Struggling with humbleness, any advice is highly wanted

[Ampresus]

Hello everyone. From the many things I have seen here and have tried to understand, I can't understand humbleness. To give you a better explanation, you should know that I think that I just got out of Blue.

I used to be a full sunni muslim who only bows down for the one and only true Allah and no one else. I still have this this belief in my life after many years and don't know what is good about dropping this belief. I don't understand humbleness. You are supposed to lower yourself to... a human? Or another kind of god? What do spiritual teachers mean when they say: ''Be humble''? Literally am I supposed to bow down to them? As you can see, I am struggling with this phenomenon.

I only learnt how to bow down to Allah and no one else. No, one, else. I can't see why I should do that now, why I should humiliate myself like that. Why should I go so low? It is basically disrespectful to myself really.

Maybe I got it all wrong and everyone who said ''be humble'' meant something completely different than what I think they meant. If so, please correct me.

Take care.

 

[Sahil Pandit]

@Ampresus Are you familiar with the work of Shaykh Hamza Yusuf? 

[Ampresus]

@Sahil Pandit No I have never heard of that name.

[Sahil Pandit]

@Ampresus He has some amazing lectures on various Imams of Islam. I like his teaching style, perhaps you would enjoy it too.

Since you said you're coming out of blue, i recommend studying various traditions of the world. Spend a day researching Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Sikhism. Not only study the culture, but ask, what are the commonalities in them? 

Even studying Islamic culture from different perspectives could be of great benefit to you  

Hope this helps

[bejapuskas]

@Ampresus I am dealing with that problem myself, so maybe I can help. I think that humbleness isn't just about religion and bowing. Try letting others talk more, stop taking anything personally, not even compliments, as they can make you think that you have only little to learn, which is never true, you can try to be more compassionate, there are just so many things that are connected with humbleness.  

[Ampresus]

@Sahil Pandit I have kinda ''studied'' various religions and my mom has already told me when I was younger how much similar we are to other religions (as in how similar Islam is to Judaism for example). I know I should probably study it more, but I certainly know a lot about the similarities. Thanks for the advice.

[Ampresus]

@bejapuskas What you are saying makes sense to me. Thanks for the reply man.

[Matt8800]

53 minutes ago, Ampresus said:

Hello everyone. From the many things I have seen here and have tried to understand, I can't understand humbleness. To give you a better explanation, you should know that I think that I just got out of Blue.

I used to be a full sunni muslim who only bows down for the one and only true Allah and no one else. I still have this this belief in my life after many years and don't know what is good about dropping this belief. I don't understand humbleness. You are supposed to lower yourself to... a human? Or another kind of god? What do spiritual teachers mean when they say: ''Be humble''? Literally am I supposed to bow down to them? As you can see, I am struggling with this phenomenon.

I only learnt how to bow down to Allah and no one else. No, one, else. I can't see why I should do that now, why I should humiliate myself like that. Why should I go so low? It is basically disrespectful to myself really.

Maybe I got it all wrong and everyone who said ''be humble'' meant something completely different than what I think they meant. If so, please correct me.

Take care.

 

Dont bow to another human.

Being humble means to avoid putting yourself above others. It does not mean to put yourself below others.

[zambize]

So I think humbleness can come through as a kind of a mindset, and living out a set of beliefs.  

I think a big part of humbleness is just being able to admit you don't know everything, and have a lot to learn (which you definitely check).  Another facet of humbleness to me is being willing to learn from others, and admitting others can teach you something.  This is similar to my first point, but I think it's important to consider other people's points of view, and not just your own.  Seems like you check this box.  

What I don't think humbleness is, is anything that makes you feel different than you feel.  Like if you feel like you're a smart motherfucker, then that's just how you feel or think, you don't have to try to control your thoughts or feelings to make yourself more humble, fake humbleness is a mess, it's a trap I got myself into. I made myself less conscious by kind of creating a mental block and remaining half cocked ready to take down any thought that went above the threshold of how cocky of a thought I was willing to have.  This is just repression, bad bad stuff D::

In summary, I kind of labeled what I define humbleness is, but I don't think you have to worry about forcing your humbleness or having to bow to anyone.  I think a natural humbleness kind of sets in as you realize you don't have the control that you thought you did, and maybe shouldn't be taking the credit you've been taking egoically, but I wouldn't force that humbleness.  As you grow spiritually, your thoughts may, and definitely did in my case, get extremely egoic at times, and there isn't anything wrong with that, it's not like I picked those thoughts, they just kind of chirped in.  

Anyways, best of luck, it's really nothing to worry about, just be as you as you can be right now

[Shadowraix]

3 hours ago, Matt8800 said:

Being humble means to avoid putting yourself above others. It does not mean to put yourself below others.

Pretty much this. The opposite to humble is arrogant.

When you become arrogant you tend to close yourself off from the world intellectually which stunts growth.

But do be careful about fighting arrogance with arrogance.

[Hellspeed]

This are concepts. Project the Heart and you will be fine. Different societies have different views of what humble means.

The christian west mentallity tend to have a fake humbleness. Even here on the forum people are scared and using the same patterns (better to shut up than entering conflict, better to be humble etc., and they get very annoyed when someone legit per example expose the truth in a straight manner).

