Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume IV - Part 2

Fragment ID: 14056

Yes – these [pride, a sense of superiority, the desire to show one’s worth] are small signs or little forms of the ego of the instrument – not very serious, but often rather sticky. There is a bigger kind of egoism which is not so common which can rise into a kind of megalomania: “I, I am the instrument – how great an instrument I am – through me all will be done”,– there are three or four who have had that in a distressingly acute form, secretly or openly; often it ends by their going away to do great things outside – great things which somehow do not get done.