on humility

an excerpt from the byron katie book i finished recently. while some of her thoughts are a little challenging for me to grasp at present, i do appreciate most. i often like to think that humility is that force that will get us out of every storm.

All streams flow to the sea
because it is lower than they are.
Humility gives it its power.

The material world is a metaphor of mind. Mind rises into its projections and must eventually come back to itself, just as streams flow back to the sea. No matter how brilliant the mind, no matter how large the ego that takes credit for its actions, when it comes to see that it doesn't know anything, that it can't know anything, it flows back to the origin and meets itself again, in all humility.

Once you realize what is true, everything flows to you, because you have become the living example of humility. The mind realized is content to stay in the lowest, least creative position. Out of that, everything is created. The lowest place is the highest place.

...

Humility is our natural response to seeing what's true about ourselves. When we judge others and question that judgment, then turn around to ourselves, that is the fire and the purification. Our knees buckle, and we learn how sweet it is to lose - how that is the winning. ... Some people call it forgiveness. I call it sanity.