Question: Important Question for all of us: I am puffed up with vanity and I have not done anything that is important. But I think I am important but nobody else thinks I am. How can I become humble?

Srila Gurudev: You remember the teachings of Sridhar Deva Goswami Maharaj. I heard it from our most revered Gurudev. Our Gurudev was well connected with our Shiksha guru Sridhar Deva Goswami Maharaj and they used to go to preaching in several places. Now, in one place in Madras, Sridhar Deva Goswami Maharaj was made president and Dr. Nagaraj Sharma was made chief-guest. All devotees there prayed to Sridhar Deva Maharaj to take the chair of the president. Then he expressed his humbleness saying, “I have got no capacity to do this. As you have ordered me, I am taking it as the order of Vaishnavas”. In this way he expressed his humbleness for some time.

After that our Nagaraj Sharma started speaking. In his speech he attacked Sridhar Deva Maharaj. By this humbleness, we cannot get enhancement, we cannot do, we shall go to hell, all these ways. Ultimately when Sridhar Deva Goswami Maharaj gave his presidential address there he said, “Who will have humbleness? When you see superior.” A man who has got one thousand pounds, if he sees a man with million pounds, will he be humble to him? He will be humble to him automatically. I have got a thousand and he has million. But if he is seeing a person with only one hundred, externally he may show I am nothing, but inwardly will think I have 10 times more. When we see inferior things we think we are superior. When we see superior, then we become humble. Highest object of worship is Supreme Lord Sri Krishna and His absolute counterpart and when you come in contact with him always you shall have humbleness. So all the devotees, they are always submitting prayers and are expressing their humbleness, why? Even Kaviraja Goswami says,

jagāi mādhāi haite mui se pāpiṣṭha
purīṣera kīṭa haite mui se laghiṣṭha
mora nāma śune yei tāra puṇya kṣaya
mora nāma laya yei tāra pāpa haya
emana nirghṛṇa more kebā kṛpā kare
eka nityānanda binu jagat bhitare
(Chaitanya Charitamrita Adi-lila 5.205-207)

“I am inferior than the worm in the faeces, stool.” He has written the holy life and precepts of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. He has got the contact with Krishna, the Supreme Lord. He has got the grace of Nityananda Prabhu and contact with Gauranga Mahaprabhu. So humbleness automatically comes. He says, “I am more sinner than Jagai and Madhai; those persons who utter my name they commit sin; those persons who hear my name their virtues will be finished.”

In this way the humbleness will come when you see the superior person before you. And when your vision is that you know more than another person, other person is inferior to you, then humbleness cannot come. Automatically all the devotees have got humbleness. The highest devotee they see everything all this sthāvara jaṅgama, this mobile immobile all things are connected; all are serving directly or indirectly. They have got that sort of good vision, darshan. I am doing nothing, everybody is serving directly or indirectly. That is the highest Vaishnava. He gives respect to all. They see all are directly related.

Hiranyakashipu also is increasing the glories of Prahlad and Nrasimha Deva in another way. They see like that. I am insignificant, I am not doing anything, everybody is serving. The third category in devotees is kaniṣṭha bhāgavat who has got one qualification. He has the faith that Supreme Lord is one. He serves Him. But he has got no actual knowledge of Him; his conception of God is wrong. God cannot be without His devotees. Kaniṣṭha bhāgavat has no aptitude to serve devotees or to serve any demigods; he serves Supreme Lord only. He has got great respect for Supreme Lord. He has that quality but that is incomplete. He has not transcended this mundane domain. The devotees who come in between uttam bhāgavat and kaniṣṭha bhāgavat are madhyam bhāgavat who serve both, Supreme Lord and Vaishnavas. They have love for Krishna, Supreme Lord, their object of worship; they serve the devotees. They shower grace upon those who are sincere but are ignorant. They avoid to associate with those who are hostile with them. Sometime uttam bhāgavat enacts the pastimes of madhyam bhāgavat and preach. But uttam bhāgavat, in their whole holy position, they see everything is well connected with Supreme Lord. They cannot preach to others.