Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

First Series

Fragment ID: 20497

Men are always mixed and there are qualities and defects mingled together almost inextricably in their nature. What a man wants to be or wants others to see in him or what he is sometimes on one side of his nature or in some relations can be very different from what he is in the actual fact or in other relations or on another side of his nature. To be absolutely sincere, straightforward, open is not an easy achievement for human nature. It is only by spiritual endeavour that one can realise it – and to do it needs aj severity of introspective self-vision, an unsparing scrutiny of self-observation of which many sadhakas and Yogis even are not capable and it is only by an illumining Grace that reveals the sadhaka to himself and transforms what is deficient in him that it can be done. And even then only if he himself consents and lends himself wholly to the divine working.