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Freedom
and Destiny FROM a certain point of view whatever happens here in the material world is a reproduction or realisation of whatever has already happened or existed on another level of reality. In this world then there would be no free choice, everything being predetermined. From another standpoint, however, one can say with equal truth that the world here is being recreated every moment; it is not a mere replay or Hash-back of a past event, a pre-existent phenomenon, but something ever new and fresh. Take, for instance, a material body, of a particular chemical composition, having some well-defined properties; it behaves according to that nature and produces inevitably results deducible from it. Now, if a new element is introduced into the thing at any moment, the whole quality of the composition and its behaviour will undergo a change. Something like that happens in the universe. The
universe is a huge mass of innumerable elements forming a certain composition and
in accordance with this composition all are organised within itself. But such
an arrangement is not the end or the culmination; it is not static, but moving
forward; it is in the process of development. For at any moment, through the
action of a different kind, one or more new elements can be introduced into the
total mass that forms the universe at a given time and that will necessarily
change the whole inner composition. The universe, the material universe, I
mean, is a concretisation
of a certain aspect or emanation of the Supreme. This concretisation is progressive, not
necessarily in a constant and regular way, but in answer to a law, with a
subtle kind or degree of liberty. Thus, in the composition of the universe at
each moment new elements are penetrating and altering the organisation. The
Page – 313 organisation that was perfect in itself and moved and un-rolled itself according to a definite plan and pattern, suddenly finds itself changed and the inner relations too are modified and attain a different poise. That may give the impression of something incoherent or imprecise or miraculous, according to the manner in which one looks at the problem. So there are these two simultaneous facts or factors: there is a determinism which is absolute in its way with a complementary movement of liberty, the unforeseen addition into a fixed existing sum. This addition comes from the aspiration for the supreme consciousness. There is nothing to wonder at the phenomenon. There is an aspiration acting in the world, moving with a certain end in view; the purpose is to bring back the fallen and obscured consciousness to its original and normal state of the divine consciousness. Each time that this aspiring consciousness meets an obstacle in its working, a new resistance to conquer or to transform, it calls for a new Force. And this new Force is a kind of new creation. In the human being, too, there are different domains in obedience to a law of correspondence; in each there is for him a different destiny and each is absolute in its line. But there is also in him, through his aspiration, a capacity to enter into relation with a domain higher than where he happens to be and bring down an action of this higher domain into the lower determinism. So we can say that there is a horizontal determinism in each domain, absolute in its normal working; but there is also a vertical intervention from other higher domains or even from the highest and then the lower determinism is changed completely. Thus every human being is at once a sum of various determinisms, absolute in their way, and there is also an absolute liberty that can intervene by bringing down other forces into the apparently rigid frame of destiny of the lower worlds and alter it. That is how things in the world give the impression of the unforeseen, the incalculable, the miraculous. You
may call this intervention Grace; for without the Divine Grace this could not
happen. There is a consciousness and a vision of things where all are brought
back to this single source; Grace only exists, nothing else is there. That does
everything. But as you have not risen to that summit, not have
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that extreme realisation, you have to take into account your own person, your
personal aspiration, the thing that calls for the Grace and to which the Grace
responds. The two are needed here. Both are ultimately ways of viewing the same
truth. The mind, however, finds it difficult to conceive both in a simultaneous
movement. The rigid distinctions it makes take away much from the supple and
subtle and integral truth of a total experience.
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