What is pride and how does it function? How can we stop struggling? A podcast from Satsang with Shambhavi.
first words from the podcast
When we come to the teachings for the first time – any teachings, any tradition where we’re asked to actually practice – we come with the best of intentions. And if we stick around, and keep practicing, keep studying, keep hanging out with teachers and communities, then very soon we’re going to come up against something that we don’t want to change, something that we don’t want to give up, something that we don’t want to be seen. And in our culture, normally that first thing – and the second, and the third, and the fourth things – that we don’t want to give up, don’t want to have seen, don’t want our teacher messing with, we don’t even want our practice to mess with it sometimes. We can get to a point in our practice where something starts to deepen and relax and then we pull back, because we realize, oh no, I didn’t know I was going down that slippery slope, forget it. So we come up against these walls, and usually the first wall we come up against, and the second and the third, is something to do with pride.
So, pride, what is it? I talk a lot about it, because it’s so rampant in our culture. It’s the most viral thing in our culture. Pride is when you have the concept that something has to be admired or approved of by other people in order for you to feel good about yourself. So you have this very embodied idea – and when I say embodied, I mean it’s not just a thought. It’s a habit of body, energy, and mind – a deep habit, a deep samskara – where you have the conviction in you that in order to feel good about yourself, to feel your own value, then you have to be admired or thought well of by other people for something particular.
