Can an enlightened being feel pride?

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Of course. The non-dual perspective does not bar you from feeling certain kinds of emotions. I was quite proud of this code that I wrote that I thought was particularly cool. Of course, I was also aware of what is articulated below, that pride is based on false assumptions. I am aware of both things while I am experiencing the pride.

In particular, the false assumptions were that the way in which I’d solved that particular problem wouldn’t have been chosen by the lead, and that the very thing I was prideful of, wanting to be a software craftsman, I’m spending more time than needed to get the task done.

I was also fairly amused at my lead and the conflicted look on his face when he congratulated me on the clean solution I’d presented to his problem. I bring lots of clean solutions to hard technical problems in the project, but it was this particular one that brought on the feelings of pride. Because of the fact that it came from ego and not a place of doing what’s best for the project. I could have used a library, but chose not to, and got it done just with my brain. It’s deserving of pride, and I decided to indulge.

I am not afraid to have ego reactions to things and I’m not worried that they’re going to knock me off the ledge or anything and make me unenlightened. On the contrary, they’re fun to explore. It gets me in trouble sometimes, and I end up using ingenuity to get out of it. I consider this fun, because I like being human. Or well, as human as my non-dual perspective will allow. I still run off in the clouds a lot, but when I’m around humans, I like the fact that I can still act like one. Call it pride, call me unenlightened, doesn’t matter to me.