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the formation of the ego.
But pride is noncomparative. It does not say anything about anybody else. It simply says: I am respectful of myself, I love myself, I am proud just to be -- just to be here in this beautiful existence. It does not say anything about anybody else. The moment you go into comparison, you start an ugly game.
My respect towards myself is not a hindrance for you to be respectful towards yourself. In fact I would love you to be respectful towards yourself because if you are not respectful towards yourself, who is going to be respectful towards you? If you are not proud of being a human being, the most evolved consciousness in existence, then who is going to be proud of you?
And your being proud is really nothing but a gratefulness for all that existence has given to you -- it is tremendous. We are not worthy of it; we don't deserve it. We have not earned it, we can't claim it. It is just out of the abundance of existence that it has given to us everything. We don't value what we have because we take it for granted.
I am reminded of a Sufi story .... A man was going to commit suicide because he was poor, uneducated, unemployed, and he hated to beg. Rather than begging, he thought it is better to commit suicide. He was going towards the river to jump from a high point and get drowned, but by coincidence, at the highest point from where he was thinking to jump, he found a Sufi mystic.
And the Sufi mystic said, "So you have come? Here people come only to commit suicide. I have chosen this place to meditate because very rarely do people come to commit suicide, so this is a very silent place."
The man said, "It is strange that I have not uttered a single word and you have said the right thing -- I have come to commit suicide."
The Sufi said, "You can commit suicide. But I have one offer: how much would you like to have for both your eyes? The king needs two beautiful eyes and you have beautiful eyes. And the king knows that I always sit at Suicide Point" -- that's what the place was called. "People come here when they are going to commit suicide .... What are they going to do with those two eyes? They
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