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The Direction of the Psychic in Our Lives: Determinism Joined With Free Will · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  The human mind likes to have nice, neat categories, either or
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  black, white. It has a hard time dealing with
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  mixed actions or anything that partakes of various allegedly
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  competing or conflicting principles.
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  Thus the debate over free will and determinism rages on and
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  eventually comes down to whether the divine actually directs
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  every moment of one's life, thoughts, actions, reactions,
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  responses, et cetera, or whether there is any room for individual
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  discretion or some element of free will.
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  Recently, Stanford neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky,
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  in his book titled Determined, a Science of Life Without Free
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  Will, explained why he does not believe that there is any such
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  thing as free will and that every action is determined and
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  controlled by both external pressures and past cause and
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  effect. This is not a new or unique
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  viewpoint, but it is totally based on the mechanisms of the
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  external world and its development and does not account
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  for any divine intention or any soul or psychic being that
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  grows, develops annex as a Nexus for action and implementation of
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  the divine will. Such growth and development
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  would have no meaning if everything down to the smallest
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  detail were actually predetermined.
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  The Bible also weighs in on the side of determinism.
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  When Jesus indicates that the fate of each small bird is noted
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  by God and that a person's hair on his head is numbered.
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  While ostensibly providing a message about how the personal
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  God of the judeo-christian tradition loves and cares for
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  every smallest individual in detail, it is really a message
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  of how determined everything actually is in that viewpoint.
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  Where is the room for free will to act if the very comings and
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  goings of each small bird or the hair on the head of each
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  individual is under direct divine scrutiny?
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  And yet, in other places the Bible assumes a certain level of
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  free will of individuals, and thus the entire question of the
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  fall of man and the need for redemption through actions of a
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  Saviour arise. The issue is clearly not
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  resolved one way or the other there.
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  This highlights the inherent confusion and ambivalence of our
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  mental notions of the significance of our lives and
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  the role of the divine in the lives we lead in the external
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  world. Some earlier articles in our
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  series reviewing the hidden forces of life went into
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  considerable detail about the interaction of free will and
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  determinism, and the role of each and the ability for these
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  two seemingly opposite principles to coexist.
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  The main lines are basically determined, but each individual,
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  each unit is left free within that framework to act or not
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  act, to move or not move, to decide or not decide, et cetera.
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  This creates A statistical distribution, with most
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  decisions winding up within a relatively narrow range, with
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  some falling above and some below that central pathway.
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  One way or the other, the larger divine intention is still
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  carried out, but at the same time, the individual elements
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  are able to grow, evolve, make mistakes and learn from them and
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  follow a natural path based on their own evolutionary station
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  and the needs of their further development.
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  A disciple asks mother, is the orientation of an individual's
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  life directed by the psychic? The mother responds.
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  Quote Yes, absolutely unconsciously for the individual
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  most of the time. But it is the psychic which
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  organizes his existence only in what may be called the main
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  lines, because for intervening in the details they would have
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  to be a conscious union between the outer being, that is the
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  vital and physical being, and the psychic being.
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  But usually this does not exist so externally in the details.
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  For example, there was someone who in deep perplexity said to
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  me, well, if it is the psychic being, or rather the divine and
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  the psychic who directs our life, it is he who decides the
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  number of pieces of sugar. I put in my teacup.
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  That was the question verbatim. So the answer had to be no,
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  because it is not a detailed intervention of this kind.
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  It is as when you push your fist into a heap of iron filings or
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  sawdust, all the infinitesimal little elements of the iron
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  filings or sawdust are organized to take on the form of your
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  fist. But they do not do this either
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  deliberately or consciously. It is through the work of the
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  consciousness which pushes that this kind of thing happens.
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  There is no decision that each element is going to be exactly
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  in this place like that. It is the effect of the energy
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  which has pushed the 1st that organizes the elements.
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  But that's how it is. There is the psychic
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  consciousness at work in life, organizing all the circumstances
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  of your life, but not with a deliberate choice of the
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  details. End Quote Reference Shrioro,
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  Bindu and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Chapter 2.
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  Hidden Forces within pages 50 to 51.