The Ego-Viewpoint Provides Limited and Inaccurate Assessments of Events

If we review our lives through the lens of ‘history’, that is, looking back over the events of our lives from where we are today, we can see that things we thought, at the time, were positive things were in some cases, highly detrimental to us over time; and similarly, things we found distasteful or bad may turn out to have been very positive from this view.

On the same token, we try to judge economic, political, sociological events in the world we live in based on our immediate impressions, but using the ‘lens of history’ review, we frequently find that things turned out badly in some cases that we thought were positive; and turned out positively in cases we were deeply concerned about.

These things illustrate for us that trying to judge anything based on our narrow focus from the standpoint of the ego, whether it is the individual ego, or the larger framed societal ego that we adopt with our religion, our politics, our country, etc., is bound to lead us to inaccurate and incomplete conclusions.

Another aspect to be considered is that things we believe are positive chances for us are, in many cases, at the expense of others and thus, in balance, lead to more suffering than joy, and eventually can turn our own joy into sorrow. For instance, we enjoy many of the amenities of our modern lives, air conditioning, internet, mobile phones, etc. without considering the ‘cost’ these things have both in terms of resource utilization and waste by-products, but also in many cases on the long-term quality of life we lead.

We also fail, generally, to take into account ‘opportunity cost’. Choosing one line of development collapses numerous other potential lines of development. We cannot, from our ego-standpoint, know in advance which one would actually turn out best for our growth and development over the longer term. Quantum physics takes up this very question about the numerous, if not indeed infinite, choices available as latent possibilities, and how they all shrink down once an actual choice is made. That does not imply we have made the ‘best’ choice, simply that we have moved in a particular direction and put aside other options.

A disciple inquires: “A happy chance may come from a set of circumstances which harm nobody.”

The Mother writes: “We do not see it harming anyone or anything simply because we do not have sufficient data. We cannot judge circumstances, for we do not know the world. What do we know about it? Our vision is so short and so limited. Just think, a man can never know what lies beyond his hundred and twenty years, at the maximum, and I am putting a very big limit, and I count the first years of his existence, though generally he does not remember what has happened then. What does one know about the world in so short a time? and about the consequences of things? Nothing at all. And even granting that one can remember sufficiently well to know the result or antecedent of a so-called ‘chance’, it is altogether a local knowledge. What does one know about what is happening at the antipodes or in a million other places on the earth at the same moment? We know nothing about it. And as we know that all that happens is linked, that all things are closely linked, consciously, that there cannot be a vibration in one place without there being its consequences in another, how can we tell whether our chance is not harmful to someone, thought it be favourable for us? I think it is impossible to form a judgment… how shall I put it? a correct judgment about things, for one does not know what is going on in the world. We do not know the whole, we know nothing of the play of forces. And we say that chance is the result of a play of forces; only, instead of being the expression of divine harmony, it is the expression of conflicting wills. These wills are not all necessarily bad or hostile but they are always ignorant. Each one tries to realise his own will and the victory is to the strongest — the strongest is not necessarily the best in this field. When one thing is realised, how many others could have been realised, which were not, because this one was realised? And all these things, we do not know.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch.8 Life — A Mass of Vibrations, pp. 178-179