| 1 | Elizabeth's impatience to acquaint Jane with what had happened could no longer be overcome; and at length, resolving to suppress every particular in which her sister was concerned, and preparing her to be surprised, she related to her the next morning the chief of the scene between Mr. Darcy and herself. | - Darcy’s proposal to her apart from news, in this context has a personality of its own and will press for expression.
- “Elizabeth’s impatience to acquaint Jane could no longer be postponed.”
(P. 198)
Impatience itself can tune itself to the impossible circumstances.
Faculties can be long dormant, can suddenly surface to perform.
A cow swims; a long unused mother tongue absolutely emerges into use.
The will of the body inhibits or allows it to function.
The measure of patience or impatience depends upon the Will that acts – mental or vital or physical will.
People capable of deep, total, pure, complete Romance can find their hearts functioning irrespective of age or any other thing.
For us to withdraw from the social personality is the great capacity for culture whose perfection is seen in its emergence as a social personality for the sake of the society.
The Divine now acts through our nature and ego.
The Divine having become emancipated from ego and Nature emerging through our parts of the being and the modes of the Self is the Marvel.
The Divine thus realizes Itself.
It respects the constitution of our Nature and temperament.
It emerges not conditioned by its instruments but expresses to transform the instruments.
In that condition, by choice, the Divine can act as the Divine Itself.
An ideal Man acting through an unideal organization does so.
Mother acted through the Ashram like that.
She acted on Her own in 1956 to receive the descending Supermind.
In her Darshans She related to the Infinite on our behalf.
She says She collects all our aspirations and offers them to the Divine.
She has seen such an aspiration in a passing ass.
She heard that from the coconut husk, the carpet.
Her aspiration brought Sri Aurobindo to Her in the subtle plane in 1959.
Her very cells aspired.
She was obeyed by the being going to Hitler and the Chinese. - “Resolved to suppress every particular regarding Bingley”.
Human choice is based on this sifting of details.
Such a sifting goes on in us all the time with respect to time, space, events, people, memory, attitude, motive and everything on earth.
It is a process of creating the infinitesimal out of the Infinite.
One aspect is held out, holding back all the other.
In the Supermind there is no clash between two finites.
In our life there is an eternal clash.
The clash follows the rules of Life, society, Ego, and Nature.
One who knows these rules can see life as it shapes itself.
With subtle vision he can predict, see the past.
Such subtle vision goes before one’s birth.
The same vision rising to the causal plane not only can know but determine.
It is creative, but submits itself to the laws of cosmos.
One who knows those rules, one who can determine the course of events choosing to conform to the pattern of prevalent existence is the integral yogi.
He said She has the power to supramentalise earth in one day.
Still, it is not for the devotee to aspire for that power.
One is free to see that Power in action in any field.
He is not free to use it or even seek it.
The power is the power of knowledge and the value lies in not seeking it.
To seek is to be human.
Not to seek is better, but not being capable of seeking is the best.
It is Silent Will at its best.
It is not forgetting that is neutral.
It is positive capacity of not seeking anything for its own sake.
It cannot look down upon those who seek.
It is an attitude that comes when superiority loses its sense.
Superiority is inverted inferiority. - “Preparing Jane to be surprised”.
Surprise is surprising.
The least Elizabeth could aspire for is to spring a surprise on Jane.
The idea of marrying never once entered her Mind.
I have adduced two reasons for it: 1) the lingering charm for Wickham, and 2) the mechanism of life that wants to accomplish her marriage.
Out of that monumental event in her life, the least she could expect is the surprise of Jane.
Misfortunes sympathized come to stay thus energized.
After a tragic event in a Man’s life, if life around is maliciously blind, the tragedy passes, reversing itself and opens the opposite of luck in his life.
Social courtesy of sympathetic enquiry will have undesirable effects.
Apart from all this, Jane is NOT good to Elizabeth as she is to Jane.
It should have struck her as a thunder of lucky surprise.
She gives a flat negative response, unpardonable in her.
Her own happy sisterly surprise would have stood in the way of Elizabeth succeeding in getting Jane married.
It is clear she is unable to be happy in Elizabeth’s good luck as Elizabeth is to her.
Her inability to be surprised reminds us of the inability of Elizabeth to be shocked by Wickham’s design on Georgiana.
Bennet’s response, Jane’s reluctance to be happy show that Darcy was not in their social horizon.
That distance made the marriage possible preventing any possible expectation in Elizabeth.
Mrs. Gardiner was genuinely expansive on seeing Darcy in love with Elizabeth.
The distance between such interest and wedding being so impossibly great Mrs. Gardiner would not disturb the atmosphere by the most distant hint.
It is a culture of good will.
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| 2 | Miss Bennet's astonishment was soon lessened by the strong sisterly partiality which made any admiration of Elizabeth appear perfectly natural; and all surprise was shortly lost in other feelings. She was sorry that Mr. Darcy should have delivered his sentiments in a manner so little suited to recommend them; but still more was she grieved for the unhappiness which her sister's refusal must have given him. | - Jane’s response is characteristic of her.
- There was no great surprise for Jane, as Elizabeth was holding back Jane’s part. So, the energy of surprise is not there.
- Jane does not for a moment regret Elizabeth lost a great chance. Neither money, nor marriage is so valuable to her as Elizabeth’s happiness.
- The mother is obsessed by their marriages.
- No girl is equally worried, though they all want it.
- Lydia said Bingley would choose her.
- As they were not obsessed about marrying like the mother, three weddings take place all at once.
- Jane was not astonished by Darcy’s proposal. She lost the surprise in other feelings one of which is the exposure of Wickham. It is due to two reasons: 1) Jane is incapable of a receptivity to Darcy’s wealth into her family and 2) The exposure of Wickham has pained the feminine heart to wonder enough at the proposal
- “Strong sisterly partiality that made the proposal perfectly natural in view of her perfections…”
Only once Jane, after her engagement, wished Elizabeth another Bingley.
She never said that Elizabeth deserved a better groom.
Her concession, apparent or real, came true as it was not much dwelt upon.
Jane Austen does not tell us whether Elizabeth surprised Jane enough as she expected.
It is more than clear that Jane, whether she has good will or not for her sister, is fully wrapped up in her own sacred self.
Good will formulates itself out of excess energy that is outgoing.
Jane is not endowed with any such energy of that description.
Sure, she is stupid enough not to be sufficiently surprised.
She, Elizabeth said, loved many stupid Men.
To be stupid is different from loving a stupid person.
It means she does not see that stupidity.
Stupidity that does not see another’s stupidity is really stupid.
Her mother’s stupidity is given a dynamism by her energy.
In Jane, her mother’s stupidity has stuck as a passive endowment.
She is slow to respond out of this trait.
Stupidity is not active enough to have ill-will.
Nor does it permit good will that needs activity of thought.
