Edward’s Diary Entry 40 – Virtue 19: Modesty (Hrih)

The “Sense of Shame in Doing Evil Actions” is also called “Modesty” (Hrih). When you perform actions that are contrary to any kind of moral code, you are supposed to experience “shame”. What is the purpose of this? “Shame” is only a thought about the past, so there is no other purpose than that of learning and doing something about it in the present. It is an arduous process. What produces the “wrong action” is “wrong thought”, which is derived from “wrong conditioning”. Lack of Self-Awareness promotes this. So the solution is to establish a Life Plan and Right Thinking. When this is put into effect, everything becomes intelligible and easy. If there is no true plan decided on, there is no “intelligibility”. Maybe you think you have a plan, but you will change it depending on circumstances. Maybe you have decided to act more kindly, but at the first sign of trouble, you will react as you always did if there is no Self-Awareness. So first comes Awareness or a capacity to observe oneself. But thinking “how shameful”, or feeling “ashamed” will not help – that is mind’s reaction to a former mind’s decision and is just more of the same and means nothing. What we have to look out for, if we have some degree of Self-Awareness, is our own definition of “right action” (karma), “useless activity” (akarma) and (“harmful actions incurring retributive consequences” (vikarma). This is simple, according to the sages. There are 3 stages for this: 1) “Simple Observation” of what is going on, 2) “Detection” of what exactly is happening in you, 3) Application of Discrimination or the Intellect and “Elimination”, ie, see what you do, discriminate, make sure it does not come again. Beautifully simple. Hard to achieve. Around 1585 El Greco painted this picture called The Repentant Mary Magdalene, which is in the Museu del Cau Ferrat, in Sitges (Catalonia), Spain. See how she looks sad, as if repenting for her “sins”, pointing to the skull with her left hand, meaning death is nigh, and her right hand is on her heart, little finger splayed, as this is the sign of generosity. She has on a single robe and looks simple. She has been leading the hermit’s life and has the cross of Jesus near her, but is looking off into the void, not at any object around her. She sees things we cannot see. The ivy climbs the wall behind her. All is well, Modesty is here. No evil actions will be performed as from now. She has conquered akarma and vikarma.