Chapter 65: The prior or prioress of the monastery (paragraph 1)

There have been instances when some of these officials have conceived out of an evil spirit of self-importance that they also are superiors and for that reasons have assumed the powers of a tyrant, so that they encourage scandalous divisions in the community.

(From para. 1 of Ch. 65 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry OSB, 1997.)

St. Benedict teaches me that self-importance is a tyrant that ruins both inner and outer harmony. Self-importance, it seems to me, is the opposite of true self-knowledge, of knowing myself in relation to the loving wholeness of my divine source.