Chapter 23 of 35

What Pride Really Is

1 part·2:42·Hindi audio · English subtitles

Chapter 23 of 35 — a single teaching, 3 min in total.

Play

2:42

Background

Pride, and the difference from self-respect.

Abhimana is the epic's word for the pride at issue: not confidence but identification, the self attached to a position it must now defend. Duryodhana has it about his claim, Karna about his origins, Bhishma about his vow. In each case the thing being protected has stopped being an interest and become an identity.

The Mahabharat is careful not to make humility the answer. Its admired figures are not self-effacing — Arjuna and Bhima are enormously capable and know it. The fault it names is the point at which a person can no longer be told anything without it being an insult.

Abhimana: Pride as identification — the self bound up in a position it must defend.

Background on where this theme sits in the Mahabharat — not a summary of the teachings above.

Chapter 23 of 35

What Pride Really Is

1 part·2:42·Hindi audio · English subtitles

Chapter 23 of 35 — a single teaching, 3 min in total.

Play

2:42

What Pride Really Is

Background

Pride, and the difference from self-respect.

Abhimana is the epic's word for the pride at issue: not confidence but identification, the self attached to a position it must now defend. Duryodhana has it about his claim, Karna about his origins, Bhishma about his vow. In each case the thing being protected has stopped being an interest and become an identity.

The Mahabharat is careful not to make humility the answer. Its admired figures are not self-effacing — Arjuna and Bhima are enormously capable and know it. The fault it names is the point at which a person can no longer be told anything without it being an insult.

Abhimana: Pride as identification — the self bound up in a position it must defend.

Background on where this theme sits in the Mahabharat — not a summary of the teachings above.