Page 6 - All India Magazine Mar-2026

Ego and Egoism
Egoism is a relatively easy thing to correct, because every-
one knows what it is. It is easy to discover, easy to correct, if one
truly wants to do it and is bent on it.
But the ego is much more difficult to seize, because, in fact,
to realise what the ego is one must already be out of it, other-
wise one cannot find it out. You are wholly moulded from it,
from head to foot, from the outermost to the innermost, from
the physical to the spiritual, you are steeped in ego. It is mixed
with everything and you are not aware of what it is. You must
have already conquered it, come out of it, freed yourself from
it, at least partially, at least in some little corner of your being
somewhere, in order to realise what the ego is.
The ego is what helps us to individualise ourselves and
what prevents us from becoming divine. It is like that. Put that
together and you will find the ego. Without the ego, as the
world is organised, there would be no individual, and with the
ego the world cannot become divine.
It would be logical to conclude, “Well, let us first of all be-
come conscious individuals and then we shall send away the
ego and become divine.” Only, when we have become con-
scious individuals, we have grown so accustomed to living with
our ego that we are no longer able to discern it and much la-
bour is needed to become aware of its presence.
On the other hand, everyone knows what egoism is. When
you want to pull everything towards you and other people do
not interest you, that is called egoism; when you put yourself
at the centre of the universe and all things exist only in relation
to you, that is egoism. But it is very obvious, one must be blind
not to see that one is egoistic. Everybody is a little egoistic,
more or less, and at least a certain proportion of egoism is nor-
mally acceptable; but even in ordinary life, when one is a little

6 All India Magazine, March 2026