She is somewhat dull.
Dullness is incapacity for action; stupidity is inability to think.
Dullness of substance makes stupidity of consciousness.
Elizabeth spares no occasion to complement Jane.
Jane does not offer her opinion of anyone for us to know.
Jane is a passive complement to Elizabeth.
Nor is Jane hurt by the exuberance of Kitty or Lydia.
Darcy noted it.
Bennet mentions it. - “All surprise was shortly lost in other feelings”.
The Prime Minister visited a farmer in his house wanting to eat what he had prepared for his own dinner. It was not a surprise that is to be lost.
It is equally true of human nature great good things do not make lasting impressions on many. The various reasons are,
1) Inability to sense the greatness of the event.
2) Inability to retain that sensation for long.
3) Too selfish to appreciate good things to others.
4) General lack of energy for surprise.
5) In a psychological condition that prevents jealousy, one will not have the sensitivity to praise another.
6) Deep seated ill will of jealousy successfully suppressed.
Man is vociferous in appreciating the achievements of unknown persons as there is no visible rivalry.
In closed communities that are negative we see no one is able to appreciate another.
Great good fortune received from another to such people raises the first disagreeable thought that the good that comes, comes through such a person to whom he cannot even feel grateful.
Such feelings grow so strong that they cancel the incoming good fortune.
Even when devotees pray to Mother, they wish to receive the result more for their desert than from Grace.
Sri Aurobindo said Man is selfish and mean.
It is mildly put.
Man, after all, permits in his Mind other population only to the extent they are necessary for his survival.
It is said by many that one woman’s hatred of another woman is instinctive. It is equally true for every living human being about another. Only that it does not all the time surface as it occurs in women. It is this human nature our yoga has set out to transform into divine nature. - “She was sorry that Mr. Darcy should have delivered his sentiments in a manner so little suited to recommend them”.
Jane is a shell of formality.
She could not see the Himalayan event before her.
She quickly moves to the form ill suited and later to the sorrow of his disappointment.
No content worth its name was formed in her – a content of human value.
At best she was a negative product of freedom and energy.
Her mother’s sacred preserve of beauty is inherited by her.
The inheritance of outer form has taken all the energy leaving behind a negative accomplishment.
As against the virulent insistence of her mother, Silent will is almost a negative accomplishment in her.
If Mind is there, its will is there in silence.
No strong silly urge has entered her.
In the second child the deepening aspiration of the father brought forth Mind.
Elizabeth completes in herself what Jane failed to bring forth.
Elizabeth’s inordinate attachment to Jane is because she is her sister’s outgrowth.
In the children the silent battle of the parents’ will is seen.
Longbourn represents Meryton; it is right he marries one from the village as he loves the country.
One end of the community lifts the other end, striking a balance.
Jane, forgetting Darcy proposed to her sister, talks of his disappointment and the unsuitable form of his sentiments.
Birth of Mind is a great event.
Preceding it form, though half empty, is in order.
Her beauty is the physical form.
Her occupation is vital forms.
There is a strong process her Mind is undergoing as to the form and its rightness.
The birth of form in her gave birth to the content in Elizabeth.
We now see the attachment between Jane and Lizzy is primarily mental.
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| 3 | "His being so sure of succeeding was wrong," said she, "and certainly ought not to have appeared; but consider how much it must increase his disappointment." | - Jane disapproves of Darcy’s assurance of Elizabeth accepting him. She herself readily accepted Bingley as Charlotte did. No girl will put up her feminine tricks to Darcy’s wealth. They are too sensible to play hide and seek with them. Elizabeth acted so the second time. Jane’s web of appearance is so foolishly real that she finds fault with Darcy
- “His being so sure of succeeding is wrong”.
Faith in an idea lasts as long as it yields results in one’s experience.
Hopeless women quickly abandon the theory of waiting and start setting traps for men.
Jane believes in woman waiting for men, in Man courting unwilling women.
Her own beauty makes it possible.
Mrs. Bennet’s irrepressible urges have matured into their opposite in Jane.
Whatever she does, her own stamp of stupidity is always there.
To be able to utter this idea she must be certainly stupid in the extreme.
Stupid Jane, Bingley the boneless wonder is life’s match – perfect in itself.
Every Man spots a strong point in himself where he excels others.
His difference from others is taken to be his superiority.
He compares with himself with anyone from his chosen vantage point.
That gives him a distinction in his own estimation.
His subconscious awareness that he is a soul, makes him do so.
Sri Aurobindo explains the current belief in Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Omniscience is due to the subconscious awareness of the Supermind.
Injustice is God’s justice.
God’s purity of justice expressing through the vitiating atmosphere of ignorance becomes human injustice.
A villager who having come to town heard the word company a few hundred times. He tried to pronounce it. In his mouth it became kadal.
The Mind rightly heard, the lips because of lack of experience, are unable to pronounce it rightly initially.
Successful Indian organizations in institutionalizing the Englishman’s punctuality create an atmosphere of hardness and a mechanical feeling.
The two incidents in the whole story that bring out the high principle working in a low atmosphere are 1) Elizabeth’s callous ignoring of Wickham’s heinous attempt with Georgiana, and 2) Jane’s incapacity to be generously surprised at the most pleasant event in Elizabeth’s life. Generosity is a rare virtue.
One’s soul value is seen in his sensitivity to another’s woes.
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| 4 | "Indeed," replied Elizabeth, "I am heartily sorry for him; but he has other feelings, which will probably soon drive away his regard for me. You do not blame me, however, for refusing him?" | - Jane’s response to Elizabeth’s refusal of Darcy is artificial if not unnatural. Her whole personality has this comic or ironic modesty of superstitious conviction of intelligence
- Jane is an artificial personality of a mental attitude of naive goodness
- It is a certain blindness. When perfect, even that has the strength of accomplishment
- “You do not blame me for refusing him”.
As she is unable to tell her the rest, her argument remains incomplete.
There are always two sides to an issue which prevents a Man from deciding.
These two sides are known to him, within his knowledge.
There is another unknown side with the other Man or hidden in the future.
Knowledge of life can anticipate all the hidden sides.
Knowledge of spirit includes knowledge of life.
Consecration silently – perhaps ignorantly – includes all the other sides with respect to results.
Consecration maturing into surrender makes Man the determinant.
What Elizabeth did, moving from the vital to the mental, is a step prior to all this.
She acted from sincerity.
Sincerity is the light of the Spirit.
So, it can cover all these steps in essence.
His sincerity is total, in that it includes her.
She did it for herself, to shed falsehood, vanity, false accusation.
She, in doing so, never had Darcy at all in her Mind.
If anything was in her Mind, it was Jane’s wedding.
She did not know how her realization could make Jane marry.
But that was the right thing to do.
Doing it is a reward in itself.
It is a right method that includes the rewards in it.
