By MW Kay
Compared to Almighty God, the status of human beings is that of powerless creatures. This means that there is just one proper attitude for human beings to adopt, and that is, accepting God’s infinite superiority and greatness, to recognize that, compared to God, they are actually very small. This is what can be called awareness of one’s servanthood vis-à-vis God.
This world in which we find ourselves presently is a world of test. Here, man has been given temporary freedom to do whatever he likes. Acknowledging the reality that he is very small compared to God and is a servant of God, a person can choose to be humble and lead his life accordingly. But, he can also choose an opposite course and be arrogant and defiant. Both options are open to a person as part of the test that human beings are being put to while they are in this present world.
A life of felicity after death is for that person who succeeds in this test.
A major arena in which this test is being played out is the field of human interactions. When one person encounters another, a person in whom the awareness of man being a servant of God has been awakened will be motivated from within to relate to the other person in a spirit of humility, because he knows that his actual status is that of a humble servant of God. In contrast to this, a person who lacks the awareness that his actual status is that of a servant of God might deal with the other person with pride or even arrogance.
A God-conscious person thus comes across as a humble person in his relations with other creatures of God, because he knows his actual status of being a servant. His not being arrogant vis-à-vis God leads to his not being arrogant vis-à-vis God’s creatures, too. Such a person considers every affair as God’s affair, even such a matter as meeting and interacting with another person.
Humility is but another name for leading a realistic life, for it is based on awareness of the reality that man is insignificantly small compared to Almighty God. Given that this utter smallness is part of man’s actual status, in this present world the only proper attitude for a person to adopt is that of humility.