Of the individuals that I have known who were likely ariya (having attained some degree of awakening), not one of them deliberately drew attention to themselves or their practice in terms of making their attainments, their practice, who they are a credential. There was always a humility. Even when talking about themselves or their practice, it was in terms teachings, in terms of illustrating a point. It was never in a sense of scoring a point or showing off one's brass buttons. And some of the personalities could be quite big, full of a lot humor. Also, they were not perfect, sometimes having, like any of us, odd habits or quirks, but interestingly, never slavish to them.jackson wrote: I by no means intend to send this thread off track, but your response is intriguing. Could you possibly elaborate on what kind of demeanour a stream winner has?
I don't know if that helps. It is hard to put one's finger on things such as this. We can have all sorts of expectations of how an ariya should or should not act, and we may end up disappointed, but I think I can say what I have not seen is horn tooting as a characteristic of awakening.