She is to blame for hiding the news about Jane.
She is to blame for refusing him in such a fashion that would never permit him to return.
The thought of his return, its wish or possibility was not in her Mind.
That helped him return.
Those who study the ways of grace will find this – her not remembering his proposal – as a rare way of its stamp.
Elizabeth is one who pursues her goal for its own sake without any reference to anyone else.
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| 5 | "Blame you! Oh, no." | - It is not in Jane to blame anyone for anything.
- Jane knows no wrong to Elizabeth.
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| 6 | "But you blame me for having spoken so warmly of Wickham." |
| 7 | "No -- I do not know that you were wrong in saying what you did." | - Till the age of 23 no stark evil was presented to Jane.
- Meryton was a place of normal living. (p. 199)
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| 8 | "But you will know it, when I have told you what happened the very next day." |
| 9 | She then spoke of the letter, repeating the whole of its contents as far as they concerned George Wickham. What a stroke was this for poor Jane! Who would willingly have gone through the world without believing that so much wickedness existed in the whole race of mankind as was here collected in one individual. Nor was Darcy's vindication, though grateful to her feelings, capable of consoling her for such discovery. Most earnestly did she labour to prove the probability of error, and seek to clear one, without involving the other. | - “What a stroke was this for poor Jane”.
Jane consciously created a world of illusions and lived in it.
At every step, life showed her the lie of her beliefs.
For 23 years she managed to be inside her cocoon.
It gave her a sort of protection, though it was precarious all the time.
Now she had a situation where both could not be right.
She tried her honest best to tell herself that there should be some unknown factor to justify the accused.
Of course, there is such a view in the supramental plane.
The creation of such a character who refuses to believe any evil of anyone spiritually endorses the atmosphere of the story.
That attitude of Jane, and the shameless impudence of Wickham and Lydia agree on the appearance of it.
Jane cannot think ill of her Mother.
Not being capable of thinking ill of her mother, she would be able to think ill of few people.
Her goodness comes from her wanting to be good to her mother.
Her mother can think ill of anyone if she chooses.
Her Mind is partially developed. She does not want to go beyond.
She is unable to continue her mental development beyond this stage – where everyone is right.
Elizabeth is the power centre of the family.
She shares what little she does only with Jane.
Her mother is the organizer of destruction, wantonly if not consciously.
Any neutralization to Mrs. Bennet should come in practice from these two sisters.
Jane is silent.
Elizabeth is most active inside only.
Her accomplishments for the family are commendable with so little outer expression. - “Sought to clear the one, without involving the other”. (P. 199)
Taking the other man’s point of view is found to be an effective step to overcome Mind.
Jane’s attitude was partially one such.
It is a great truth of life that Man is in love with his enemy.
If he does not feel so, the next generations come together in love.
Today’s enemies are tomorrow’s friends.
In life this truth is well brought out in the succeeding generations.
Life belongs to the surface Mind, not even the inner Mind.
Existence crosses inner Mind, goes to the subliminal, comes to spiritual life in the Psychic.
To be aware of the Psychic on the surface is integral yoga.
Some of the milestones, obstacles, doors, and truths are seen in epics.
Krishna’s ruses, elders fighting for evil, Brindavan are pointers to the wider future world.
Even in the subtle plane the Indians refused to listen to Mother to save the Indian border while the Chinese went back listening to Her.
The future unity of Mankind is seen here in a subtle glimpse.
Gorbachev’s unilateral action to destroy that side of the power bloc opened the world arena to World Unity.
Napoleon was defeated but equality was accepted by the world, serfdom was abolished all over Europe, Code Napoleon was accepted and lives till now.
The world that destroys the idealists still accepts their ideals.
Marx was denounced vehemently, but Marxism came to stay through the fabric of Capitalism.
The chinks of life do show the future light after a fashion.
Jane’s attitude shows the essential value of Wickham in the scheme of things.
Elizabeth joins her by her inability to condemn the falsehood of Wickham by retaining a soft corner for him.
The most abominable Man is still needed for completion.
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| 10 | "This will not do," said Elizabeth; "you never will be able to make both of them good for anything. Take your choice, but you must be satisfied with only one. There is but such a quantity of merit between them; just enough to make one good sort of man; and of late it has been shifting about pretty much. For my part, I am inclined to believe it all Mr. Darcy's; but you shall do as you chuse." | - Elizabeth is always definitive.
- Darcy was wrong when she listened to Wickham.
- Wickham was wrong when she read Darcy’s letter.
- She sways to one side readily.
- Elizabeth has decidedly chosen to label Darcy good but would not condemn Wickham by her words
- “Of late it has been shifting pretty much”.
Man presents his view without explaining how he arrived there.
It is the vital in the Mind.
Mind explains and argues.
The vital takes one decision or another, is unable to know how it arrived at a conclusion.
Elizabeth passed through an elaborate process of analysis in the Mind. She wanted Jane to accept her findings.
The vital is autocratic.
It is autocratic out of inability.
It can choose to be autocratic for the joy of being so.
Elizabeth does so by her swabhava.
It is shifting for us, not for all or for Jane.
She is unable to see from Jane’s point of view, though no one can see from Jane’s view.
Man resorts to prayer when all other avenues are over.
When a possible solution is known to the world, Man, out of his own ignorance of such a solution resorts to prayer.
Refusal to avail of a facility in the society out of ignorance or other reasons and resorting to prayer have two explanations.
1) It is a yogic process meant for yogic discipline.
2) It is to do a simple thing cumbersomely – a foolish method.
Jane’s approach is unique and goes beyond foolishness.
Viewing from her own policy, it is commendable.
It is a view that will ultimately help one to cross Mind.
Jane is unaware of any such lofty motives.
She does it out of her nature.
The final outcome of Wickham marrying Lydia may partially justify Jane.
The story reveals the importance of Wickham for Darcy, not to Longbourn family. - “I am inclined to believe it all Mr. Darcy’s”.
Man’s mental understandings are often predetermined by vital preference.
Elizabeth trusted Wickham; now she trusts Darcy.
Each time she relied on the person, did not ask for proof.
Wickham she trusted adoringly; for Darcy her mistrust was prevented by a delicacy.
First it was false vital; now it was true vital.
Darcy’s decision to change was not vital or mental but spiritual in the vital.
Pure Mental decision must have no vital impression at all.
Buddha and Shankara were thinkers of immense eminence; Shankara exceled Buddha in thinking, though Buddha is the greater soul.
Sri Aurobindo says the vital Mind seeks illusion, thinking Mind seeks the Absolute.
Elizabeth did move to Mind but it was preceded by a vital choice.
Jane was not at all influenced away from her point of view.
One becomes an integral yogi when the Psychic presses for its own preference in the Mind.
Mostly Man is moved to God at the deepest point by fear of loss.
Darcy and Elizabeth moved not out of fear but out of desire.
