(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 20 March 2013, Melbourne, Australia, Srimad Bhagavatam 2.7.52)
Humility is something alien in the modern world. We had a comic in Holland; I saw it as a kid but it made an impression on me. It was a simple man; he had a cap on – a labourer type – and he was coming for a job interview which was happening in a big hall. The interviewer was sitting behind a glass with a screen so you couldn’t see him but his voice was coming out through a loud speaker.
The voice was saying, “Name?” Then the man said his name and he said, “Thank you very much, please.” And after every question that he answered, he said, “Thank you very much, please,” and he looked like a total fool but actually, if you think about it, he was very humble and the other man (the interviewer) was very cold and arrogant.
But this humility was depicted as like… you become a fool when you are humble. when you are simple! So the whole world projects this upon us that you’re a fool when you’re simple.
Even when you are a devotee, it hounds you, “How many slokas do you know?”
Reply, “Seven!”
“Only seven! My god, how can you know only seven slokas!?” Who can be so simple to say so…
So, the social pressure upon us in this whole world, where you have to be greater than you are, comes into every field. In the modern world, it came into the field of sex because ordinary sex will not do – it has to be super sex! You have to be a super lover and if you’re not a super lover, you’re a loser. That’s the image that is being projected.