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Anklet

In India anklets are usually worn by married women, but unmarried girls also wear them, which signifies their bravery and pride.

What is the difference between ego and taking pride in oneself? Taking pride in oneself is not ego. Not only is there a difference between them, they are opposites. Ego is the feeling of being superior to others. Ego is a disease. How many people can you believe yourself to be superior to? Someone is more beautiful, someone is healthier, someone is more talented, someone is a genius. An egoist will only suffer his whole life; his life will be full of wounds and yet more wounds.

Ego is comparing yourself to others. Ego is ideas such as ‘I am superior to others’. Taking pride in oneself is altogether a different thing.

To take pride in oneself is to be very humble. There is not even a question of being superior to others — everyone is unique in his own right. This is the understanding that goes with taking pride in oneself: that nobody is higher than anyone else, nor is anyone lower than anyone else. In this existence, a small grass flower and the greatest star in the sky, both have the same value. If even this small grass flower were missing, something would be missing in the whole existence that even the greatest star could not make up for.

Taking pride in yourself is accepting the reality that everyone is unique and there is no race, no competition, no ambition.

Yes, if someone is aggressive towards you, because taking pride in yourself has no aggression in it, it will give you the capacity to fight back but not to belittle the other, only to prove that the aggression of the other was wrong, that all aggression is wrong. Taking pride in yourself has no conceit: it is simple and plain. But even the greatest power in the world cannot defeat a person who takes pride in himself. This is a very unique mystery. Such a person is humble, so humble that by his own choice, he will stand last in the queue. And so where else can he be pushed?

In the case of taking pride in oneself: neither does a person leave the impression of his ego on someone else nor does he give that person the right to leave the impression of their ego on him.