Sri Sai Baba`S:Charters And Sayings

TWENTY-FOURTH TALK 47l

on ; but the qualities for which they admire them-
selves are generally not at all the right ones. The ego,
for example,* is so very much greater in many direc-
tions that the personality down here cannot at all
understand, and the very things upon which the
personality prides himself are often precisely the things
which the ego could not in the least acknowledge.
Such qualities are often defects and not virtues
from the higher point of view. The ego is a far
greater individual than the personality. He has all
the good qualities in him potentially, but all are not
necessarily yet called into action. Nevertheless if,
for example, affection is developed in the ego, it is
perfect affection as far as it goes, because it is in-
capable of jealousy, envy or selfishness, or any of
those lower qualities. It is a mirror of the Divine
Love, in so far as he can reproduce it on his own level.
For the more perfect expression of the Divine, we have
to rise in thought to the Monad. The ego is a feeble
reflection of Him, a crude fragment of what can be
expressed down at that leve?, yet to us that ego and his
power of expression seem stupendous. It is a good
thing sometimes to try to understand it, because, you
see, we are too apt to regard our present position as
something of a criterion. We regard ourselves as
getting on fairly well, considering the stage at which
we are; but it is like a little child of four years
priding himself on the fact that he is doing very well.
He may be doing well for four years old, but it is a