Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / The Divine Intention and Will Goes Beyond the Human Ability to Conceive and Grasp It
Transcript
- 0:00We try to judge situations and events from our human
- 0:04understanding. We do not generally see the
- 0:07chain of cause and effect that led to a specific circumstance,
- 0:13nor the impact of the result that we observe on future
- 0:16events. We see things from our own
- 0:19narrow egoistic viewpoint and judge them based on our own
- 0:24desires, wishes, or trained ways of analysing them.
- 0:29Even when we try to see behind the external action to the
- 0:33hidden sense, we use our human mode of understanding to
- 0:37interpret what we are seeing. We speak of the law of karma as
- 0:42if there is some kind of immediate or eventual direct
- 0:45retribution to someone who does something we judge to be wrong
- 0:50or immoral. Conversely, we expect an
- 0:54eventual reward for someone who does what we judge to be
- 0:57positive actions. Yet the law of karma is clearly
- 1:01not so neatly organized as to fit into our limited judgment
- 1:06frame. In his book Rebirth and Karma,
- 1:10for instance, Srioro Bindo describes the lines of karma and
- 1:14the higher lines of karma in terms that differ greatly from
- 1:18the popular notions about how karma operates.
- 1:23The divine creation moves on different timelines and with
- 1:27vastly different purposes than what any individual can see from
- 1:32his own limited lifetime and standpoint.
- 1:36When we look at the time frames needed for the evolutionary
- 1:39process alone, consisting of billions of years, and try to
- 1:44compare it to the motives and actions we can conceptualize in
- 1:49our short span of years, which do not even represent a rounding
- 1:53error in the scale of the Universal Manifestation, we
- 1:57quickly realize that we are not in a position to judge any of
- 2:02these things as long as we remain anchored to our small,
- 2:07comfortable and limited human forms of understanding.
- 2:13Where does this leave us in our attempt to grow spiritually and
- 2:16align ourselves with the Divine Will?
- 2:19At that point, when we surrender our attempt to define God by our
- 2:24mental conceptions, we begin to act from the higher wisdom based
- 2:29in aspiration, receptivity and the deeper faith that is the
- 2:35light of the soul shining through our limited human
- 2:39mentality and vital nature. Srioro Bindu observes quote, The
- 2:46ways of the Divine are not like those of the human mind or
- 2:50according to our patterns, and it is impossible to judge them
- 2:55or to lay down for him what he shall or shall not do.
- 3:00For the Divine knows better than we can know, if we admit the
- 3:05Divine at all. Both true reason and bhakti seem
- 3:10to me to be at one in demanding implicit faith and surrender.
- 3:15End Quote Reference Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga,
- 3:20Chapter 2 Faith, Aspiration Surrender page 23.