Art by Greg Spalenka
Pride is one of the 7 classical deadly sins. Sin is translated from the Greek hamartia which means “to miss the mark”, it is the fatal or tragic flaw that brings about a person’s downfall.
“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
-Proverbs 16:18
Why is this, what is so bad or sinful or problematic about pride? Doesn’t it have something to do with healthy self-esteem, confidence, and positive self-regard?
Pride is selfishly oriented
Pride is a fundamental orientation tward the self and away from God, the divine inner Being.
Pride is sometimes identified as the original sin (tied with lust or desire) which precipitated teh fall of mankind from the garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve were tempted to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, it was so they might “become like God.”
Therefore, it is almost impossible to really observe pride and the suffering that it causes without some kind of intervention. This can be a spiritual inquietude, a uneasy nagging in our heart that drives us to question our constant self-motivated actions.
Sometimes a particular crisis shocks us out of the dull hypnosis of pride- the loss of someone or something dear to us, an unavoidable confrontation with reality, with mortality, with impermanence.
An experience of faith, of divine hope, of true love, inner peace. These can shake us out of the psychological baseline of pride long enough to realize there is more to life than ourselves and our own desires, preferences, likes, dislikes etc.
Pride has its own rules
We can start to observe pride in the way that it wheels and deals to create its own kingdom, its own little world with itself at the center.
Pride says “I treated you nicely, now you have to treat me nicely. Here is a gift for you, now where is my gift? Don’t you understand? These are the rules, they are perfectly fair, you just have to follow them to be in my kingdom.”
Pride wants to be acknowledged, to be honored, to be praised, to be helpd in high esteem.
When all is going well, when those around us (our “subjects”, or sometimes the extras in the movie of us starring us) follow the rules set out by our pride, everything can feel like it’s going rather smoothly. The problem of course is that this is not how life works. Eventually one of the move extras will not follow the rules and expectations set out by our ego of pride and pride will react with feeling offended, betrayed, hurt, angry.
When we think of ourselves as a nice person but fall into despair or start planning vengeance when someone is not nice to us, then there is a glimpse of this monster of pride.
Wounded pride can be aggressive, or passive-aggressive. If we never separate from and wake up out of the ego of pride, we are doomed to miserabkly try to control those around us in an attempt to feel soothed that everyone feels we are an honorable and upstanding person.
Managing pride wastes a lot of energy; faith restores our energy
If all of this drama caused by pride sounds exhausting, it is.
The work of maintaining this false sense of self takes up tremendous mental, emotional, and vital energy that could be directed toward a spiritual work.
Pride is never at peace. Pride believes peace is only possible after it has controlled every last external variable, and even then it will never be able to rest.
Faith is one of the remedies for pride. Faith means we step into the realm we cannot control. It means facing the reality of impermanence in life and death and letting go. Faith requires, and gives, inner strength, a deep well of inner peace, spiritual stamina, courage, and fortitude.
Faith gives us spiritual confidence and clarity; pride is a poor imitation
The ego of pride is an endless treadmill of effort to maintain a strong and positive sense of self. But it is rooted in that which is impermanent and false.
We all want to feel confident and clear within ourselves. This comes with self knowledge and the spiritual discipline to renounce pride and seek true peace within the heart of our own inner Being.