Question: Why do we love ignorance even though it hurts us?
Sri Chinmoy: We love ignorance because right now we do not know anything other than ignorance. If we want to know something other than ignorance, then we shall discover it. There are two teachers. The ignorance-teacher we know, and whether we like or dislike that teacher, we stay with him. Since we have decided to stay with him, we feel that we should love him. But we have to know that there is another teacher whose name is knowledge-wisdom. When we get our new teacher, we will love him instead. For aeons and aeons we have loved ignorance, but a day will dawn when we will love only knowledge-wisdom.
Sri Chinmoy, Ego and self-complacency, Agni Press, 1977