Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Humility : Knowledge Gives Humility

“We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility.” – Rabindranath Tagore

All of us who are following the current campaign trail of the election in progress can’t miss one particular trait dominating the proceedings – verbal assault and slurring of leaders of other parties. I observed the same trend during the last few times USA went to election as well (By the way, I have followed these two elections out of my interest with a glimmer of hope of these two counties will usher large scale sweeping changes to the world systems). While there was a glimpse of hope that sanity would prevail when the leaders of three leading parties initiated a discussion thread on a common platform to shun such practices, nothing materialized in reality. Taking a cue from their leaders, the local and regional leaders have gone a step further and are resorting to more heinous crimes of communal violence, loot, arson leading to a tension ridden community. All these stem from a perceived notion that arrogance is synonymous with power while humility is being meek and weak.

We, as a citizen of the world order, are on the verge of forgetting to realize the essence of humility, honesty and humbleness. Humility, as a novel quality, allows one to accept other people’s greatness and achievements humbly with an open heart and an extended hand lent to take the torch further.  A person as an individual and as part of a society, having strength of character supported with physical and mental power, is revered by one and all when humility and modesty defines his actions. When the negative traits like rage and hatred are pushed out by virtue of these values, it enhances the overall harmony of a prosperous society and a nation.


Today, however, everyone and everything kneels down to who can be more obnoxiously arrogant in demanding things for their interest. Arrogance of power and knowledge are leading to temporary highs and imbues a sense of reverence out of fear, not loved and cared for by fellow citizens of the society. All these are very disturbing signs of a decaying system. If we fail to bring back these basic human qualities to be imbibed by our future generation, the future of all the nations will lie in immature hands.

13 comments:

  1. We're in the lead-up to elections in South Africa and of course, accusations of corruption, failure, lack of performance, racism, lying are rife. It's like politicians can't be respectfully disagree anymore.

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  2. Well written . Hatred,negativity and arrogance can never bring success in life.

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  3. I think leaders need to be firm in pushing their point of view and presenting it with confidence and clarity. Un-necessary humility can also be a disadvantage in a field like politics, and especially around election time which, at the end of the day, is about convincing the public at large as to why they should vote for a particular candidate. But yes, I agree with you completely that un-necessary attacks on the opposition leaders and faulty accusations and negative arrogance are un-healthy for any democratic process. I also agree with you that both US and India will have a much greater role to play in the world's future, provided they figure out first what role they want to play :) US can't keep up its bullying role, and India shouldn't try to be like any other Western country!

    Beauty Interprets, Expresses, Manifests the Eternal

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  4. So true. The arrogance, the mud slinging, verbal assault in politics is getting from worse to worst! It is really sad that the goodness and the humility is crushed mercilessly.

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  5. It is such a sad state of affairs. The mud slinging, verbal assaults are a common occurrences in politics now-a-days and humility is a sign of weakness and is crushed always!

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  6. True, often humility is taken as a sign of weakness and the person is judged based on that.
    Ishithaa

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  7. Humility is really great. Nice that you have shared on this topic :)

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  8. It annoys me when politicians get too busy hammering on each other instead on focusing on presenting their politic.. Wherever it is. It clouds up the important issues and makes a circus out of it. As always interesting see your view, Jayanta. Thanks :-)

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  9. If only we find a bunch of humble and honest politicians.... seems like a distant dream.

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  10. Knowledge gives humility. I liked the caption most.

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  11. Vidya dadaati Vinayam !! A well written, insightful article, this is !! :)

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  12. Knowledge SHOULD impart humility...but in today's world I often find the opposite..

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