A King’s humility

Compete for virtues not vice

Not a day passes without some form of violence and death in the world. Man is killing his fellow men for trivial reasons. They give all sorts of excuses for justifying their crime against humanity. Some say they are doing these for self-defense, others to fight terrorism and some to avenge the death of fellow members in the name of God. It is so depressing and there appears to be no solution in sight. Why is man doing this?

In reflecting on the reasons for this violence, I came across a short story taken from Illumination-Experiences on Indian Soil by Sri Chinmoy which gives some insight into the aggressive behavior of man towards his own human race. I would like to share this thought provoking story which goes like this.

One day a sage came to a King for an interview. The sage had to wait for a long time because the King was very busy. Finally, the King said he could come in.

When the sage entered the hall, the first thing he did was to take off his hat and bow to the King. Immediately the King took off his crown and bowed to the sage. The ministers and others who were around the King asked, "What are you doing? He took off his hat because he is an ordinary man. But you are the King. Why should you have to take off your crown?"

The King said to his ministers, "You fools, do you think I wish to remain inferior to an ordinary man? He is humble and modest. His humility is a peerless virtue'. He showed his respect to me. If I did not take off my crown, then I would be showing less humility than an ordinary man, and I would be defeated by him. If I am the King, I should be better than everybody in everything. That is why I took off my crown and bowed to him!”

Moral of the story

In a world that is so materialistic, accumulation of wealth and power have become the sole ambitions of man. We are prepared to employ whatever means available to achieve that ambition of ours. In this quest for wealth all ethics and moral values become irrelevant.
As a result it is becoming an accepted norm in today’s world to compete for vice rather than virtues. We often compete with one another for the wrong reasons like acquiring of wealth, power, position, glamour and superiority.
All religions teach us humility but it is virtue that we all lack terribly. It would be better for us to compete with one another for humility and love. If only we do these our society will be a better place.

Dr.Chris Anthony