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How Do We Decide the Right Thing to Do? · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  In a simple world, in a simple situation, decision making is
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  generally fast and easy. The consequences, whatever they
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  turn out to be, are usually not considered to be related to some
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  past action we have may have made.
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  We reach a path in a forest that branches off in 2 directions.
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  We choose one and come to whatever the end point of that
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  path happens to be. Choices are limited, decisions
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  are somewhat random, and the results are whatever they turn
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  out to be. As our lives become more
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  complex, as we are inundated with all kinds of facts,
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  factors, concerns, and potential consequences, the choices become
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  harder. The ability to make the right
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  decision gets clouded over by the magnitude of choices.
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  For example, in the game of chess, with a board of 64
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  squares alternating light and dark, and each person having 16
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  pieces starting from a set position, it has been calculated
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  that there are only 20 moves for the white pieces at the outset
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  of the game. However, after each side has
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  made one move, there now can be up to 400 possible moves.
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  After two moves each 197,742 possible moves, and after three
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  moves each there are 121 million possible positions.
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  A game between beginners obviously does not see this many
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  options, and clearly even for chess masters the options narrow
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  down considerably as some of the moves are nonsensical to anyone
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  versed in the game. This example illustrates,
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  however, the increasing complexity of decision making in
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  our lives as we get more and more factual input and get
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  bombarded with the ideas and opinions of others, as well as
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  the context of our own past experience.
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  How then, can we possibly know what is the right decision?
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  In the game of chess? There is a winner and a loser,
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  or else the players reach a stalemate where neither side can
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  win. The result becomes clear as the
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  game progressives, but the correctness of any specific move
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  or series of moves along the way is subject to second guessing
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  and doubt. Could things have turned out
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  differently? Could there have been a better
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  sequence of moves to win the game more quickly or easily
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  avoid a loss or a draw? The more complex the system, the
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  less certain we can be of the outcome.
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  An individual told of his own experience facing a serious case
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  of amoebic dysentery during his travels.
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  He asked local associates for advice about getting medical
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  care. Should he go to the allopathic
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  Dr. He was a Westerner, trained in dealing with health issues
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  through a Western lens. Or should he try something else?
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  Ayurveda, homeopathy, acupuncture, Chinese herbal
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  medicine, Western herbalism, special diets, sound healing,
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  red light therapy. Eventually an individual he
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  highly respected advised him to go to the local homeopathic
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  Doctor Who had a reputation for curing such illnesses quickly.
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  He had always heard that homeopathy had no active
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  ingredients, that it was just tiny sugar pills, and he was
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  suffering from a severe, real and unceasing, extremely painful
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  and relentless disease condition.
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  He was assured that what he had heard was not the case, rather
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  that homeopathy was in many cases the best choice, working
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  on a subtle vibrational level that other forms of medicine
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  could not reach. He went to the homeopath and
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  after answering dozens of seemingly random questions, the
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  doctor gave him a specific remedy and a tiny sugar pellet
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  and told him to dissolve it under his tongue and that within
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  about 15 minutes the intestinal motions would cease completely.
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  He was amazed when he found that the doctor was right.
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  We have little or no understanding about the real
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  complexity of our body, our lives, our relationships, our
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  society, the economy, the environment, and we tend to make
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  decisions based on our own short term understanding and our
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  limited information set. This occurs in small things and
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  big things in our lives and we wind up with a decidedly mixed
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  result, the mother notes quote. In the other case, if you have
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  made it a habit to study and observe, you have before you all
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  the little things of life which recur constantly.
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  You don't want to live mechanically by a kind of habit.
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  You want to live consciously, making use of your will.
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  Well, at every minute you are facing a problem which you can't
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  solve. I mean purely physically.
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  Take a certain difficulty you have in your body what we call a
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  disorder, which is expressed by an uneasiness or an
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  indisposition. It is not an illness, it is an
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  indisposition. It is an uneasiness.
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  There's something that's not working very well.
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  Then if you don't have the psychic knowledge which makes
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  you directly do the thing which ought to be done, and without
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  any argument, if you want to refer the thing to your mind and
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  to what you consider to be the knowledge you have, then take a
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  case which lies in the field of medicine.
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  That is, should I do this or that, take this medicine or
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  that, change the diet, take this food or that, then you look, if
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  you have never known more than a certain number of primary
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  principles, your choice is very easy.
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  But if by chance you have studied a little and know if it
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  be only the different medical systems of treatment, they're
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  the systems of different countries, the different systems
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  of medicines, there are, you know, allopathy, homeopathy,
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  this one and that. So one tells you one thing,
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  another tells you another. You know, people who have told
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  you don't do this, do that, others who say above all, don't
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  do this, do that, and so on. And so you find yourself facing
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  the problem and ask yourself, well, with all that, what do I
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  know myself? What am I going to decide?
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  I know nothing. End Quote Reference Sri
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  Aurobindo and the Mother, the psychic being soul, its nature,
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  mission and evolution. Section 2.
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  Role, function and action of the psychic.
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  Page 63.