The Excuses We Make to Justify Indulgence

We make resolutions to change certain behaviours. Our minds are made up. We are certain that we can make the needed change. Many people make ‘new year’s resolutions’ to change something, perhaps to lose weight, to discontinue some habit, to avoid expressing anger, or some other intention we have, such a to be a more forgiving person, to express love and good will towards others more often, etc. Putting aside those habits, for the time being, that lead to physical addiction, withdrawal symptoms etc., which necessarily fall into a somewhat more intensive category of review and discussion, we determine that from henceforth we will not do the particular thing that we are focused on changing. And then we wind up in the situation and see ourselves doing it. It may be something like giving up certain habits of eating snacks between meals. This occurs frequently. We then find ourselves going to the refrigerator or the pantry and taking the snacks we determined to avoid.

Another one tries to justify various forms of sexual enjoyment under the guise of it being a ‘tantric’ method of gaining mastery over the sexual power. While it may be possible that an initiated tantric practitioner with guidance and a realized teacher could indeed find a way through to the proposed result, in most cases, we find that there is no real change or transformation or mastery, but simply another way to justify sexual activity, when the mental will has decided, for whatever reason, to abstain and shift the energy focus elsewhere.

The vital being is attached to its habits of enjoyment. It does not easily give them up. The mental decision may thus come into conflict with the vital desire nature. It is a virtually universal human experience that the desire of the vital finds a way to justify its continuation to the mental being, and we thus come up with justifications and excuses for the continuance of those very actions that we had previously determined to stop.

The Mother notes: “.. even the most beautiful theories, even if one knows mentally many things and holds admirable principles, that is not sufficiently strong to create a will capable of resisting an impulse. At one time you are quite determined, you have decided that it would be thus — for example, that you would not do such a thing: it is settled, you will not do it — but how is it that suddenly (you do not know how or why nor what has happened), you have not decided anything at all! And then you immediately find in yourself an excellent reason for doing the thing…. Among others, there is a certain kind of excuse which is always given: ‘Well, if I do it this time, at least I shall be convinced that it is very bad and I shall do it no longer and this will be the last time.’ It is the prettiest excuse one always gives to oneself: ‘This is the last time I am doing it. This time, I am doing it to understand perfectly that it is bad and that it must not be done and I shall not do it any more. This is the last time.’ Every time, it is the last time! and you begin again.”

“Of course there are some who have less clear ideas and who say to themselves: ‘After all, why don’t I want to do it? These are theories, they are principles that might not be true. If I have this impulse, what is it that tells me that this impulse is not better than a theory?…’ It is not for them the last time. It is something they accept as quite natural.”

“Between these two extremes there are all the possibilities. But the most dangerous of all is to say: ‘Well, I am doing it once more this time, that will purify me of this. Afterwards I shall no longer do it.’ Now the purification is never enough!”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 4, Ordeals and Difficulties, pg.78