Humility in My Soul-Journ

by Ariel Michael

     Of the ten principles that Jesus gave me, being truly humble, in my opinion, is one of the hardest to achieve. On October 4, 2008, Jesus said:

You must always be humble. Do not think yourself better than anyone else. You are only one part of God. You’re not any more or any greater than another individual.

     It was interesting that he listed this first. He would speak many times about the importance of being humble. On August 8, 2009, Jesus gave a whole teaching on the subject:

When one is humble, one is connected to all beings. To be humble, one must not ask of anything in return. One should not seek reward for good deeds they have done, but instead give merely for the act of giving and not to receive any prize for doing so. To be humble means not to put yourself above anyone else and must be not very wealthy and must be at the lowest possible level of social stature. For if you consider yourself equal to those who are unfortunate or seem to have none, then you do not put yourself above anyone because you are now considered the lowest. 

    In this teaching and others, Jesus speaks about the idea that one must be willing to share and give to others. At the time, I didn’t understand this reference to wealth and social stature. Later through other teachings, Jesus said that when we are more fortunate, we should share more, give more. Jesus said:

The sad fact about society is that some people that do not have a lot and are very poor, they tend to give more of themselves maybe not in a monetary value but through their kindness, work, and time than those who are wealthy and have all of this success.

     For many of us with our fast-paced, technology-driven, and materialistic lifestyles, we often forget to live with this humility and give to our fellow neighbors. Many of us want to spend our paychecks on the latest gadgets and luxuries of life when instead we could give that extra cash to those in more need of money and the basics of life.

     On Jan 24, 2009 in one of his first teachings to me, Buddha said:

One should also not desire too much. One should only have the means of what they need to fulfill life’s natural functions. Only the necessities of life and survival such as food, water, shelter also, but that can be a luxury sometimes. . .

     Furthermore, he went on to say:

They want to achieve the most they can. But, when they do this, they hurt themselves because they’re not giving. And because they seek so much, they do not care for others; they do not show kindness.

     For many of us, living a humble life doesn’t necessarily make you humble. Sometimes when we live in poorer conditions or might not have necessities we want, we become self-centered in our desires to obtain more, thus are uncaring to those around us. We forget that true humility is not just living a humble life but also having a humble heart and spirit. When we have that humility, we reach out to others and help them from the kindness of our hearts. We care for their suffering because we have experienced this ourselves. It is much harder to learn humility while wealthy and getting everything we want. Jesus would speak of this humility of heart:

When we truly give, we will give more of ourselves and hold ourselves to a lower state of being.

     Furthermore, Jesus would say that we cannot be too prideful because when one is too prideful, they can lose sight of what matters—other people’s needs instead of your own selfish ego and desires. Jesus reminds: 

The most humble of heroes is one who does their deeds without ever being acknowledged for them, who is kind and caring and noble, but no one ever knows. That is a true hero, and all of us want to be that hero, so even if you make noble acts, remember that the true hero would keep them to themselves.   

     There are many facets to humility like not being boastful, or too prideful, or too self-centered in our needs. These all seem obvious. Yet, remembering to put all this into practice is difficult.

     So, in conclusion, humility therefore is less of the self and our desires and more of fulfilling the needs of others in their own spiritual journey. May we all take this into our hearts and apply this to our daily life, a life led with humility.

                                                                            —30—

If you are interested in ten spiritual principles that Jesus gave me, visit my website.

Ariel MIchael will have a regular column in The New Era Times entitled My Soul-Journ where she is hoping to reach young adults and children of all ages who feel they have gifts from God.