Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / How Do We Determine Our Destined Role in the World? -- Part 1

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How Do We Determine Our Destined Role in the World? -- Part 1 · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  Danny and Brinkley told the story in his book Saved by the
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  Light. He was a mercenary, A hired
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  killer. He was struck by lightning.
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  He was pronounced clinically dead.
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  He returned to life. He knew at that moment that he
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  was sent back to accomplish a task, a mission.
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  He left behind his prior life and founded an organization
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  called Compassion in Action CIA to train people on how to work
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  with those who were terminally ill and in Hospice.
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  In the book Called to Heal, author Susan Schuster Campbell
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  relates the tale of an African shamanic healer she met during
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  her travels. The healer told her that she did
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  not want to take up the role of healer, but every time she tried
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  something else, obstacles intervened.
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  She had serious health problems herself and she could not move
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  forward in her life. This person consulted another
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  healer who told her that her denial of her destined role as a
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  shamanic healer was causing all her problems.
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  She became a shamanic healer and her life suddenly opened out in
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  front of her in a very positive way and she overcame the health
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  issues that had been troubling her.
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  Another individual told of having been poisoned and in
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  terrible pain. With all his limbs seized up.
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  He could not breathe. He heard an inner voice telling
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  him do yogic breathing, about which he knew nothing, having
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  not been exposed to yoga prior to that time.
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  Something started breathing in him and when he woke up, he
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  understood he had been returned to life to carry out a different
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  role than the career he had planned.
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  He left college, took up the practice of yoga, and dedicated
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  his future life to that practice.
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  These are exceptional cases and few individuals out of the
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  billions of people living or having lived in the world have
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  this type of clear guidance about their role and function.
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  But that does not mean that others are not intended to have
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  their own unique part to play. A disciple asks What is my place
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  in the universal work? The mother writes quote.
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  We all have a role to fulfil, a work to accomplish, a place
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  which we alone can occupy. But since this work is the
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  expression, the outer manifestation of the inmost
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  depth of our being, we can become conscious of its
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  definitive form only when we become conscious of this depth
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  within ourselves. This is what sometimes happens
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  in cases of true conversion. The moment we perceive the
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  transfiguring light and give ourselves to it without reserve,
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  we can suddenly and precisely become aware of what we are made
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  for, of the purpose of our existence on earth.
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  But this enlightenment is exceptional.
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  It is brought about within us by a whole series of efforts and
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  inner attitudes. And one of the essential
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  conditions if we want to achieve and maintain within ourselves
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  these attitudes, these soul states, is to devote part of our
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  time each day to some impersonal action.
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  Every day we must do something useful for others.
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  And quote reference Shriya Rabindu and the Mother Looking
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  from Within, Chapter 3, Action and Work, pages 58 to 61.