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Chance and Divine Order · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  We tend to interpret events from our own ego standpoint as to
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  whether they are good or bad, without reflecting on or
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  considering how they relate to a larger picture and longer
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  perspective. This means we judge
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  circumstances as if they occur by chance, and we evaluate these
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  things with the concepts of good luck and bad luck.
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  All of this, however, is both inaccurate and extremely
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  misleading. When we shift away from a purely
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  egocentric standpoint, we begin to see that events do not
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  necessarily happen because of their impact on a specific
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  individual, but rather we are placed to experience events that
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  have more general impacts and energetic trajectories and
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  impetus. While we are under the primary
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  impetus of the mental, vital and physical planes of evolution,
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  these tend to create waves and counter waves, confusion, chaos
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  and a lack of general harmony. As higher powers intervene, such
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  as would occur with a shift to the divine standpoint away from
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  the ego standpoint, we see what may be called a divine order at
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  work that uses all the temporary expressions that look like
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  disharmony at our level and moves it towards a greater
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  harmony as the higher insight and understanding gain a more
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  direct power of expression and action.
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  Sometimes something we evaluate as good luck is really a bad
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  thing for our evolutionary progress.
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  For instance, someone gets $1,000,000 inheritance.
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  If they treated properly, it may be a positive influence in their
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  lives. But if they then determined to
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  quit their jobs, change their lifestyle to one of indulgence
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  and luxury, and otherwise make their lives about enjoyment
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  rather than service, they may soon find that they are
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  suffering more intensely than before they received that
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  inheritance. In fact.
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  Reviews of results of massive short term gain of wealth among
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  lottery winners, celebrities or sports stars tend to bear this
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  out, and in many cases they wind up poor and struggling after a
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  brief run of spending beyond their normal means.
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  Chance is essentially an interpretation from the narrow
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  perspective of the individual because it does not see the
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  larger order and process of the universal creation and its
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  manifestation. If one shifts the viewpoint
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  outside of the ego standpoint to the divine standpoint, there is
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  no longer a question of chance and one can no longer interpret
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  events as good or bad luck. Chance in that sense is
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  disorderly because we there is a play of forces that intervene in
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  the evolutionary process over time.
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  It represents the operation of free will within the larger
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  context of a divine harmony and order.
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  The Mother notes in her questions and Answers 1929 to 31
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  quote. Chance can only be the opposite
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  of order and harmony. There's only one true harmony
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  and that is the Super mental, the reign of truth, the
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  expression of the Divine Law in the Super mind.
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  Therefore, chance has no place but in the lower nature the
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  supreme Truth is obscured, and hence there is an absence of
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  that divine unity of purpose and action which alone can
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  constitute order. Lacking this unity, the domain
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  of the lower nature is governed by what we may call chance.
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  That is to say, it is a field in which various conflicting forces
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  intermix, having no single definite aim.
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  End Quote. A disciple asks if chance is the
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  expression of disorder in the lower worlds.
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  Still there are happy chances which are not necessarily the
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  expression of a disorder, aren't there?
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  The mother replies quote happy for whom?
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  For generally, in this world as we see it, what is happy for one
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  is unhappy for another. What is happy in one case is
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  unhappy in another, and that too is an expression of disorder.
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  I don't say that necessarily it is a chance occurrence which
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  makes you unhappy. I say that it does not
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  correspond to the order of truths, which is very different.
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  One may be very happy in the midst of disorder.
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  There are many who are perfectly satisfied with their disorder
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  and would not like to change it. End Quote Reference Srioro Bindu
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  and the Mother. The hidden forces of life.
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  Chapter Eight. Life a Mass of Vibrations, pages
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  177 to 178.