THE GRAIN AND THE CHAFF

There are some who appear to be humble and there are those who truly are. Humility for the former is an affectation while for the latter it is obliteration of the lower self. Self-effacement shines in its own grandeur, free and unfettered, and beholds all of sentience in the light of the divine sameness. Such humility which is the absence of a conspicuous consciousness of the lower self is a feature of the human personality that is eloquent in its silence and is the hallmark of the truly great who behold the divine in all. Their reverence for all and sundry bespeaks of their inner illumination even though they remain unaware of their own specific attitudinal attainments. But such are the real renunciates whose very presence breathes holiness into the atmosphere, whose lives of sparkling purity kindle many a flame of the latent divinity in man and whose benediction free, flows for all irrespective of rational adjustments to view the worth of the recipient to be. Such men are rare and spiritual vanity is what covers the consciousness of most even as they go about the business of God with an assumed air of superior spirituality. However, appearance is one and reality quite another, and people are able to sift and separate the grain from the chaff sooner or later and the ones with genuine spiritual perception stand out in the sunshine of life shedding lustre on all who chance to come within their ambit. This is the eternal law of life, that the selfless, the sincere, the unpretentious and the honest endure while the pretentious perish by their selfish designs no matter how perniciously they may pervert the public for the while. Truth ever triumphs in the end for the very end of life is bound in truth and is freed by it. The sacrilege of pretentious piety, affected humility and deliberate devotion with selfishness as the cornerstone of all endeavour is a self-defeating exercise and flounders in folly. So, let us sacrifice such selfishness in the altar of the Divine and rebuild our lives on the basis of whatever is thereafter left of us. Then shall we be devotees divine, dedicated to the well-being of ourselves in all that animates this terrestrial terrain. Jai Ramakrishna, for he is all that I have and all that I have to offer!