The Kural in life
Eyes that never look up.
You carry the capacity for awe and reverence — and may go years without ever using it. Like an eye kept shut, an unused faculty simply goes to waste.
A head that bows to nothing.
Pride that refuses to bend to anything greater than itself becomes strangely inert — cut off from a whole dimension of being human.
Capacity unused is capacity wasted.
A sense organ that grasps nothing is no organ at all. A self that reveres nothing misses one of its own functions.
A sharp simile: a head that won't bow is like a sense that can't sense.
Valluvar says a head that will not bow to the One of 'eight perfections' (எண்குணத்தான்) is as useless as sense-organs that grasp nothing. Parimelazhagar lists the eight qualities from the Saiva texts. The point: a faculty exists to be used; unused, it is simply inert.
Reverence is a faculty, not a weakness to outgrow.
The human capacity to bow to something higher isn't immaturity; it's part of the equipment. A life that reveres nothing leaves that part of itself switched off — like keeping a good eye permanently shut.