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The Way of Repulsion and the Way of Attraction in the Path of Inner Growth · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  What makes us move in One Direction or another?
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  How do we choose, decide, set forth in One Direction as
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  opposed to another? There's the inner readiness that
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  creates a sense of incompleteness, dissatisfaction,
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  or a view of something better, more perfect, more beautiful,
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  more essential than what we experience now.
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  We move generally first through the force of repulsion.
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  We become dissatisfied, unable to accept our lives the way they
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  are. We may be discouraged,
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  depressed, isolated, or lonely, and we determine that we have to
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  escape this life and try something new, go someplace
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  else, learn some new skill, or otherwise make a change in our
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  lives. This we may call the negative
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  impetus to change, as it stems from a repulsion from what is
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  our current situation, either individually or in the world
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  around us. This path generally starts from
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  an exercise of our vital force, our willpower, and our effort to
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  change. This path may involve active
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  rejection, opposition, and a struggle to rid ourselves of the
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  vestiges of the past that represent the old ways.
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  There is also the positive approach, the way of attraction.
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  We experience something which shows us that there is a way of
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  beauty, harmony, goodness filled with life and joy and growth,
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  and we yearn to reach that and establish it in our lives.
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  Devotion, love, consecration all develop from the path of
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  attraction. This path also leads to
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  abandonment of the status quo, but not through a sense of
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  rejection or act of renunciation, but through a
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  natural change of focus based on a new, all attractive goal we
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  see in front of us. Whichever force moves us first,
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  eventually they can reach the same end point.
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  The old ways that bind humanity down to habits and restrictions
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  that hold us back are left behind, and we take up a new
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  life. In doing so, we can observe the
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  interchanges in our way of seeing the world, evaluating our
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  lives, and framing our actions. Once we start on the path, the
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  main factor becomes how effectively and completely we
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  can concentrate the focus, and how consistently and patiently
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  we continue that focus without distraction.
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  The mother notes quote at the basis of this collaboration.
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  There is necessarily the will to change, no longer to be what one
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  is, for things to be no longer what they are.
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  There are several ways of reaching it, and all the methods
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  are good when they succeed. One may be deeply disgusted with
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  what exists and wish ardently to come out of all this and attain
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  something else. One may, and this is a more
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  positive way, one may feel within oneself the touch, the
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  approach of something positively beautiful and true, and
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  willingly drop all the rest so that nothing may burden the
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  journey to this new beauty and truth.
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  What is indispensable in every case is the ardent will for
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  progress, the willing and joyful renunciation of all that hampers
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  the advance, to throw far away from oneself all that prevents
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  one from going forward, and to set out into the unknown with
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  the ardent faith that this is the truth of tomorrow,
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  inevitable, which must necessarily come.
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  Which nothing, nobody, no bad will, even that of nature, can
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  prevent from becoming a reality, perhaps of a not too distant
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  future. A reality which is being worked
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  out now, and which those who know how to change, how not to
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  be weighed down by old habits, will surely have the good
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  fortune not only to see, but to realize.
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  End Quote. Reference Sri Auro Bindo and the
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  Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Chapter 6.
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  Hidden Worlds and Evolutionary Forces, pages 155 to 156.