Subtle Form Of Ahankar?

[SevaSimranSacrifice]

If a good friend of mine acted in the same way as me, I wouldn’t condemn her. So, why do I condemn myself and feel guilty for the very same thing?

People are more compassionate and understanding when their friends do the wrong thing than they are towards themselves, when they act in the self-same way. Why is this? When your friend commits a sin, and you do not condemn her behaviour, you have a different attitude towards her than you have towards yourself when you do the same thing. Thus, you believe that while it may have been desirable for your friend not to have acted badly, she is not a bad person for so doing. However, when you act in exactly the same way you believe that there is a law of the universe that states that you absolutely should not have done what you did and that you are a bad person as a result. In short, you have a non-demanding attitude towards your friend and accept her as a fallible human being who can do and has done the wrong thing. However, you have a demanding attitude towards yourself and you refuse to acknowledge that you are a fallible human being who has acted wrongfully.

If you inspect closely this different set of beliefs, you will discover an interesting point. What you are saying about your friend is that she is a fallible human being who is allowed to make mistakes, but that you should be super-human and not make the same mistakes. In a sense, you are treating yourself as if you are god-like. Failing to achieve your god-like status, you then consider that you are a devil – literally a bad person who absolutely should not have acted in the human manner that you did. By doing this you completely overlook the fact that ‘to sin is human, to forgive yourself, divine.’

Thus, when you are compassionate towards your friend, you are treating her as a fallible human being who has done the wrong thing. When you fail to show compassion towards yourself, you are demanding that you should be above human fallibility and if you are not above fallibility, I.e. god-like, you are below fallibility, I.e. wicked and bad. Thus, to show yourself the same level of compassion as you do your friend, you need to challenge the idea that you must be godlike and you need to accept yourself as a fallible human being, equal in humanity with all other humans.

[Azaad]

:goodpost:

[Papi]

Interesting...