How good is it to feel proud of our Ancestors - ब्रह्मज्ञान

You must have seen people proudly telling about their forefathers or their ancestors. Feeling proud of who you are is a good thing but the wrong part about this feeling is that it can become ego very soon if you don't handle that proud correctly. Proud can be used to fuel your ego or it can be utilized as motivation to do something better yourselves. If you don't choose the correct part, you will end up as a shame for your ancestors.

Why do people tell about their ancestors ?

When we tell people about our ancestors, we are basically telling them that we belong to an elite class. Some people tell about knowledge level of their forefathers as they belong to a community where education was given highest priority, some tell about the fighting skills of their ancestors as they were serving armed forces of country from several generations, some tell about their wealth that they have acquired since generations, some tell about how much agricultural land they have from ages.
There is nothing wrong in knowing from where you come from and what genes you have, but it gets wrong when your motive becomes "showing yourself superior" rather than just sharing the knowledge.
Some people tell these things to impress others. That impression sometimes can get you some benefits but not every time. Sometimes it can also lead to making a joke of yourself.

Once a person was telling about his parents, grand parents and great grand parents. He was telling about their high education level, commands over dozens of languages and the literature written by them. But suddenly someone asked but his education level and he felt really embarrassed in replying that he couldn't even complete his high school.

However certificates of education are not a measurement of your intelligence, but in such case you should not create a hype about your ancestors. This feeling of proud sometimes don't stop at your ancestors. It can impact your speaking skills when you talk about your religion or your country. Again there is nothing bad in feeling proud of your religion and country, but when motive of that proud becomes proving others inferior to you, then its harmful. Sometimes such proud talks can lead to heated arguments.

How good is it to feel proud of Ancestors and doing nothing new now ?
Telling about wealth or skills of your ancestors is worst habit if you can't develop such skills yourself. True education and knowledge gives you politeness instead of making you egoist. True wealth makes you grateful to God and also make you do something for needy. Only those people show their proud feeling who can't attain the same level themselves. A person who has attained a higher level will never show his proud feeling for his ancestors, instead those who like and follow him will ask him about them.
If you didn't do anything new and just feel proud of your ancestors, then you are wasting the motivation that you can get from your ancestors. Feeling of proud is just a shorter or lower form of Ego. So instead of satisfying your ego with the proud feeling about your ancestors, you should get indulges in doing something better, so that others ask about your ancestors.

If you can utilize the proud feeling as a motivation to do better then you are wasting a precious opportunity that life has given you. Today what we are is only due to us ancestors. There is nothing bad in it unless you keep it to yourself as a fuel to do better. Our target should be to make our great grand children feel proud of us.

Always remember that our ancestors deserve our respect towards them, not ego in the name of proud.