Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume 3. 1936-37

Fragment ID: 18169

1936-37

As most of my activities are “shot through with ego” my life has become a source of trouble, not of delight as a sadhak’s should be. For there is a division in the being. The inner being is very strict that there should be no sense of ego in whatever is done. But the ego never forgets to colour everything.

There is nothing to be troubled about. You ought rather to congratulate yourself that you have become conscious. Very few people in this Ashram are. They are all ego-centric and they do not realise their ego-centricity. Even in their sadhana the I is always there,– my sadhana, my progress, my everything. The remedy is to think constantly of the Divine, not of oneself, to work, act, do sadhana for the Divine; not to consider how this or that affects me personally, not to claim anything, but to refer all to the Divine. It will take time to do that sincerely and thoroughly but it is the proper way.

It is better to be conscious of the egoism than to think that one is free when one is not.