Cultivating Mental Honesty to Address the Habit of Self-Deception

The habit of self-deception is so deeply ingrained, and so automatic, that we tend not to see or recognise it when it is occurring. And it occurs constantly throughout each day. How can we overcome this habit of self-deception? This is where a yogic discipline, an effort in the practice, becomes essential. 

The first requirement is to acknowledge and accept the fact that this self-deception occurs and that it remains mostly hidden from us through the habitual and automatic way it functions within our nature. This acknowledgement moves us toward the next step, which is conscious awareness of when, how and in what manner it actually occurs.

At this point, the effort of identifying specific instances and mechanisms comes into play. The yogic practice involving the separation of the witness consciousness from the outer nature and its activities is perhaps one of the most effective disciplines. Those who have taken up ‘mindfulness’ training can also employ that training to examine each thought that arises and trace it back to its roots, the motive force that pushes it forward and analyze the implication. What we will discover through this process is the way the vital nature and its desires works to justify itself through co-opting the mind into a self-justification pattern.

In the end, a shift of standpoint out of the ego-standpoint to the divine standpoint allows a complete differentiation of personal motive and justification from consecrated actions in furtherance of the divine intention in the universal creation.

The Mother notes: ”This means that an effort is needed in order to be mentally sincere. There must be an effort, there must be a discipline. Of course, I am not speaking of those who tell lies in order not to be caught, for everybody knows that this should not be done. Besides, the most stupid lies are the most useless, for they are so flagrant that they can’t deceive anyone. Such examples occur constantly; you catch someone doing something wrong and tell him, ‘That’s how it is’; he gives a silly explanation which nobody can understand, nobody can accept; it is silly but he gives it in the hope of shielding himself. It is spontaneous, you see, but he knows this is not done. But the other kind of deception is much more spontaneous and it is so habitual that one is not aware of it. So, when we speak of mental honesty, we speak of something which is acquired by a very constant and sustained effort.”

“You catch yourself, don’t you, you suddenly catch yourself in the act of giving yourself somewhere in your head or here (Mother indicates the heart), here it is more serious… giving a very favourable little explanation. And only when you can get a grip on yourself, there, hold fast and look at yourself clearly in the face and say, ‘Do you think it is like that?’, then, if you are very courageous and put a very strong pressure, in the end you tell yourself, ‘Yes, I know very well that it is not like that!’ “

“It sometimes takes years. Time must pass, one must have changed much within oneself, one’s vision of things must have become different, one must be in a very different condition, in a different relation with circumstances, in order to see clearly, completely, how far one was deceiving oneself — and at that moment one was convinced that one was sincere.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 6, Some Answers and Explanations, pp. 200-201