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The Status of Consciousness Where One Can See Things As They Are · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  As long as an individual is rooted in his own ego
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  standpoint, he sees and interprets things from that
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  standpoint and cannot by definition see things as they
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  are. In the wider creation.
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  There is the famous story of five different observers of a
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  traffic accident, each one observing from a different
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  standpoint. They came up with five different
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  versions of what had happened. Perhaps if there had been
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  another observer watching from above and seeing the flow
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  pattern of the traffic, the timing, the circumstances as a
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  whole rather than from an individual standpoint, there
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  would have been a coherent recap of what happened, as well as an
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  explanation for how and why the five on the ground observers saw
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  things the way they did. This alternative standpoint in
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  terms of understanding the forces at play in our lives is
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  what we may call the divine standpoint.
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  From this standpoint, one can see the comprehensive action,
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  the forces at work and interacting with one another, as
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  well as understand, appreciate and incorporate the Nexus of the
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  individual and his standpoint. It is only from the universal or
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  divine standpoint that one can see beyond the artificial
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  segmentation of the process into past, present and future and see
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  the rolling out of the universal creation as one whole, present
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  and complete, yet appearing before our individual view as
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  sequential in nature. The Mother notes quote in
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  another aphorism, Sri Aurobindo says I no longer remember his
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  exact words, that sin is merely something which is not in its
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  right place. In the perpetual becoming
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  nothing ever repeats itself, and there are things that disappear,
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  so to speak, into the past, and when their disappearance becomes
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  necessary, these things become, for our very limited
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  consciousness, bad and repulsive, and we revolt against
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  them because their time is over. But if we had the overall view,
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  if we could contain within ourselves the past, the present,
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  and the future all at once, as it is somewhere above, we would
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  see the relativity of these things, and that it is above all
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  the progressive force of evolution that gives us the will
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  to reject, and that wherever they are in their right place,
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  they are quite acceptable. Only it is practically
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  impossible to have this experience unless you have the
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  total vision, that is to say, the vision that belongs to the
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  Supreme alone. Therefore you must first of all
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  identify yourself with the Supreme.
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  Then afterwards, with this identification, you can return
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  to a sufficiently exteriorized consciousness and see things as
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  they are. But that is the principle, and
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  to the extent that you are capable of realizing it, you
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  reach a state of consciousness where you can look at everything
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  with a smile of total certitude, but everything is as it should
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  be. End Quote.
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  Reference Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from within,
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  Chapter 2. Looking at Oneself and Others,
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  page 51.