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Understanding the Higher Guidance That Directs Our Actions Towards Our Spiritual Destiny · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  When we rely on our surface impressions, which are very much
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  based on and influenced by our background, family, society and
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  the values inculcated into us by those relationships, we only are
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  able to truly understand a fraction of what is actually
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  occurring. And generally this is
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  conditioned by our desires, wishes, and preconceived ideas
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  based on our ego consciousness. It is thus necessarily not truly
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  possible to get a real sense of the larger perspective that
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  encompasses our growth and the developmental trend that is
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  working itself out within us and in our environs.
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  We are somewhat like the famous anecdote of the five blind men
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  who are asked to describe an elephant.
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  One man who takes hold of the tail says an elephant is like a
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  rope. Another who grabs hold of an ear
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  says an elephant is like a fan. Yet a third who grabs the trunk
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  believes an elephant is like a hose.
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  None of them can actually describe the reality of the
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  elephant, just the very small part that they are able to
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  experience directly at the moment.
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  The question then is how can we separate ourselves from this
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  surface awareness and experience a truer, more comprehensive view
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  of our lives and our development?
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  The sages in India developed a methodology of separation of the
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  witness consciousness from the active nature, the separation of
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  Purusha and Prakruti, in order to try to gain a standpoint from
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  which they could be less involved and thus able to gain a
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  new perspective that would help them gain this more complete
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  view of things. As long as we are inundated with
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  the noise of our surface awareness, we find it difficult,
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  if not impossible, to consciously receive any higher
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  guidance or comprehend the intention behind it.
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  This does not mean that the guidance is not there at work.
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  Rather it means that we are simply not aware of its action.
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  In some cases, long after an event, we reflect back and see
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  how it was pivotal in our development and how it was
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  potentially interpreted negatively at the time or not
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  recognize for the Seminole impact it would have on our
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  growth and the development of our lives, Triorbindo writes.
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  Quote. The true sense of the guidance
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  becomes clearer when we can go deep within and see from there
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  more intimately the play of the forces and receive intimations
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  of the will behind them. The surface mind can get only an
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  imperfect glimpse when we are in contact with the Divine or in
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  contact with an inner knowledge and vision.
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  We begin to see all the circumstances of our life in a
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  new light and can observe how they all tended, without our
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  knowing it, towards the growth of our being and consciousness,
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  towards the work we had to do, towards some development that
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  had to be made, not only what seemed good, fortunate or
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  successful, but also the struggles, failures,
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  difficulties, upheavals. But with each person, the
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  guidance works differently according to his nature, the
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  conditions of his life, his cast of consciousness, his stage of
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  development, his need of further experience.
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  We are not automata but conscious beings, and our
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  mentality, our will and its decisions, our attitude to life
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  and demand on it, our motives and movements help to determine
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  our course. They may lead to much suffering
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  and evil, but through it all the guidance makes use of them for
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  our growth and experience, and consequently the development of
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  our being and consciousness. All advance by however devious
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  ways, even in spite of what seems a going backwards or going
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  astray, gathering whatever experience is necessary for the
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  soul's destiny. When we are in close contact
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  with the Divine, a protection can come which helps or directly
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  guides or moves us. It does not throw aside all
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  difficulties, sufferings or dangers, but it carries us
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  through them and out of them, except where for a special
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  purpose there is need of the opposite.
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  End Quote reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother,
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  Looking from within, Chapter 1. Looking at Life and
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  Circumstances, pages 25 to 26.