To be able to desire the Divine is spiritual awakening in this yoga.
To her infinite gratitude she felt gratitude for Darcy for loving her. Gratitude is Love born out of Sincerity. In terms of the aspects of Sachchidananda, Unity with Love is gratitude.
Her love of Wickham is vital charm which she enjoys fully.
Even after one makes sufficient progress in integral yoga, even one who enjoys rasa in food can feel his preference for coffee or tea. Vital charm is like the relish of the taste. Theoretically its perfection is attained when the rasa of the vital charm rises to the point where the vital charm is distasteful, as present physical intensities of joy are distasteful to the rasa behind it.
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| 11 | It was some time, however, before a smile could be extorted from Jane. | - Even if she is personally not involved, Jane even in her mind, would not consider a wrong situation.
- Whether the situation is right or not, Jane remains neutral.
- “It was some time before a smile could be extracted from Jane”.
Psychology has described smile as the lingering mating call of the animal.
Smile opens the human to the Divine.
Sri Aurobindo rarely smiled.
Mother’s Smile is the smile of the Psychic Divine inviting Man’s psychic to respond.
Smile, in human terms, is the highest approval of another person.
Smile denied to lips, spreads all over the face as brilliance and shines through the eyes.
Smile thus can convey an impression, an idea, and an inspiration.
Whatever is conveyed by a smile is difficult to resist.
A deeply spiritual Smile can compel the body to flower, even the matter all around to turn to the Divine.
One who can smell the smile is blessed.
For everything without exception all the five senses are available.
The fragrance of Jasmine is the purity of the Divine perfume.
The finest subtle smile one comes across reveals his own soul’s complement in the human form.
Matter smiles by its invitation to possess it.
Meanness sets a trap as its smile.
Great material gifts are the smile of generosity.
The vital smiles at you accomplishing your work with a powerful envelope of popularity or fame.
Human deceit is so highly developed that such endowments can be stolen from its possessors by those around. The acme of human swabhava of organized ego there not only steals one’s spiritual endowment but wants the victim to celebrate his benefit.
It is often seen as social condescension.
Ego pervades, perfectly dominates, acts through the strong preference of dualities, elevates itself to the soul-status, and prevents Man from thinking outside its periphery.
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| 12 | "I do not know when I have been more shocked," said she. "Wickham so very bad! It is almost past belief. And poor Mr. Darcy! Dear Lizzy, only consider what he must have suffered. Such a disappointment! And with the knowledge of your ill opinion too! And having to relate such a thing of his sister! It is really too distressing. I am sure you must feel it so." | - “I do not know when I have been shocked”.
Darcy’s proposal must have shocked her out of her wits forever.
It was not Wickham’s falsehood that shocked her.
The ‘truth’ of Jane is her mother’s falsehood.
After all, only what is there deeply can respond.
Darcy’s magnanimous sincerity did not come to her even invisibly.
Wickham’s exposure was outrageous to her.
Slavishness was so deeply ingrained in Indians that a cabinet
minister in the early years commended the erstwhile rulers for self-abnegation.
Patriotism can take the guise of love of tyranny.
The Indian Presidency was enjoyed longest by an erstwhile toady.
Incidentally that is what sweet manners can achieve.
Also service to Spirituality, though questionable, can offer such material results.
A rule comes into existence if proved in one instance.
Its opposite expression only proves it negatively.
To trace a rule from its first incidence to its final expression through its opposites and exceptions is to study the laws of abstraction.
The Love of Jesus can thus be traced to his crucifixion.
Buddha’s great intellect that dissolved the mighty construction of the ego by the Mind went on to say Self too can be so dissolved.
Spiritual knowledge thus reveals the Truth in the falsehood.
At a later stage falsehood is Truth, as Ignorance is knowledge.
The obstinacy of the physical is its insistence on its spirituality.
Supermind’s knowledge of the whole thus establishes itself in Mind through division as ego, as separative knowledge.
Man’s capacity to traverse the path in the reverse is infinite.
Only that the initial first step that is crucial is given to human choice where ego’s pretence for the soul is the presiding knowledge. - “Wickham so bad. It is almost past belief”.
Jane in her depths was surprised by the spiritual generosity of Darcy in proposing to Elizabeth.
She was so constituted to express it only in favour of charming falsehood.
Strong local candidates fighting nationally popular candidates spend all their campaign energy speaking against the rival which goes to his invisible support.
Opposition is subconscious support more powerful than the conscious support or opposition.
The power of surrender lies in forgetting the issue surrendered.
Our memory shows we keep it with ourselves.
Memory, Thinking, expectation, Mind, Emotions, Acts conscious as well as subconscious giving up is the right indication of surrender.
Grace Crawley giving her promise to the Archdeacon did so in spirit.
Girls successfully waiting for Man successfully do so.
It is their belief that they love in response to Man’s love and have lost all the capacity for initiative in that regard.
In spite of its social version serving Man’s cause of domination, in Europe, it made Man kneel before her. Psychologically she fully availed of its infinite power.
Today’s woman in the West or East can regain her full power in its spiritual magnificence if she centres herself in her psychological personality.
Indian chastity is its social version of spiritual significance.
The woman in the West who acquires this knowledge will see monarchy giving way to Democracy in the realm of sex relationships.
In 1904 Sri Aurobindo saw the destiny of India lies in her complete Independence, not in petitioning for better government.
Today woman’s assertion is such an act in the reverse, oblivious of the fact that it is petitioning for her chance of domination of Man. - “Having to relate such a thing about his sister”.
Human relationship of the best kind excludes ‘relating’ anything of this sort.
Human relationship is social relationship.
Psychological relationship is intimacy of several descriptions but ‘such a thing’ about his sister never forms part of the fast friendships.
In this case, Bingley is not admitted into that confidence.
Had Darcy married elsewhere, the first thing he would keep from her is the news of Georgiana.
The reader is startled to find it in his letter.
Darcy could have definitely given her to understand Wickham’s character in this act, without disclosing the fact.
He explained the escapade in some detail.
Darcy, not being poetic or romantic, attempted romance crudely in relating this incident.
She was made to understand in her depths the extent of his commitment to her.
The rules of subconscious life tell us that she could not refuse to respond to it.
The letter was an occasion for him to relate to her sincerely and fully.
His sincerity would be incomplete had he withheld this news.
That she made light of this, explains there was NO love in her.
What she felt for Wickham was not love but deep infatuation.
Love has its origin in Ananda.
Ananda is the experience of Being and consciousness, both of which are made of truth.
Elizabeth, except in her mental endowment, is her mother.
Her mother has all the potentials for coarse pleasure.
Mrs. Bennet has nothing in her that can remotely relate to Love.
What she got from her father is freedom, capacity to think, both of which are faculties of Mind not that of heart.
