The Difficulty in the Process Required to “Know Thyself”

The vital nature is so deeply intertwined with the mental nature in the current state of human development, and has such a force of desire that it tries to satisfy, that, for most individuals, it is very hard to take an objective view about the thoughts, feelings, actions, reactions, emotions or even the perceptions that arise. Add to this the vital’s power to convince the mind to support and justify its desires, and we find that the mental capacity is, for the most part, at the service of the vital nature of what Sri Aurobindo calls the “desire soul”.

The bias of the mental nature to support the vital is an enormous drawback toward attaining any objective view of the motives and forces behind our thoughts, emotions and actions. The mind puts the coloring on whatever takes place to create excuses for the vital, and thus, we rarely see and recognise the underlying or hidden truth behind our actions. It is not possible to truly “know thyself” as long as this mechanism is operative to hide the truth from our awareness.

The Mother is commenting here in the light of the following citation: “It is only by observing these movements (of our being) with great care, by bringing them, as it were, before the tribunal of our highest ideal, with a sincere will to submit to its judgment, that we can hope to educate in us a disce
ment which does not err.” ‘The Science of Living’, On Education

The Mother writes: “One must be clearly aware of the origin of one’s movements because there are contradictory velleities in the being — some pushing you here, others pushing you there, and that obviously creates a chaos in life. If you observe yourself, you will see that as soon as you do something which disturbs you a little, the mind immediately gives you a favourable reason to justify yourself — this mind is capable of gilding everything. In these conditions it is difficult to know oneself. One must be absolutely sincere to be able to do it and to see clearly into all the little falsehoods of the mental being.”

Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, Living Within: The Yoga Approach to Psychological Health and Growth, Self-Observation and Self-Organisation, pp. 126-131