-Gook’. To admit you have been hoodwinked – and
willingly at that – is such a blow to one’s pride that the few people who get a whiff of the consequences usually turn away to re-run the
‘tried and failed’ yet again.
The definition of a lunatic is someone who proudly continues to do the same thing, again and again
and again, despite the fact that it doesn’t work.
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