Even Jane’s response to ‘such a thing about his sister’ shows she is more truly touched by the narration than Elizabeth.
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| 13 | "Oh! No, my regret and compassion are all done away by seeing you so full of both. I know you will do him such ample justice, that I am growing every moment more unconcerned and indifferent. Your profusion makes me saving; and if you lament over him much longer my heart will be as light as a feather." | - Elizabeth does draw solid solace in Jane’s company.
- “Regret and compassion are all done away by seeing you so full of both”.
Elizabeth had no regrets. She explains her exhilaration in abusing him.
The compassion she felt was thin and transitory.
Compassion is sympathy that can relieve another of misery.
Cheerfulness more than compassion is natural to her character.
Her psychological help to Charlotte was by her cheerfulness rather than compassion.
Compassion is an emotion stronger than sympathy but not yet spiritual as grace.
Elizabeth can relieve another of his misery more by her cheerfulness rather than by compassion.
To her Jane is a source of physical joy.
She is such a source to her father.
It is true she cannot go away from her father.
It is equally true she cannot send Jane away.
The grades of pity, sympathy, compassion, grace trace the development of emotions from nerves to the spirit through the heart and Mind.
Pity is of the nerves, which makes the other feel worse.
Sympathy is welcome, but cannot relieve the suffering.
It is of the heart’s emotions.
Compassion that can relieve the sufferer is of the Mind.
Grace abolishes suffering; it is the action of Spirit, uncalled for.
Grace needs no cause to commission itself into action.
Laws, rules are for Nature and its force.
Grace is of the Spirit which is being.
It is a law unto itself.
It creates its own laws.
It is bound by no law.
It can work through a law and its opposite.
Law is an occasion and instrument for Spirit, not a necessity.
Grace has the capacity to become Supergrace. - “I am growing every moment more unconcerned and indifferent”.
It is a confirmation of the callous indifference to such a news.
Unconcern and indifference refer to the lost opportunity of the proposal.
Man may love a good opportunity, but never will miss an opportunity to snub another especially when it is done in return.
To do a right thing one has to persevere whereas a wrong thing is done by the first opportunity. It baffles us.
Our consciousness is organized and experienced to execute a negative work.
No such preparation or endowment is there in Man for the right work.
Unconcern is the opposite of concern and indifference, interest.
Many things happen around us.
We selectively observe, recognize a few as worth observing.
To take a lingering interest in it creates a concern for the issue.
Unconcern is not the opposite of being concerned.
It is an active non-interest in a thing where no concern is allowed to develop.
Concern is what we develop as it is of importance or of interest to us.
Interest can arise by what the object is that attracts us.
She was definitely interested in Darcy to know about him.
She was not concerned about his affairs.
This explains why the news of Georgiana left her flat.
Georgiana’s great interest in her is explained by her lack of interest in her.
The two people in whom she naturally interests herself are Jane and her father.
Whatever happens to her, she rushes to speak of it to Jane.
With that eagerness she has a great amount of reservation in herself.
Her not taking Jane or her father into confidence about her relations with Darcy at Pemberley and Lambton which is out of her secretive nature, made his coming to her really possible.
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| 14 | "Poor Wickham; there is such an expression of goodness in his countenance! Such an openness and gentleness in his manner!" | - Wickham has such a good looking countenance.
- After his elopement, he retained a calm countenance.
- Absence of conscience is an asset.
- In trying to appear a paragon of perfection to the elder Mr. Darcy, he has developed such a countenance helped by absence of scruples.
- “Poor Wickham, there is such an expression of goodness in his countenance”.
It is true an excellent appearance of goodness and a bunch of venomous ideas can go together.
Appearances are real. For most nothing more than appearance is necessary.
Imperfect appearances give out their secrets.
Perfection in appearance is possible.
It cannot betray itself without an occasion for it.
It is significant that no one passed adverse comments on Wickham’s desertion to Miss King, except Mrs. Gardiner.
His manners, perfected at Pemberley, do not give out their true colours in Meryton.
Except in times of transition society is a vast significant apparatus of constructed appearance.
In any field like education, music, art, politics, religion appearance is no small part. In some it is difficult to discover the content at all.
Appearance perfected is achievement accomplished.
Jane cannot be as disillusioned as Elizabeth who went through an excruciating experience in the shape of a letter and proposal.
Excellent comforts in travel to deliver a message have the habit of becoming all important relegating the message.
Man has developed a perfect automatic system of senses for his survival.
He can never become a victim without turning a blind eye to the danger.
Social sensitivity of culture develops warning signals against deceitful manners.
Responding to one such signal, Darcy saved Georgiana.
Walking into one such trap willingly, a tragedy came to her.
Grace sometimes saves even willing victims.
There are victims devoted to tragedy whom grace does not save.
Without fail Mother saves them by Supergrace.
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| 15 | "There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it." | - “There certainly is some mismanagement in the education of these two young men”.
Results of a work do not always go as intended.
Wickham got the manners, Darcy got the character.
Results are received according to receptivity, not according to planning.
Intensity of love directed towards one, draws another to him.
Love is a total movement; ego’s direction is partial.
Darcy assured of status had no incentive to be receptive to the training of manners.
Wickham can easily learn manners, not character.
Wickham had a vested interest in an excellent exterior.
Darcy too had a vested interest of psychological satisfaction in looking down on others.
He had a complete justification in Wickham about hollow manners.
Elizabeth assumes that Pemberley was duty bound to train Wickham.
As people feel the objects they touch are their own, the vital and Mind when they relate by thought or feeling to something feel it is their own.
Once that thought takes hold of them, the facility with which the owner is removed by their thoughts reveals the infinite resourcefulness of human nature.
Anyone can readily usurp any position without compunction.
A daughter-in-law becomes a mother-in-law. In both the situations she wants to dominate.
Mrs. Bennet fully usurping the rights of the husband is blatant.
No encroachment is a good rule for domestic felicity.
Spiritual awakening has its versions at all levels.
Physical Mind seeing what it closes its eyes to.
Superstition looking outside of itself.
Mind seeing the other side.
Man taking the other Man’s point of view.
Preventing the Mental play to shut out the fact that all are in us.
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| 16 | "I never thought Mr. Darcy so deficient in the appearance of it as you used to do." | - Jane, contrary to all of Meryton, never found fault with Darcy.
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| 17 | "And yet I meant to be uncommonly clever in taking so decided a dislike to him, without any reason. It is such a spur to one's genius, such an opening for wit, to have a dislike of that kind. One may be continually abusive without saying anything just; but one cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty." | - Attitude of cleverness parts with the reason.
- Cleverness likes dislike.
- An extraordinary ability, even dislike, can rise to levels of genius when energy is supplied.
- Rationality is balance, supplies no energy.
- Dislike, as liking, is a source of energy.
- A sudden supply of energy opens the wit.
