"Behind the clock-work chance and vague surmise..." Is Sri Aurobindo saying that there is "chance" in the universe?

"Behind the clock-work chance and vague surmise..." Is Sri Aurobindo saying that there is "chance" in the universe?

Chance is an illusion of the the human Mind. In the global movement of consciousness, everything is worked out in harmony. The action of your Will attracts the action of somebody else's Will.

Read the Agenda, April 18 1961

In a certain state of consciousness (I no longer remember what he calls it - I think it's in the 'Yoga of Self-Perfection'), one is perfectly identified with the Supreme, not in his static but in his dynamic aspect, the state of becoming. In this state, everything is already there from all eternity, even though here it gives us the impression of a becoming. And Sri Aurobindo says that if you are capable of maintaining this state, [[Satprem had assumed that this state of consciousness was accessible only through a kind of trance or samadhi and that when Mother said one had to be capable of 'maintaining this state,' she meant that one should be capable of bringing it back here, into the waking consciousness. However, Mother rectified: 'It is a state with no "here" or "there". I have had this experience in the waking consciousness and both perceptions (the true and the false) were simultaneous.' ]] then you know everything: all that has been, all that is and all that will be - in an absolutely simultaneous way.

But you must have a firm head on your shoulders! Reading some of these chapters in 'Self-Perfection,' I thought it would be better if it didn't fall into just anyone's hands.

Anyway, in this state the feeling of uncertainty completely disappears (he explains it very well).

We think it's BECAUSE we do such and such a thing that something else happens. (And how frequently, too!) People are constantly saying and writing: do this and that will happen. But the fact that this person speaks and the other one acts is also absolutely decreed.

If we could really get this into our heads, it would probably make them swim.

But things as they are wouldn't be changed at all. I have had a very clear experience of this: the absoluteness of all that is materially; everything we think we are doing, or are planning, or intending, doesn't change anything about anything. But then, I was intent upon understanding what difference there can be between the true and the false state, SINCE MATERIALLY EVERYTHING IS EXACTLY AS IT SHOULD BE. (We think that things are like this or like that because of certain reactions we have, but our very reactions are as absolute and decreed as the thing itself.) And yet....

I have had this experience, and I remember it even went on for several days; I saw all material circumstances as an absolute - an absolute that we perceive as an unfolding, but which is an eternally existing absolute. I had this experience, and at the same time I had a very clear perception of what falsehood is - the lie; what, from the psychological, the mental point of view, Sri Aurobindo, translating from the Sanskrit, called crookedness. [[The Rishis distinguished between the 'straight' (almost in the optical sense: that which allows the ray to pass straight through) and the twisted or crooked consciousness. ]] We attribute the course of circumstances to our psychological reactions - and indeed, they are used momentarily because everything collaborates either consciously or unconsciously to make things be what they have to be - but things could be what they have to be without the intervention of this falsehood. I lived in that consciousness for several days, and it became apparent that this was what separated falsehood from truth. In this state of knowledge-consciousness, the distinction can be made between falsehood and truth; and when seen in that truth-consciousness, material circumstances change character.

Sri Aurobindo -- " Men see events as unaccomplished, to be striven for and effected. This is false seeing. Events are not effected, they develop. The event is Brahman, already accomplished from of old, it is now manifesting." ( Thoughts and Aphorisms.)

Thank you. This clears up much of my question, e.g., "Everything is exactly as it should be," and I would add "according to our state of consciousness." But the Mother also says, "our very actions are decreed." Does she mean our actions are decreed because of our attitudes? Or are even our attitudes decreed? If so, why karma, why involution and evolution? I'm sure she doesn't mean that this world is totally deterministic and we have no input whatsoever. On the other hand we are transitional beings and our ignorance is only a stage which we will outgrow and ascend to the higher Supramental consciousness. Perhaps this will happen in spite of ourselves.

But the Mother also says, "our very actions are decreed." Does she mean our actions are decreed because of our attitudes? Or are even our attitudes decreed? If so, why karma, why involution and evolution?

The answer to this paradox lies in the fact there is a balance between Mother Nature and the individual soul, which shifts in our favor as we grow closer to Divine.

Mother Nature is like a giant ocean and we are little molecules of water which are tossed around in it's waves.

