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Can Reading Random Passages of Books Provide True Guidance and Direction? · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  The human mind tries to find patterns and meanings in things.
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  We see random cloud shapes and we want to understand a message.
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  We look into the night sky and create shapes out of stars which
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  are enormous distances separated from one another by seeing a
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  particular form or image in the pattern created by the Starlight
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  of those disparate stars. Moving closer to our daily
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  lives, we try to understand patterns in divination, tarot
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  cards, and other practices which we use to build inner linkages
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  and thus provide meaning for our present and future actions.
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  We do the same thing in many cases when we read books.
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  The question then is whether we can trust the guidance we
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  receive as true and appropriate for our needs and the mechanism
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  that works through whatever method we use to put ourselves
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  in contact with that guidance. When we understand the concept
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  of the oneness of the manifestation, the unified
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  field, it is relatively easier to appreciate that when we send
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  out an aspiration, or even just a powerful thought, that it
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  meets with corresponding vibrations and links to them,
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  thereby associating to us the things on which we are focusing
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  our attention. Some people call this a divine
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  response, some call it synchronicity, some the Law of
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  Attraction, and some a unified field.
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  By whatever terminology we know it, however, the underlying
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  truth is that we are intimately connected to the beings, forms
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  and events of the universe within which we live, and we are
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  always sending out signals and receiving signals within the
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  vibratory range within which we are able to function.
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  This provides us, then, the clue for how to use spiritual
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  literature or photographs or images, icons or other visible
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  objects as reminders and doorways to the consciousness
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  that stands behind those forms. A disciple asks once or twice.
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  As a game, you took one of your books or three oral windows and
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  opened a page at random and read out a sentence.
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  Can these sentences give one a sign or an indication?
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  What should we do to get a true answer?
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  The mother responds quote. Everybody can do it, it is done
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  in this way. You concentrate.
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  Now it depends on what you want. If you have an inner problem and
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  want the solution, you concentrate on this problem.
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  If you want to know the condition you are in, which you
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  are not aware of, if you want to get some light on the state you
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  are in, you just come forward with simplicity and ask for the
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  light. Or else quite simply, if you are
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  curious to know what the invisible knowledge has to tell
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  you, you remain silent and still for a moment and then open the
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  book. I always used to recommend
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  taking a paper knife because it is thinner while you are
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  concentrated. You insert it in the book and
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  with the tip indicate something. Then, if you know how to
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  concentrate, that is to say, if you really do it with an
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  aspiration to have an answer, It always comes.
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  For in books of this kind, Mother shows the synthesis of
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  yoga, books of Revelation, there is always an accumulation of
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  forces, at least of higher mental forces, and most often of
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  spiritual forces of the highest knowledge.
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  Every book, on account of the words it contains, is like a
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  small accumulator of these forces.
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  People don't know this, for they don't know how to make use of
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  it. But it is so in the same way in
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  every picture, photograph, there is an accumulation, a small
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  accumulation, representative of the force of the person whose
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  picture it is of his nature. And if he has powers, of his
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  powers. Now you when you are sincere and
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  have an aspiration which goes and meets the corresponding
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  force in the book and it is a higher consciousness which gives
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  you the answer. End Quote reference Sri
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  Aurobindo and the Mother Powers within, Chapter 10.
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  Obtaining Answers and Solutions, pages 92 to 94.