- Abuse is powerful, can supply its own energy.
- Speed, energy, dynamism can reach their own high points.
- Wit makes the mind resourceful and resourcefulness supplies energy.
- Hence the importance of the human choice.
- Choice takes sides.
- Attitudes like dislike can rise in intensity.
- One performs and then rationalizes.
- It is the usual rationalization available.
- Rationality, the choice to be rational, before the performance is not heard of.
- “It is a spur to one’s genius”. The genius in one can find expression by a deep liking of some one or a dislike
- The wit in one finds a release when one laughs at another
- “I meant to be uncommonly clever in taking so decided a dislike to him without any reason”.
The process of love as well as hate is exactly the same.
One who falls in love means to be uncommonly clever in taking a liking.
The force of love gives the extraordinary feeling.
The liking descends on him without any reason.
It is so decided a liking as if a decision were forced on him.
It does give him the illusion of uncommon cleverness.
Love is one expression of Ananda when the soul is touched by it.
The force of love is the force of the soul in action.
The uncommonly clever feeling is not an illusion; it is real as the soul is so.
The emotion soul feels is emphatic; hence the decided liking.
This is one of the two passages in the book that speak of a rare self-awareness.
The other is when she discovered herself despicable on reading his letter.
The above passage is not about love, but hatred.
It is remarkable that she is this aware of her own hatred.
The ‘tolerable’, his aloofness, meanness, pride, arrogance have created in her a forceful hatred which received further fortification by the fabrications of Wickham.
The process of the release of such hatred, her enjoyment of that release, the role of cleverness, the self-gratification in exercising a faculty all have assumed a proportion of reality when she sees it is without reason. Causelessness is the stamp of genius. She felt her own genius of abuse was released.
It was a proposal of love.
It was a tirade of hatred from her.
Her marrying him is the transformation of her hatred into gratitude.
Property excites security.
Sense of security and status give the emotion of gratitude. - “It is such a spur to one’s genius, such an opening for wit to have dislike of that kind. One can be continually abusive without saying anything just, but one cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.”
Jane Austen is certainly a genius. Her genius was exhausted in one novel.
Genius of love, genius of hatred are the same or similar things in the opposite direction.
As her genius expresses in dislike, it quickly exhausts in one book.
It is a story that expresses the vibration of destroying aristocracy.
So, any genius cannot express in love. It is possible to come out in love-hate.
Witticism is her well-loved trait, so it emerges as wit.
Creativity in writing or speaking creates an abundant wealth of supply of ideas that increases as it spends itself. Only a little finds expression.
A creative writer has several facets of creativity.
The characters are resourcefully creative in expressing their temperament.
The events creatively expand letting the characters expand with them.
Relationship becomes creatively live, the characters speak for themselves with the author trailing behind.
Life Responses enrich creativity of everything.
The genius of the author takes every creative occasion to express itself.
The heights of the author’s genius emerge better through routine simple acts enlivening them as never before.
The greatest expression of genius is in the routine events remaining routine but catching the creative imagination of the reader, making ordinary words immortal.
Immortality is great. It is the work of a genius.
Making the mortal immortal is great literature.
She does all this in her abuse!
He offers her good wishes for her health and happiness for that abuse.
There is no gainsaying the fact she enjoyed her wit mightily.
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| 18 | "Lizzy, when you first read that letter, I am sure you could not treat the matter as you do now." | - The first reading made no sense either way.
- Prejudice leads to bitterness is the central theme of the story
- Jane sees life’s warning of hasty ill will as it happened with Elizabeth with Darcy about Wickham. This is her central personality. She gets reinforcement for her attitude
- “Lizzy, when you first read the letter you could not have treated it as you do now”.
Her first reading made her uncomfortable, unable to see the words.
It was followed by introspection, self-illumination which is self-condemnation.
Now all those energies have spent themselves.
A certain freedom in the mind and an emotional freedom have set in.
Genius in its expression takes hold of the person, overcomes the personality and finds its own expression in its own character.
The receipt of the letter was full of curiosity, devoid of any particular expectation.
The proposal brought out the genius of abuse.
The letter brought out the genius of self-realisation.
Her inability to indulge in any expectation is because the negative energies exhausted themselves fully in the conversion to the other side.
Her own energies reached a neutral equilibrium, unable to move in any direction on their own.
The tension of her curiosity on receiving the letter was so great that she could not comprehend the words before her.
She rushed ahead to read further not knowing what she read.
The self-analysis absorbed all those energies leaving her out of spirits.
She anxiously sought pleasant relief in speaking to Jane.
She expected Jane to be surprised beyond measure.
Her disappointment in Jane taking it natural, she never expressed.
As Hamlet found the nascent Mind that was born in him unable to exercise the memory of his father’s command, Elizabeth, being a new born Mind out of vital infatuation did not find her energies abundantly supporting her.
She was aware of her abusive genius, not when she did it or when she reviewed it but when she was explaining it to Jane.
The performance is natural and instinctive.
Comprehending the performance was a later development.
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| 19 | "Indeed, I could not. I was uncomfortable enough. I was very uncomfortable. I may say unhappy. And with no one to speak to of what I felt, no Jane to comfort me and say that I had not been so very weak and vain and nonsensical as I knew I had! Oh! How I wanted you!" | - Uncomfortable feeling can lead to unhappiness.
- Stirring energies make one uncomfortable. Accepting that view settles into the emotion of unhappiness.
- Jane is an essential part of her emotional existence.
- “No Jane to comfort”.
Sorrow is halved when shared.
She was, she said, nonsensical with no one to speak to.
She would not have spoken to anyone except Jane.
The world of anyone shrinks to a few, often to one person.
For an introvert the world is himself only.
Speaking to anyone, we elicit sympathy.
The intensity is halved when another listens to us.
For the majority, marriage serves this purpose when the spouse is the confidant.
Man wants good news to be known all over. It does not easily spread.
Man does not want bad news to be known outside. It spreads readily and fully.
One is aware of the society by knowing all about it.
Any will is ill will; knowing others means knowing bad news about others.
Any willing of bad news readily spreads.
Man wants to know all about VIPs.
Knowing about a VIP is to rise socially.
Man feels alive in knowing news, particularly when he speaks it out.
The conversation at Netherfield is typical of social liveliness.
The quality of life for Darcy and Bingley is revealed by the nature of that conversation.
Society exists as a collective entity as well as in individuals.
The interaction between these two becomes social life.
Jane and Elizabeth each live in their individual habits.
There is no communication between these two affectionate sisters.
Jane evokes a response silently from the society.
Elizabeth evokes her own response from the same society.
Both meet or clash or coordinate and then resolve.
We have seen the resolution in this story.
Social existence, individual existences, their interaction to produce higher social existence and higher individual existences is the theory of social evolution.
