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Divine Will and Divine Grace · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  What is the will of the divine, and how can we know it?
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  The usual answer is some prescription from one religion
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  or another, with a doctrine supported by that religious
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  persuasion as being the correct interpretation.
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  In some cases, the divine will seems thereby to be in conflict
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  from one religion to another, and we thus set up the battles
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  that have led to more death and suffering in the world than
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  virtually any other cause. the Crusades, the Holy Inquisition
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  are a few examples of men interpreting the divine will to
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  support their own ideology. When we seek to know the Divine
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  Will, we need to find a way to shift out of the limited human
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  ego based standpoint from which we normally start and find the
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  thread that underlies the entire development of the universal
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  manifestation and the evolution of consciousness that appears to
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  be the secret sense of the development we see on earth.
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  Divine Will is a broad conception that lays out the
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  trajectory and objectives of the Divine manifestation in the
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  universe. Divine Grace represents a
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  supportive action to aid in the achievement of the Divine Will
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  by intervening at critical junctures.
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  We cannot judge divine grace from the human standpoint as it
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  fails to fit into our tidy little boxes defining how things
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  are supposed to work. It is an expression of divine
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  will at a detailed level, Sri Orobindo notes quote.
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  When I speak of the Divine will, I mean something different,
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  Something that has descended here into an evolutionary world
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  of ignorance. Standing at the back of things,
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  pressing on the darkness with its light, Leading things
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  presently towards the best possible in the conditions of a
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  world of ignorance, and leading it eventually towards a descent
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  of a greater power of the Divine, which will be not an
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  omnipotence held back and conditioned by the law of the
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  world as it is, but in full action.
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  And therefore bringing the reign of light, peace, harmony, joy,
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  love, Beauty, and Ananda. For these are the Divine nature.
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  The Divine Grace is there ready to act at every moment, but it
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  manifests as one grows out of the law of ignorance into the
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  law of light, And it is meant not as an arbitrary Caprice,
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  however miraculous, often its intervention, but as a help to
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  that growth and a light that leads and eventually delivers.
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  If we take the facts of the world as they are, and the facts
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  of spiritual experience as a whole, neither of which can be
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  denied or neglected, then I do not see what other divine there
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  can be. This divine may lead us often
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  through darkness, because the darkness is there in US and
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  around us, but it is to the light he is leading and not to
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  anything else. And quote reference Srioro Bindu
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  and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Chapter 7,
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  Spiritual Forces of Help and Succor, pages 170 to 171.