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The Influence of the Awakened Consciousness on the Circumstances of the External Being and Life · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Have you ever wondered how some people seem to go through
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  various situations without a problem, while others go through
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  similar situations and have to undergo tremendous challenges
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  and suffering? If someone escapes a harrowing
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  incident once, we tend to call it luck.
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  But if it happens repeatedly in the course of an individual's
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  life, we have to look for some causative factor that is at
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  work. Similarly, if someone has a bad
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  experience, we tend to call it bad luck.
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  When it happens repeatedly through an individual's life,
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  again we have to look for a causative factor.
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  The Chinese use the term Jos to designate this undefined factor
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  that leads to how individuals come through difficult
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  situations for good or I'll. The concept of past karma is
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  frequently cited as an explanation, although this does
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  not explain much about how an individual comes through an
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  experience that their past impressions may have brought
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  forward to them. It only explains that the
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  circumstances arise, not the response or the outcome of that
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  circumstance, unless we are willing to accept absolute
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  predestination as the cause. A disciple asks. 1 can make it
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  afterwards. Laughter, the mother notes quote
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  no. Afterwards there is yet another
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  moment. One has fallen, one has already
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  hurt, but there is still a moment when one can change
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  things for the better or worse, so that it may be something very
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  fugitive, the bad effects of which will quickly disappear, or
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  something which becomes as serious as grave as it can be.
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  I don't know if you have noticed that there are people who never
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  miss the opportunity of an accident.
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  Every time there is the possibility of an accident, they
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  have it, and never is their accident ordinary.
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  Every time the accident can be serious, it is serious.
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  Well, usually in life one says, oh, he is unlucky, he is
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  unfortunate indeed, he has no luck.
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  But all that is ignorance. It depends absolutely on the
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  working of his consciousness. I could give you examples only I
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  would have to speak about certain people and I don't want
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  to, but I could give you striking examples.
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  And this, this is the sort of thing one sees all the time, all
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  the time here. There are people who could have
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  been killed and who come out of it unscathed.
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  There are others for whom it was not serious, and it becomes
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  serious. But that does not depend on
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  thought, on the working of the ordinary thought.
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  They may apparently have thoughts as good as the others.
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  It is not that. It is the second of the choice,
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  people knowing how to react in just the right way at the right
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  time. I could give you hundreds of
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  examples, it is quite interesting.
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  This depends absolutely on character.
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  Some have such an awakened consciousness, so alert that
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  they are not asleep, they are awake within.
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  Just at the second it is required, they call the help
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  where they invoke the divine force.
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  But just at the second it is needed, so the danger is
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  averted, nothing happens. They could have been killed.
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  They come out of it absolutely unhurt.
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  Others, On the contrary. As soon as they have the least
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  little scratch, something gets dislocated in their being, a
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  sort of fright or pessimism or defeatism in their
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  consciousness, which automatically comes up.
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  It was nothing. They had just twisted their leg
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  and the next minute they break it.
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  There is no reason for it. They could very well have not
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  broken their leg. There are others who climb up to
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  a first floor on a ladder which gives way under them.
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  They could have collapsed. They come out of that without
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  the least hurt. How did they manage it?
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  Apparently this seems wonderful. And still this is how things
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  happen to them. They find themselves lying on
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  the ground in an altogether fine state.
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  Nothing has happened to them. I could give you the names.
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  I am telling you exact facts. So on what does this depend?
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  It depends on whether one is sufficiently awake for the
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  second of the choice to. And note that it is not at all
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  mental. It is not that it is an attitude
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  of the being. It is the consciousness reacting
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  in the right way. It goes quite far, very far.
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  It is formidable, the power of this attitude, but as it is just
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  a fraction of a second, it implies an altogether awakened
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  consciousness which never sleeps, never enters the
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  inconsiant. For one does not know when these
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  things are going to happen. Isn't that so?
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  Hence 1 does not have the time to wake up.
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  One must be awake. I knew someone who indeed should
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  have died and did not die because of this.
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  For this consciousness reacted very fast.
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  He had taken poison by mistake. Instead of taking one dose of a
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  certain medicine, he had taken 12 and it was a poison.
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  He should have died. The heart should have stopped.
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  It was many years ago and he is still quite alive.
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  He reacted in the right way. End Quote Reference Srioro Bindu
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  and the Mother Powers within, Chapter 7 Attitude, pages 73 to
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  75.