So much early-stage spiritual work ends up focused on the elimination of negativity and negative states. I’ve used the metaphor of cleaning a messy room before — before you can focus on making things beautiful again, you have to throw out all the garbage.
On Lester Levenson’s “AGFLAP” chart of negative emotions, this “spring cleaning” process tends to deal with the “AGFLA” — the apathy, grief, fear, lust, and anger. When we think of “negative” states or emotions, those are usually the ones we’re referencing.
But, obviously, if we’re to do away with AGFLAP completely, we still have one more letter to deal with: the P of Pride.
Pride is interesting, as it doesn’t directly present as something negative. At least, it doesn’t always. Sure, we can all relate to apparently “negative” forms of pride, like refusing to forgive a friend who wronged you because you are too proud to let their trespass fly, but that isn’t pride’s only incarnation. There are other forms of pride, too, that actually feel somewhat pleasant.
Herein lies the problem: Pride is an energetic, emotional state and one that won’t necessarily feel bad while you’re experiencing it, but nevertheless is always destructive. And as such, pride ends up being the most destructive of all emotional states and the biggest barrier to true spiritual growth.
Luckily, though, once we understand this, we can move past pride and accelerate our progress immensely.
Before we dive any deeper, allow me to be the first to admit that pride can be very difficult to move beyond. Or, rather, pride can appear very difficult to move beyond (and we’ll cover why momentarily).
I rarely am faced with the more negative states on the AGFLAP chart; I rarely find myself intensely apathetic, grief-stricken, fearful, lustful, or angry. But I often am forced to confront and deal with my own pride. In fact, half of the reason I’ve chosen to write this essay is because, in addition to sharing my thoughts on the subject with you all, I feel compelled to address my own issues regarding pride more directly. My pride tells me that I’m less prideful than most and, thus, that there’s not really any reason to explain my own struggles with pridefulness. And right there, I think we can see the issue with all this.
Pride has a very unique quality in that it negates and defends itself; the unwillingness to let go of your pride is, itself, built into your pride. So, essentially, your pride tells you that you don’t need to rid yourself of it.
This is a quality that all emotions have to some extent. As a general rule, emotions perpetuate themselves — apathy encourages the apathetic person to remain apathetic; it cautions them as to the consequences of rising above apathy. Anger encourages the angry person to remain angry. And so on.
But letting go or releasing our negative states of consciousness is a process that requires two things: a recognition of the imperfectness of our current way of being and a willingness to change our way of being for the better (by releasing). It’s because of this that pride becomes the arch-enemy of the releasing process and the spiritual path more generally.
Pride is the emotion that tells you, “There’s nothing wrong with my way of being, and I don’t need to change it.” As previously noted, this can manifest negatively (“Why should I forgive her? She’s the one who messed up, and I didn’t do anything wrong”) but also seemingly positively (“Wow, I’m making such great spiritual progress. I really know what I’m doing now and have most of this figured out!”).
Those second, seemingly positive instances of pride are dangerous because they credit spiritual successes to the limited person or ego. When we are prideful in that way, we are focused on I, the person, and how great or successful it is. We claim credit for our own progress in all things.
For someone in a lower state, this is not a bad thing. I’d much rather you be proud of your own progress in overcoming negative emotions than be self-defeating and sad. But if you really want to launch into the higher states of being, eventually, pride must be let go of just like every other “negative” state. If it is not, you will inevitably find yourself humbled by some unexpected situation — and this humbling process runs the risk of catapulting you back into the lowest states of apathy and grief when you’re made to feel stupid about how highly you’d been thinking of yourself.
With all of this in mind, how can we more effectively approach and overcome our pride, especially given that it’s so good at negating itself?
In my experience, the most effective way to handle pride is to recommit yourself to letting go of it every day. Other emotions we can release once in a big chunk and then never think about again. But pride has to be dealt with one day at a time.
This might seem daunting, but it only takes a few seconds to recommit every morning when you wake up. All you have to do is say to yourself, “Today I am going to recognize my own faults and work to let them go.”
That’s so simple and easy, but will do wonders in resetting your mentality each day. You’ll avoid falling into a pattern where you feel like you know it all and that your work is finished.
Another way to address pride is to commit daily to acting for the sake of others. Whatever it is you do, you can do it with the intention of serving yourself or of serving others. If you’re a student, instead of getting up in the morning and studying so that you can pass your tests and feel good about yourself, get up and say, “I’m going to learn today so that I can help someone else tomorrow.” If you work in an office, don’t show up with the intention of just getting through the day and cashing another paycheck — say to yourself, “Today I’ll have the opportunity to help someone else have a better day. Maybe a coworker who is struggling, maybe a client who comes to me for help, maybe someone else. But no matter who it is, I will not miss my opportunity to be of service to the world.”
The magical thing about this way of thinking is that when your intention is to serve others, you end up serving yourself better than if you set out with personal gain in mind from the start. People who want to help the world before they help themselves always end up happier and more abundant than anyone else. They go on to do great things because they don’t get tripped up on pride as easily as others do.
Pride is the biggest stumbling block you’ll face on your journey to higher and higher states. Start dealing with it today. As always, good luck, and I’ll leave you with a quote from the Orthodox Saint Moses.
“You fast, but Satan does not eat. You labor fervently, but Satan never sleeps. The only dimension with which you can outperform Satan is by acquiring humility, for Satan has no humility.”