Among the obstacles of the inner path there is one that is particularly insidious, because it feeds on the very progress achieved. It is spiritual pride: the tendency to feel superior because of one's search, one's practices, one's experiences. The traditions have always considered it more dangerous than the coarse vices, because it disguises itself as virtue.
The Pharisee and the tax collector
In the Gospel of Luke there is a parable that describes this dynamic precisely. Two men go up to the temple to pray. The first, a Pharisee, gives thanks that he is not like others and lists his practices: he fasts, he pays tithes. The second, a tax collector, stands at a distance and asks only for mercy. It is the second, the story concludes, who goes home justified.
The Pharisee is not lying: his practices are real. His mistake is to use his spirituality to measure himself against others and feel better than them. Practice has become a mirror in which the ego admires itself.
Spiritual materialism
In the twentieth century the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa coined the expression "spiritual materialism" to describe a similar phenomenon. The ego, he said, can appropriate anything, even spirituality, turning teachings, experiences and practices into new possessions to be accumulated.
One collects initiations, piles up readings, recounts extraordinary experiences: everything becomes a way to reinforce identity rather than transcend it. It is a risk that concerns anyone who undertakes a serious search.
Signs of spiritual pride
Spiritual pride is hard to recognise in oneself precisely because it appears in noble forms. A few recurring signs can help:
- judging others as less evolved, less aware, "asleep";
- talking often about one's spiritual experiences, seeking admiration;
- looking down on ordinary people and their everyday concerns;
- considering oneself above the ordinary rules of behaviour;
- refusing correction, because one feels one has already arrived;
- using spiritual language to avoid facing one's own limits.
A frequent example: someone who, having begun a path, looks down on family and friends, considering them incapable of understanding. At that moment the path, instead of opening, has closed.
What humility is not
The remedy indicated by the traditions is humility. But this word too needs clarifying, because it is often misunderstood.
- It is not self-contempt. Constantly devaluing oneself is another form of focusing on the self.
- It is not false modesty. Denying one's talents in order to receive compliments is pride in disguise.
- It is not passivity. The humble person does not give up acting, but acts without pretensions to greatness.
- It is not blind submission. Humility does not exclude discernment and the ability to say no.
What humility is
The word humility comes from the Latin humus, earth. To be humble means to be rooted in reality, to know one's measure: neither greater nor smaller than one is.
Teresa of Ávila said that humility is walking in truth. It is an illuminating definition: humility is not an emotion, but an honest relationship with the reality of oneself, with one's gifts and one's limits.
In the tradition of the desert fathers, humility was considered the virtue that protects all the others. One saying tells of a monk who, seeing the enemy's snares spread over the whole earth, asked who could escape them, and was told: humility.
Cultivating humility without making it a trophy
The paradox is that humility cannot be possessed: whoever believes they are humble has already stopped being so. One can, however, cultivate favourable ground:
- Remember where you come from, and how much you have received from others.
- Learn from anyone, even from those who seem less experienced.
- Serve in hidden ways, without anyone knowing.
- Accept mistakes as a normal part of the path.
- Laugh at yourself: humour is a powerful antidote to self-satisfaction.
The traditions also recall that spiritual pride is not defeated by the effort to feel humble, but by truthfulness about facts: acknowledging a concrete mistake, apologising, accepting that you do not know. These are small gestures, but they dismantle the image the ego builds of itself.
Studio Esoterico Cornelio considers humility the most reliable sign of an authentic path: the further one goes, the more one recognises how much remains to be travelled.
In short
- Spiritual pride feeds on progress and disguises itself as virtue.
- The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector shows how practice can become a mirror for the ego.
- Spiritual materialism turns teachings and experiences into new possessions.
- Humility is neither self-contempt nor false modesty, but walking in truth.
- Humility cannot be possessed: one cultivates the ground in which it can grow.