my Articulate Heart

We are more keen to appear holy than to be holy. The prayers uttered are often a recounting of our own goodness. It becomes a mere hypocritical act to praise ourselves and to hail us better than others. We are obsessively content with exterior display. We are content if we look good in the eyes of others. This is vanity, pride masquerading as humility. Our prayers do not pierce the clouds, instead destroys what is left of spirituality within us. In the eastern tradition, during the lent, the monks would disperse themselves into the desert far from each other. The penance, self dedication, mortification etc that they do were only known to themselves and God. Even when they are back in the monastery, nobody asks what they did. This was done so that no one does anything in order to look good in the eyes of the other, but purely for the love for God. True humility is unpretentious and is effortless. For the humble, his own sinful nature will always be a reality before him, even if h