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| 20 | "How unfortunate that you should have used such very strong expressions in speaking of Wickham to Mr. Darcy, for now they do appear wholly undeserved." | - “How unfortunate you should use those strong expressions in favour of Wickham” – Jane.
Jane’s entire response is from the point of view that they should not be considered wrong.
Elizabeth draws great support from meeting Jane after having lost her bearings.
The proposal was a great event of her life totally upsetting to her being.
Elizabeth had no one else to confide in.
Her disillusionment of Wickham had dismembered her totally.
All these are non-existent, non-issues to Jane. Public opinion matters to her.
Her mother totally disregards public opinion. She is a law unto herself.
Her father, for the sake of public opinion, retired into the library.
Jane has retired into her inner sanctum.
Jane does not see Elizabeth is like a rudderless boat.
Psychologically Man has developed microscopic vision.
Through the microscope you cannot see beyond the infinitesimal.
He has to move his eyes from that instrument and look at the wide world.
It never occurs to him.
Man, who has this knowledge, again looks at the world through the microscope.
Having learnt a great new lesson, he again repeats his old way.
It never occurs to him that knowing and doing are different.
The issue is to make the soul view a sensational knowledge.
The vast advantages of learning by original thinking outside the educational system never present themselves to a Ph.D. or his professor.
Universities can create degree holders, not geniuses.
The system organizes the knowledge and he sees the enormous storehouse of important knowledge.
It does not occur to him that knowledge lies in organizing the observation.
Human Mind, by direct observation, creates a deeper centre of vision around which the whole knowledge is originally organized by a person.
Such a Man is a website compared to the graduate who is a book.
Knowledge is only one part of the being. Even living is wider than knowledge.
His being is the being of the universe and the transcendent.
He limits it to a degree.
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| 21 | "Certainly. But the misfortune of speaking with bitterness is a most natural consequence of the prejudices I had been encouraging. There is one point on which I want your advice. I want to be told whether I ought, or ought not, to make our acquaintance in general understand Wickham's character." | - Whether one should expose a bad character like Wickham is a broad question. Here we see the girls have refrained from exposing him out of feminine tenderness for falsehood. One gets the result for his attitude
- “It is the most natural consequences of the prejudices I have been encouraging”.
No greater self-awareness can be expected of anyone than this.
Her speaking to Jane gives her a great relief in her nerves.
Speaking out gives relief; to the hearer news.
Elizabeth has not spoken out several other pieces of information.
Spoken or not, news that intimately concerns them gets communicated.
Jane lost her natural enthusiasm because Darcy had spoiled her chances.
Darcy’s role in marriage came to Elizabeth as Lydia’s leaking in words.
Elizabeth’s consent came to Darcy as a sensation felt in him.
Wickham’s mercenary nature came to her as an oral advice.
Every piece of news travels; those who have the instruments pick it up.
Mother saw the Chinese in Calcutta.
Wife and fortune came to Dr. Thorne through Mary to whom he had brought life and fortune.
More than taking it as a moral reward, one can see it as a law in operation.
Charlotte’s opening came to her directly from Elizabeth as personal persuasion.
Mr. Bennet’s relief came to him through his daughter and her lover. At his end he received it through the Gardiners.
Darcy received Elizabeth’s decision as a sensation as he worked on his own sensation.
As Elizabeth wanted to hide the news from Darcy, it came to her out of the mouth of Lydia as ‘Darcy’.
Charlotte prevented Collins from disclosing the engagement, told her directly because Elizabeth ‘offered’ Collins directly to Charlotte.
Elizabeth owns to Jane they were prejudices and she was encouraging them.
It was the colonel who told her about Darcy’s triumph with a friend as she was liked by him during his stay there and something wanted to serve her cause intensely.
When Darcy told the colonel about a friend’s escape he could not have foreseen that the colonel would meet the one person to whom that news mattered and also tell her on the morning of his proposal. As people move, news travels, the study of which will of course be fascinating. - “whether I ought or ought not to make our general acquaintance understand the character of Wickham’s character”.
This is a mild reference to Wickham’s ‘character’ that shows her feelings towards him.
Life acts from outside to compel the Man to restrain himself from inside.
He who acts rightly from inside will never be compelled from outside.
Man in his uncreative acts acts in line with society or life.
When he acts like that we say life is smooth as it is routine.
Can we see the right service that Mrs. Bennet, Wickham, and Lydia do?
One brings her husband out of his indolence.
The other helps Elizabeth overcome her vital attraction.
Lydia announces to the world that she could take care of herself as she pleases.
A prosperous nation provides for all the material comfort of her people.
An affectionate family takes care of all the good emotions of its members.
Psychological growth is sought after by a few individuals.
The Spiritual Quest is for the rare few.
These may be taken as grades of human growth.
The Bennet family, though prosperous, had no material foundation.
Whether affection is in abundance or not, all members were cheerful.
The two elders who sought psychological growth sought it in the society in the context of marriage.
Both had sufficient potential strength though covered with certain deficiencies.
Both insisted on their insufficiencies and life from outside compelled them.
Mr. Bennet did not seek any growth, but was isolated by the storm of energy that swept his household.
Mary seemed to be a passive observer trying to understand from her readings what was happening to her family in Meryton.
Sri Aurobindo said if a Force is sent to a Westerner he receives and acts using it while an Indian receives it as one in a coma who gets up, dances and goes back into the coma. Darcy acts as a Westerner.
Mrs. Bennet acts as an Indian while all the others are pleasant victims of the Force.
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| 22 | Miss Bennet paused a little and then replied, "Surely there can be no occasion for exposing him so dreadfully. What is your own opinion?" | - Jane as well as Elizabeth easily discover reasons not to expose Wickham.
- Under no circumstance will they expose him.
- “There is no occasion for exposing dreadfully”.
An occasion is one when a Man takes an initiative to act.
Society in the name of duty offers Men various occasions.
Need is a physical occasion.
Interest provides an occasion for the vital to act.
Possibility of a new thought provides the Mind an occasion to think which is its action.
A provoking event is an occasion for the temperament to react.
A ripe national climate is the occasion for a leader to offer to lead others.
A business opportunity is an inviting occasion for an entrepreneur.
One who loves to challenge himself at higher and higher levels loves to act as a pioneer when society grows to create such an occasion.
Every known solution failing is the occasion for resourcefulness.
Planning a career is the occasion to exercise one’s forethought.
Disagreement is an occasion to fashion better ways of harmony.
Differences in marriage are an occasion to be led to romance.
Man meeting an event, an occasion is created.
Foreign invasion is an occasion to inspire patriotism.
Difficulties create out of routine life occasions to forge a more intimate relationship.
Every act is an occasion to generate a corresponding emotion.
Every emotion is an eminent occasion to think afresh.
Occasions are created inside and expressed outside.
One’s devotion becomes proper when every small occasion is made to take him closer to Mother.
