Self-Awareness is who we are, all else is Maya (illusion).

When the Buddha was ready to die, They asked him, ‘Are you, God? And he said --No. “Are you a prophet?” The Buddha said --No. “Are you a messenger?” And once again --No. And finally, someone yelled out, “WHO ARE YOU THEN?”

And the Buddha said, “I AM AWAKE” -

You see, Buddha understood there was no such thing as a separate self, only a false belief in one. Buddha's message was; Our suffering will end when we wake up and recognize there is no separate self, who suffers. Which speaks to the heart of Buddha’s teachings that the root of suffering is attachment.

Humility gave Buddha, his greatest power and we must never underestimate how powerful and influential it is.

When we are greedy; we will experience never being satisfied. When we judge someone unfairly; we will suffer the same judgement back and if we believe otherwise we will eventually be humbled or possibly humiliated, this I know.

To be humble is to accept and honestly be ourselves and see all others as equal. We have assets and liabilities, none of us are entirely good or entirely bad. It’s our ego that tells us differently. The ego is all about being prideful or the opposite “poor me.” True humility is the complete opposite of EGO!

Humility is as much a part of living as food and water. It's a powerful force and without it, we will suffer.

Buddha understood that hurting anyone was hurting ourselves because there is no separate self, all is ONE. The No-Self that Buddha had experienced is difficult for most us to get our heads around but trust me, when we do the work of awakening we can all experience it.

I leave you with a quote about being humble from the Tao Te Ching:

“......the gentle outlasts the strong. The obscure outlasts the obvious. The soft overcomes the hard. The slow overcomes the fast. Let your workings remain a mystery. Just allow people to see the results.”

And from the sermon on the mountain, Jesus said,

."....Blessed are the meek (gentle) they shall inherit the earth"

Please feel free to check out my website paulnoiles.com, I am here to be of service to others and I am damn good at what I do.