It is now that the tamasic ego has been manifest, it showed itself in the tone of what you wrote about your illness, helplessness, also the recent suggestions of hopelessness and dying etc.Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 2. 1935
Fragment ID: 17140
1935
What is the tamasic ego?
The tamasic ego is that which accepts and supports despondency, weakness, inertia, self-depreciation, unwillingness to act, unwillingness to know or be open, fatigue, indolence, do-nothingness. Contrary to the rajasic it says “I am so weak, so obscure, so miserable, so oppressed and ill-used – there is no hope for me, no success, I am denied everything, I am unsupported, how can I do this, how can I do that, I have no power for it, no capacity, I am helpless; let me die; let me lie still and moan” etc. etc. Of course not all that at once or in every case; but I am giving the general character of the thing. It is now that the tamasic ego has been manifest, it showed itself in the tone of what you wrote about your illness, helplessness, also the recent suggestions of hopelessness and dying etc.