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Understanding Adverse Forces and the Evolutionary Response to Their Action · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  How easy it is and how comforting to look at someone
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  who opposes us, or who is creating some form of havoc in
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  the world at large and simply label that individual as pure
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  evil, as a rakshesa, an asura, a demon, or some other form of
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  hostile being. And yet those individuals are
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  actually part of the creation and apparently have some role to
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  play, even if that role appears to be highly destructive.
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  In the economy of the Universal Manifestation, there are forces
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  that create and build, but also forces that tear apart and
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  destroy. In some cases, stagnation and
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  past fixed formations actually need to be removed in order for
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  progress to occur, and these destructive forces are tasked
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  with the role of breaking down the fixed confining habits of
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  the past. There seem to be limits to each
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  of them. In a non dual universe, even the
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  adverse powers must contain a spark of the divine presence.
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  The ancient Chinese symbol of Yin Yang attempts to describe
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  graphically this interconnection and the deeper harmony that is
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  implied. The ancient stories embodied in
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  the piranhas in India frequently tell tales of demonic beings who
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  seem to stride across the world and seem invincible.
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  In many cases they are said to have received special boons from
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  the Creator as a result of austerities they have
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  undertaken, and for a time they seemed to be unconquerable.
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  It should be noted that in each case they appear to have
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  requested immortality, but the Creator denied but allowed them
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  to determine the cause of their eventual death.
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  They were sometimes quite creative in finding ways to
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  exclude virtually every form of death, and yet eventually death
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  came to them in the form they either failed to omit or which
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  met all the conditions they had set.
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  In the end, the reign of Terror was ended and the world moved on
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  in its development. In a number of these cases, the
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  gods and the rishis prayed to the Supreme to solve the issue
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  and were told that it would be taken care of when the sins of
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  the offending party had reached a state of fullness, indicating
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  that somehow the atrocities were part of the action sanctioned by
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  the Supreme for a time, for whatever larger universal
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  purpose may have been under way, but not forever.
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  From our human standpoint, acknowledgement of these
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  uncomfortable facts is difficult, if not impossible.
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  Yet if we shift to a wider viewpoint and look through the
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  lens of history and time, we can see that along with all the
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  destruction and harm caused, there is a removal of past
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  limits and elements that could hold back progress, and there is
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  a countervailing force that arises, grows, and eventually
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  ends the disaster. In that form, that newly arisen
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  countervailing power continues to exert its positive influence
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  and helps the world progress. It is almost as if the universal
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  method is to raise up unacceptable forces in order to
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  provoke a new level of progress to come into existence.
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  It is generally true that unchallenged, we do not tend to
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  strive or grow as fast or as far as when obstacles are placed in
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  our path. In some cases, this leads to the
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  development of individuals who take on the role of leaders of
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  the evolutionary development, who see the opposition, who
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  understand its role and its limitations, and who help guide
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  humanity to the next stage of its growth while confronting and
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  overcoming these adverse forces. For those who have to live
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  through such times and events, the circumstances are
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  excruciatingly painful and much suffering occurs.
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  These are not all human caused events, however, although
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  nowadays human actions may actually contribute to what
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  formerly were purely natural catastrophes.
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  Volcanoes, cyclones, tornadoes, droughts, floods, wildfires,
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  heat waves and deep freeze periods, as well as the
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  potential for meteorite strikes represent forces outside human
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  control that create tremendous destruction and suffering when
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  they occur. In the end, something new arises
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  to replace what was destroyed, the mother notes quote.
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  And this presence becomes quite obvious in the human being.
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  Even the most rudimentary, even in the most monstrous human
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  being, in one who gives the impression of being an
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  incarnation of a devil or a monster, there is something
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  within exercising a sort of irresistible control.
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  Even in the worst, some things are impossible.
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  And without this presence, if the being were controlled
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  exclusively by the adverse forces, the forces of the vital,
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  this impossibility would not exist.
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  Each time a wave of these monstrous adverse forces sweeps
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  over the earth, one feels that nothing can ever stop the
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  disorder and horror from spreading.
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  And always, at a certain time, unexpectedly and inexplicably, a
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  control intervenes and the wave is arrested.
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  The catastrophe is not total. And this is because of the
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  presence, the supreme Presence in matter.
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  But only in a few exceptional beings, and after a long, very
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  long work of preparation extending over many, many lives,
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  does this presence change into a conscious, independent, fully
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  organized being, all powerful master of his dwelling place.
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  Conscious enough, powerful enough to be able to control not
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  only this dwelling, but what surrounds it, and in a field of
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  radiation and action that is more and more extensive and
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  effective. End Quote reference.
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  Shrioro Bindo and the Mother Powers within.
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  Chapter 20. The Psychic, pages 154 to 155.