The individual molecule of water indeed has its Free-will but this Free-will is to a large extent superseded by the wave that it is part of. You might use your willpower to move here and there but it doesn't have much effect. For instance, a person's response to any event can be predicted by the country he/she is born in, the parents, the family, the schooling. When people make decisions, their future interconnections can also be determined by the general movement of the wave they are part of. That is why the Mother says "things are decreed even when individuals make separate decisions" - because they are all part of a Universal Wave.

The situation improves as we grow closer to the Divine, because we are able to severe the knot which binds us to waves of Mother Nature. We are no longer part of the wave but instead we acquire the power to identify with and influence the movement of the whole wave. We can see the global movement of the ocean as it churns individual molecules and takes them back to the shore. We can see the aeonic cycles which are pushing all souls through evolution back towards their Divinity. The Mother was speaking from the standpoint of this universality where, although you see individuals struggling to overcome their Karma, it is still assured that in a million years or so they will all evolve.

In the words of the Mother

Question : Is there then no real freedom? Is everything absolutely determined, even your freedom, and is fatalism the highest secret?

Mother: Freedom and fatality, liberty and determinism are truths that obtain on different levels of consciousness. It is ignorance that makes the mind put the two on the same level and pit one against the other.

Consciousness is not a single uniform reality, it is complex; it is not something like a flat plain, it is multidimensional. On the highest height is the Supreme and in the lowest depth is matter; and there is an infinite gradation of levels of consciousness between this lowest depth and the highest height. In the plane of matter and on the level of the ordinary consciousness you are bound hand and foot. A slave to the mechanism of Nature, you are tied to the chain of Karma, and there, in that chain, whatever happens is rigorously the consequence of what has been done before. There is an illusion of independent movement, but in fact you repeat what all others do, you echo Nature’s world-movements, you revolve helplessly on the crushing wheel of her cosmic machine. But it need not be so. You can shift your place if you will; instead of being below, crushed in the machinery or moved like a puppet, you can rise and look from above and by changing your consciousness you can even get hold of some handle to move apparently inevitable circumstances and change fixed conditions. Once you draw yourself up out of the whirlpool and stand high above, you see you are free. Free from all compulsions, not only you are no longer a passive instrument, but you become an active agent. You are not only not bound by the consequences of your action, but you can even change the consequences. Once you see the play of forces, once you raise yourself to a plane of consciousness where lie the origins of forces and identify yourself with these dynamic sources, you belong no longer to what is moved but to that which moves. This precisely is the aim of Yoga, – to get out of the cycle of Karma into a Divine movement. By Yoga you leave the mechanical round of Nature in which you are an ignorant slave, a helpless and miserable tool, and rise into another plane where you become a conscious participant and a dynamic agent in the working out of a Higher Destiny.

This movement of the consciousness follows a double line. First of all there is an ascension; you raise yourself out of the level of material consciousness into superior ranges. But this ascension of the lower into the higher calls a descent of the higher into the lower. When you rise above the earth, you bring down too upon earth something of the above, – some light, some power that transforms or tends to transform its old nature. And then these things that were distinct, disconnected and disparate from each other – the higher in you and the lower, the inner and the outer strata of your being and consciousness meet and are slowly joined together and gradually they fuse into one truth, one harmony. It is in this way that what are called miracles happen. The world is made up of innumerable planes of consciousness and each has its own distinct laws; the laws of one plane do not hold good for another. A miracle is nothing but a sudden descent, a bursting forth of another consciousness and its powers – most often it is the powers of the vital – into this plane of matter. There is a precipitation, upon the material mechanism, of the mechanism of a higher plane. It is as though a lightning flash tore through the cloud of our ordinary consciousness and poured into it other forces, other movements and sequences. The result we call a miracle, because we see a sudden alteration, an abrupt interference with the natural laws of our own ordinary range, but the reason and order of it we do not know or see, because the source of the miracle lies in another plane. Such incursions of the worlds beyond into our world of matter are not very uncommon, they are even a constant phenomenon, and if we have eyes and know how to observe we can see miracles in abundance. Especially must they be constant among those who are endeavouring to bring down the higher reaches into the earth-consciousness below.

[CWMCE volume 3 Q&A 28 April 1929]