Taming the pride

In my previous post – "Main or May", I started a thought on the pride. Pride can come to a person in many forms – overconfidence being one of them and probably the most destructive too. Pride is a great feeling to have and is a great asset if in moderated quantity. Being a necessary evil, it helps one to move forward and overcome the inherent fear of failure, and at the same time, creates a path for self-destruction through complacency and too much of confidence on self or other. Pride comes with the sense of belonging and ownership. However, the nature makes no such claim. This is a human mind construct and creates boundaries.
We have all seen both the benefits and the destruction caused by pride. Let's see the symbolism of the same as seen in our scriptures!
Who better to kill pride or tame the feeling than Lord Shiva. Shiva took the form of "Bhairava" as a young child devoid of all the emotions of ownership and pride. Bhairava is always accompanied with a dog. A dog is a faithful companion of its owner. One would have noticed that the dog never walks away from the owner and strives for the owner's love. The dog wags its tail when it needs to be loved or petted and barks when it needs attention. Bhairava's dog is a parallel to human pride. The more you pet it, the stronger it grows. And like it or not, it always follows you. Bhairava, however is unmoved by the dog. The scriptures also represent the innocent looking Bhairava with a severed head in his hand. The severed head belongs to Brahma (Brahma's fifth head) which was severed to curb his pride.
History is full of examples where the great achievers became great losers just because they let their pride take over themselves. One must realize that we are all mere actors in the nature fulfilling our part in the grand scheme. If we do achieve something today, someone else shall be able to do the same sometime later or someone would have done so many times in the past.
Indra – the king of gods, was very happy with his arrangements and his rule. He had built the most amazing palace in the heaven and had all the very best apsaras in his court. This filled him with pride. The pride grew so much that he forgot all the steps required to keep heaven in shape and move forward. To make him realize, Vishnu took form of a small child and visited hi palace. Indra, the proud guide to his riches asked the child at the end of the tour – "how do you like my palace? Isn't it great". The child answered – "Yes. Definitely it is. But probably, the earlier Indra's were better". This made Indra realize that he too is part of the nature and the pride could be his destruction too.
Pride is a great motivation. Use it with caution!