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Distinguishing Truth from Falsehood Requires Separation from the Vital Desire-Soul and Its Impulsions · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  During the 1980s, there were a number of scams carried out by
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  US mail. An individual would receive a
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  letter purporting to come from some high official in another
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  country who had access to a large amount of money and needed
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  a partner to help take the funds out of the country and invest
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  them in the USA under the control of the partner.
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  The individual who received the mail laughed about how absurd
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  the whole idea was, but an employee at the company was
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  taken with the idea and was concerned that it was just being
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  thrown in the trash bin. The company owner explained to
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  this individual that it clearly was some kind of false attempt
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  to take advantage of someone in the USA, possibly through
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  stealing their banking information.
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  The employee asked for the letter so he could follow up and
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  become duly enriched. Despite hearing the truth of the
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  matter, his desire for instant financial wealth was so strong
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  that he could not accept that truth.
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  Needless to say, he did not gain the riches he sought.
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  This is actually a very common occurrence, and people lose a
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  lot of money each year to similar deceptions.
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  For a spiritual aspirant, if we apply our understanding about
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  how vital desire can cause us to disregard or simply avoid what
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  are unpleasant facts in order to fulfill the desire, we can find
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  that the truth, the factual reality, is fully evident, but
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  we essentially choose to disregard it.
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  The spiritual practitioner eventually needs to find a
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  standpoint whereby he can observe the working of desire,
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  the deceptions that work upon his mind, and simply see and act
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  upon the facts as they present themselves, not the false and
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  illusory notions that the external desire soul creates to
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  try and achieve its aims. By virtue of a long standing
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  practice of separating oneself inwardly from the flow of
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  thoughts, emotions, feelings, perceptions and reactions, the
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  spiritual aspirant has the capacity at all times to see the
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  truth. If he chooses to see it, he must
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  do away with wishful thinking, partisan ideas and incomplete
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  observations. The Dhammapada states those who
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  take error for truth and the truth for error will never
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  attain the supreme goal, for they are LED astray by vain
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  desires and false views, The mother notes quote.
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  My experience is like this. Whenever you sincerely want to
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  know the truth, you do know it. There is always something to
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  point out the error to you, to make you recognize the truth,
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  and if you observe yourself attentively, you find out that
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  it is because you prefer error that you do not find the truth
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  even in small details, the very smallest, not to speak of the
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  big things of life, the big decisions that one has to take
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  even in the smallest things. Whenever the aspiration for the
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  truth and the will to be true are wholly sincere, the
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  indication always comes. And precisely with the method of
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  the Buddhist discipline, if you follow up within yourself the
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  causes of your way of being, you always find out that persistence
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  and error comes from desire. It is because you have the
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  preference, the desire to feel, to act, to think in a particular
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  way that you make the mistake. It is not simply because you do
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  not know what is true. You do not know it precisely
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  because you say in a vague, general, imprecise way, oh, I
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  want the truth. In fact, if you take a detail,
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  each detail, and put your finger on it, you discovered that you
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  were playing the ostrich in order not to see.
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  You put up something uncertain, something vague, a veil, in
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  order not to see behind it. Whenever there is sincerity, you
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  find that the help, the guidance, the grace are always
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  there to give you the answer, and you are not mistaken for
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  long. It is this sincerity in the
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  aspiration for progress, in the will, for truth, in the need to
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  be truly pure, pure as it is understood in the spiritual
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  life. It is this sincerity which is
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  the key to all progress. With it you know, and you can.
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  There is always somewhere in the being something which prefers to
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  deceive itself. Otherwise the light is there,
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  always ready to guide, but you shut your eyes in order not to
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  see it. End Quote Reference Shrioro
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  Bindu and the Mother Looking from Within, Chapter 5,
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  Attitudes on the Path, pages 121 to 123.