At the end of the day we can argue all day about what humble is. The most important in my opinion is being humble with onself and recognize the current level each of us have, without remorse, even if someone gets offended. Better to be true to yourself than a comfort for the ignorants. 

[Zigzag Idiot]

I appreciate the refreshing honesty of people 'outing' themselves. 

Ive noted that some contrast humbleness to pride and some contrast it to vanity.

In his autobiography Benjamin Franklin despaired over controlling what he called pride and wrote that if he ever succeeded in being humble, he would probably be proud of his humility. 

 

[Damir Elezi]

It's interesting that you consider humbleness to be the same as "bowing down to something".

No, you don't bow down to humans, you don't bow down to anything. You yourself are the only thing you're responsible to. You have rights which are irrefutable and you can do whatever you want, as long as you don't actively hurt others. The focus here is on yourself. Since there is no god and no higher order, all it comes down to is YOU. The individual. This is the stage orange mindset.

Humbleness here is not a very central term or value. I understand that you don't get how it can come without god, since stage orange is really not that concerned about being humble. It would maybe mean not boasting about what you have achieved and not being arrogant, because that may hurt and turn off other people and make you less-likeable, which is bad for YOURSELF again.

I wouldn't focus on it too much right now, though. When you reach stage green, being humble gets a bit more important again, as your focus switches towards the community and the welfare of the planet, which you want to "serve". If you come from blue right now moving into orange, try to focus on yourself and first get rid of your religious dogma. Why does Islam want you to be humble towards Allah? How do you know what Allah even is? How do you know he exists? Because someone told you? Because it's written in a book?

What if someone managed to tell you a story that is not true and then convinced you that you should be humble and obedient towards the story? You would be much easier to control wouldn't you? Now what if this somebody convinced you to bow down to NOTHING except for this story? How would you feel about other possibilites then? Could it be that what you were taught actually isn't true?

Don't listen to other teachings and wait for solutions, actually think about it and consider it. I'm not trying to attack you, I came from the same place (from a Christian perspective). These thoughts moved me up the spiral towards orange which I'm struggling to overcome right now.

Edited December 25, 2018 by Damir Elezi

[Oliver Saavedra]

I'll quote from a book here:

"Humility is not to percieve ourselves as beneath all things, but to be conscious of our place within all things. A devotion to the truth about us and our floating world".

Hope it helps:) 

[K VIL]

@Oliver Saavedra nice

[Kensho]

On 12/25/2018 at 7:18 PM, Ampresus said:

I only learnt how to bow down to Allah and no one else. No, one, else. I can't see why I should do that now, why I should humiliate myself like that. Why should I go so low? It is basically disrespectful to myself really.

 

I see a very strong ego built there. This will hinder your development. Your blue version of Allah has to transform to a green Allah, but first you have to go through orange, that means leaving Allah aside for a while. 

Maybe I got it all wrong and everyone who said ''be humble'' meant something completely different than what I think they meant. If so, please correct me.

Yes. You see humbleness from the perspective of your ego which is the worst way to go.  As you develop to stage green, bring more love in your life. Break your strong ego walls.

Use your current egoic blue relation to Allah. It will be easy.

Just see Allah inside others ;-)

 

Edited December 28, 2018 by Kensho

[Ampresus]

On 26-12-2018 at 0:16 AM, Damir Elezi said:

If you come from blue right now moving into orange, try to focus on yourself and first get rid of your religious dogma. Why does Islam want you to be humble towards Allah? How do you know what Allah even is? How do you know he exists? Because someone told you? Because it's written in a book?

What if someone managed to tell you a story that is not true and then convinced you that you should be humble and obedient towards the story? You would be much easier to control wouldn't you? Now what if this somebody convinced you to bow down to NOTHING except for this story? How would you feel about other possibilites then? Could it be that what you were taught actually isn't true?

Don't listen to other teachings and wait for solutions, actually think about it and consider it. I'm not trying to attack you, I came from the same place (from a Christian perspective). These thoughts moved me up the spiral towards orange which I'm struggling to overcome right now.

@Damir Elezi Believe me I have already done most of what you are talking about. I realized that all it is is some fake old bullshit. It is too much dogma or ideology (I still don't understand what both those words mean but I assume it is related to people only standing up for their own religion) and many are missing the point of both Muhammad and Allah. I mean if a God tells me that I need to behead people who are mostly innocent just because of one sin, I think there is something wrong with this God. Or I simple misunderstood the value in this (because if you look at the moment the Quran came to earth, many people gladly accepted these terms and saw it as a modern thing to punish people for 1 sin).
 

[purerogue]

Ampresus, when time will come you will  understand what being humble means , funny enough , there is huge difference from humble and humble, it is like with  nothing, something you will do not understand till you get to experience it, language is way to limiting, people who have experienced what you are talking about will understand you right away, but people who have not will cling to concepts about how they should act, you do not have to act, it is not some form of repetition you need to take. 

 

[Nahm]

@Ampresus Inquiring until you begin to realize you have an idea of Allah, would be perfectly humbling. It would clear up this falsity of “Allah is high, humans are low - so I don’t know myself or how I fit in”.