At the feet of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo

02 June 1933

MYSELF: Very often we refuse to admit our wrongs but try to seek self-justification and thus don’t see the truth. We indulge these habits which really we should abandon. In arguments too, do we not want to prove “I am right”? Isn’t the ego at the root of all this?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, self-justification keeps the thing going because it gives a mental support. Self-justification is always a sign of ego and ignorance. When one has a wider consciousness, one knows that each one has his own way of looking at things and finds in that way his own justification, so that both parties in a quarrel believe themselves to be in the right. It is only when one looks from above in a consciousness clear of ego that one sees all sides of a thing, also their real truth.

(2.6.33)