By Praveen Chandhok
There is an old story about a lamp and a moth. The moth, unable to produce light of its own, circles the flame endlessly – not out of devotion, but out of an ancient need to be seen in its glow. We all know someone like this.
Few human tendencies are as subtle, and as exhausting, as the holier-than-thou instinct: the desire to appear morally or spiritually superior to those whose strength one quietly depends upon. Ordinary arrogance is crude; it announces itself too loudly. But this kind of arrogance is finer in its design. It lowers its eyes, folds its hands, speaks the language of prayer, reverence, and purity-and in doing so lays claim to a loftier status than merit alone could ever secure.
This attitude has little to do with genuine spirituality. More often, it is a clever refuge for insecurity. There are people who, unable to match another’s ability, achievement, stature, labour, or worldly competence, seek a different hierarchy in which to reign. They may not possess your discipline, your professional acumen, your power to build, protect, provide, or create, but they discover another route to significance: visible piety. They attend discourses, recite hymns, perform rituals with precision, visit shrines, invoke traditions, and cultivate associations with saints, gurus, and sacred spaces. What should have been inward becomes theatrical. What should have been surrender becomes display.
The pattern has merely modernised. Today it plays out in drawing rooms, families, joint families, and boardrooms. The person whose name opens doors, whose reputation funds livelihoods, whose goodwill is borrowed freely by those around them, often finds themselves subtly managed, quietly diminished, by those closest to them. You are brilliant, yes, but are you good? The question arrives not as genuine inquiry but as a carefully placed needle.
And it is devastatingly effective, because it targets something no achievement can fully defend – the human longing for transcendence.
That is why such behaviour is so manipulative. It seeks not merely to question success, but to contaminate it with doubt. It whispers that however much you may have accomplished, however many lives you may have supported, however honourably you may have conducted your affairs, you remain somehow lesser because you are not outwardly holy enough. You may know your profession, your craft, your responsibilities, your world – but do you know the right chants, the right rituals, the right places, the right posture of visible surrender? Thus, the contest is shifted from the field of substance to the stage of symbolism.
It is an old human manoeuvre: when one cannot rise through merit, one attempts to rise through moral posturing.
And yet true spirituality has never behaved like this. Real spiritual depth softens a human being; it does not sharpen vanity. It produces humility, not hauteur; compassion, not control. The genuinely devout do not need to remind others of their closeness to God. Their grace is evident in conduct. They do not weaponise prayer beads, nor turn ritual into rank. They are too occupied with self-examination to preside over the supposed inadequacies of others.
The irony is that those who perform this superiority often derive their comfort from the very people they seek to overshadow. They live off borrowed stature while pretending to inhabit higher ground. They benefit from another’s labour, reputation, generosity, or name, and then attempt through subtle sanctimony – to reduce that person’s confidence before his own conscience. It is dependence disguised as judgment, envy dressed as elevation.
There is, therefore, a question worth asking with complete honesty: what should a person truly strive for? To conduct his profession, business, service, and responsibilities with integrity, excellence, and commitment? Or to become increasingly proficient in the optics of holiness-holy places visited, rituals mastered, spiritual personalities known, and sacred affiliations displayed?
The answer ought not to be difficult. Work done with honesty is also prayer. Responsibility carried with dignity is also worship. To build something worthwhile, to serve faithfully, to remain fair in one’s dealings, to protect those who depend upon you, and to exercise one’s gifts with discipline and grace-these are not lesser acts because they occur away from incense and bells. Without such qualities, even the most elaborate religiosity risks becoming ornament for the ego.
Ritual has value. Tradition has value. Spiritual learning has immense value. But only when they deepen humanity, not when they become instruments of comparison.
In the end, holiness is not measured by how often one is seen near the flame, but by whether one carries any light within.
The moth circles the flame because it cannot be the flame.
You already know which one you are.
(Praveen Chandhok is a Proud Josephite, Entrepreneur, Socialite and Writer.)
