Conquering the desire to appear good in front of others

Mother, how can one conquer the desire to appear good in the eyes of others?

Oh, Lord!… To appear good in others’ eyes, to have public approval? Is that it?

First, the best way is to ask oneself why one values others’ approval. For what particular reason, because there are many reasons…. If you have a career and your career depends on the good opinion others have of you, then that’s a utilitarian reason. If you have a little, or much, vanity and like compliments, that’s another reason. If you attach great value to others’ opinion of you because you feel they are wiser or more enlightened or have more knowledge, that’s yet another reason. There are many others still, but these are the three chief reasons: utility, vanity—usually this is the strongest—and progress.

Naturally, when it is a reason of progress, the attitude is not quite the same, for instead of trying to make a good impression, one must first endeavour to know the impression one is actually making, in all humility, in order to profit by the lesson this gives. That is quite rare, and in fact, if one isn’t too naïve, one usually attaches importance only to the opinion of those who have more experience, more knowledge and more wisdom than oneself. And so that leads us straight to one of the best methods of cure. It is precisely to come to understand that the opinion of those who are as ignorant and blind as ourselves cannot have a very great value for us from the point of view of the deeper reality and the will to progress, and so one stops attaching much importance to that.

Finally, if one is sincere one desires no other approval except that of one’s teacher or one’s guru or of the Divine Himself. And that’s the first step towards a total cure of this little weakness of wishing to make a good impression on people. Now, if the movement comes from a motive of utility, the one I spoke of first, the question does not arise here, for here we do not depend upon the opinion others have of us, either for living or for our development. So there remains the most frequent instance, the one most difficult to cure: that kind of small, very foolish vanity which makes you like to be complimented and dislike being criticised. So the best way is to look at yourself, to see how very ridiculous you are, how petty, paltry, stupid and all that, to laugh a little at yourself and resolve to do without the compliments of others.

Ref : Questions and Answers 1956