Humility in Holy Company
Narada teaches that the devotee approaches the company of saints with humility, for pride bars the door to grace.
To benefit from holy company, the aspirant must come humbly, as an empty vessel ready to be filled, for the proud heart cannot receive what the saints offer. Narada's path consistently exalts the lowly and humbles the proud, and nowhere is this more important than in satsang, where the willingness to learn and to serve opens the channel of grace. The arrogant who come to judge or to display their knowledge leave unchanged, while the humble who come to receive are transformed. This humility is not self-contempt but the open receptivity of love. The teaching reminds the devotee that grace flows downward, into the low places of the heart. Only the bowed head passes beneath the lintel of the sanctuary.
Approach the great souls with humility, service, and the desire to learn.
The insistence that grace requires humility echoes the biblical maxim that 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble,' a convergence pointing to a shared mystical psychology of receptivity.
Narada Bhakti Sutras