A Lesson from the Spirit

They show a peacock walking and ostentatiously fanning its tail.
"What is this lesson about?"
"About pride."
"I'm listening."
"You are in many ways like that bird. It puts itself on display to be admired by those who see it.
When you care about how you appear in the eyes of others, when you adapt yourself, change yourself — you are burying yourself, digging yourself deeper and deeper. And then you wonder why your life feels so disharmonious, why you don't have what you desire.
Adapting to those around you, pleasing them — that is an expression of pride. But you do not feel it. Approval or praise from others means far more to you than your own opinion of yourself. This is not good. Your opinion of yourself must be as a pure Divine soul.
"Help me, explain."
"When you are sliding into an abyss, you do not think about where you are sliding; you think about how not to get hurt, how not to be maimed. So in life, the life you play out day after day, you fret about the small things, not looking into the depths, adapting to the opinions of others, to their judgments of you as their equals. You merely protect yourself, shielding yourself from blows, but you do not see where this can lead, into what abyss it can carry you. You are simply defending yourself here and now, not thinking about what will come after.
You adapt while living other people's lives, trying to walk a different path not meant for the development of your own.
They show a crooked path separated from the main road — an even, beautiful, sunny road embroidered with flowers — but that crooked path begins to grow over with tall grass.
"The longer you walk the distorted road, the more overgrown your own path of soul development becomes."
"What should a person do?"
"Listen to yourself, look at yourself, peer within, see yourself, accept yourself and love yourself."
"How?"
"You are a pure and luminous creation of God, and when the light within you ignites brightly and confidently, steadily and harmoniously, you will no longer need anyone's approval.
But those others, on whom you once seemed to depend, will be drawn to you as to a source of light, as to something beautiful and, for now, unfathomable to them. These people in your circle will desire your help and will see it reflected in your light — the light of truth, full, unconditional, the Divine heart of the Creator. So be it.

"My Spirit, give an affirmation for healing from pride."
"You are the light of God coming from God, connecting God with you. You are the beginning and the continuation of that light, the true light of the Creator manifested in yourselves. Allow this light to ignite within you, allow this light to blaze to the scale of your own being, to the measure of yourselves. Allow this light to fill you. Fill yourselves with it in full trust of yourself and of the God within you. Fill yourselves with this light with gratitude, love, responsiveness, tenderness, with complete acceptance of that beneficent energy of absolute, unconditional love of the Creator for each of you. So be it.

And then, when you feel how this light has filled you, you will understand that everything has become different, that you yourselves have become different. And from this "different," your step will change its trajectory, your thoughts will transform, your views and tastes — everything will acquire the harmony you have always striven for.

If you respond:
I ask my true, divine, multidimensional Self to heal pride in me through acceptance of the pure, Divine, true light of the Absolute.