In Nature occasions arise for movement.
In the Being occasions arise for Non-movement.
There is no occasion when one can fail to practise self-giving.
Time expressing in space is a human occasion.
Time maturing into simultaneous Time is a divine occasion.
He calls this occasion the Hour of God.
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| 23 | "That it ought not to be attempted. Mr. Darcy has not authorised me to make his communication public. On the contrary, every particular relative to his sister was meant to be kept as much as possible to myself; and if I endeavour to undeceive people as to the rest of his conduct, who will believe me? The general prejudice against Mr. Darcy is so violent, that it would be the death of half the good people in Meryton to attempt to place him in an amiable light. I am not equal to it. Wickham will soon be gone; and therefore it will not signify to anybody here what he really is. Some time hence it will be all found out, and then we may laugh at their stupidity in not knowing it before. At present I will say nothing about it." | - Liking, whether of a man or woman, leader or boss or friend stands in the way of public exposure.
- Those who study human nature can examine one placed in such a position. On any showing, he will end up with the idea of not exposing.
- Consider the context of self-exposure.
- No one will consider it.
- If anyone does consider it, he will end up exposing another.
- Self-criticism, past consecration, reversal of oneself are not elements of human nature.
- One like Wickham will not be exposed till the entire tide turns against him.
- Even in Meryton very few people would remember his past now that he was married.
- Except those who were personally aggrieved, no one would speak out.
- Between men and women, whether the scoundrel is a man or woman, even the violated woman will not make a grievance of it.
- “Greek Tragedy” is a Holmes story.
- A man murders a brother of his love.
- After the murder, the woman says she would do anything for him.
- Liking does not hurt.
- It is an occasion to serve one’s own falsehood.
- “Mr. Darcy has not authorized me to make the information public”.
The resourcefulness of Man in shifting his responsibility is great.
He is unrivalled in presenting his desire as a duty to family or the country.
To rope in another uncalled for to implement his aim Man is capable.
In the literature of the earlier centuries, politicians, thinkers, writers, clergymen, or Man in an untenable situation invoked God unceremoniously.
There is a psychological truth in it.
There is a well marked hypocrisy in it.
When Man exhausts his capacities, beyond that whatever exists is his God.
The hypocrisy is Man loves to replace God, if the circumstances permit.
This is how he positively and negatively expresses the idea that the unknowable formulates to human consciousness.
The instinctive action of Man is egoistic, selfish, subconscious.
His rational action is belief in the past experience – Karma.
He who acts outside the past experience still relies on all his capacities. He has nothing to rely on.
Weaning himself from the subconscious, past experience, accumulated capacities he moves to conscious action, grace and super grace.
Becoming conscious, one is alert, assures himself of all kinds of protection from this world, partly from the other worlds.
Not relying on past experience he is free from karma.
The Westerner’s freedom from karma arises from this attitude.
The Indian not only lets the past experience rule him, he believes in it religiously as well as spiritually.
Giving up the past experience does not mean not relying on the past accumulated capacities.
To do that one must enter the virginally creative Moment.
The Will in the accumulated capacities possessed subconsciously must give way to the divine will.
It is shraddha, Faith, the fourth stage of dynamism that does it.
Then the Divine acts through him. - “Every particular relating to his sister should be kept as much as possible to her”.
Human nature in its best endeavours to be truthful, compromises the truth, even facts, as it will suit Man’s personal convenience.
Elizabeth who withheld so much from Jane should have done so with Georgiana. In speaking it to Jane, she betrayed his trust in her.
He expected total secrecy not as far as possible.
Of course news of Georgiana was not necessary to Jane, except to satisfy her urge to speak out.
Jane had not spoken to Elizabeth the several pieces of news of Darcy that Lydia gave her.
Jane accused Elizabeth of not telling her anything that happened at Pemberley and at Lambton. She called Elizabeth sly on that score.
This context between them suggests Georgiana could have been out of the conversation.
Elizabeth was slightly pleasantly tickled by Wickham’s attempt with Georgiana seeing the romantic aura of that adventure.
Her expansive joy arises from the fact that she had imagined herself in the place of Georgiana.
It was such an urge that made her speak it to Jane.
When an elopement spreads wildly, all men who condemn it, disapprove of it, approve of it identify themselves as the hero of the event.
Psychologically an elopement is an occasion for the romance of the entire society.
She never thought for a moment that she should deserve Darcy’s confidence in this regard.
It was an unpardonable behaviour on her part.
He was more sincere to her than she was to him.
At this level people have no scruples. Elizabeth is one of them. Only those who exhibit unshakable values at this level qualify to be human. - “It would be the death of half the good people in Meryton if Darcy is placed in a favourable light”.
People get what they deserve.
Darcy, this statement declares, was far beyond their level of imagination.
Bingley was readily acceptable as he had no strength of character.
In a weak atmosphere the strength of things that can be mentioned have a limit.
Beyond that limit things will not be considered even in a conversation.
Beyond that limit people fly only in fanciful trips.
It is in terms of power, reward, gift, ambition, goal, etc.
Seventy years ago the grandson of a Municipal manager passed M.A., one of the three M.A.s in the district. The grandfather’s ambition was he should become the head officer – Nazar – of the district court. It was a non-gazetted post. It was real to the grandfather as the boy’s father was a road maistry on Rs. 12/- p.m. In life he became a college professor when he retired. Public Service, Mother’s Darshan made him No. 2 to his Vice-Chancellor in his university.
For the devotees if he deserves anything by his equipment and it is real to his imagination, he will get it.
Of course, his faith can give him the highest position in his own profession which his imagination does not prevent.
Mother cannot give him anything less than world fame in his line, if he can put himself into Her hands.
Should he let Her work on him, it was not worldly rewards he can look for. She could fashion in him capacities instantaneously that she needs for her work. The world may not know it.
Desert, faith, service, worker, instrument are all left behind when surrender is complete. As long as the sense of instrument is there, it is a bar. What Mother gives or can give cannot be evaluated in terms of worldly life.
Elizabeth is to Darcy such a gift. - “Wickham will soon be gone. Nothing will signify to anybody here”.
The commonest symptom that brings the patient to the doctor is not disease, but pain.
Absence of pain for the patient is absence of disease.
This is the policy of an ostrich.
A leading economist talks of the remedies for the crisis as temporary. It does not address the basic cause, he says.
Man takes this attitude as his cure is in the plane of his problem.
Sri Aurobindo calls it secondary causes.
Giving property to children is such. Character deals with the primary roots.
Any solution she conceives does not think of the problem or address it.
How Wickham will be affected is the one angle from which she looks at it.
Moksha, the final release of the soul, into Brahman does not abolish the evil on earth, as it addresses the secondary causes.
Pain they say comes with pleasure. So we are asked to avoid pleasure.
It can give one moksha, not abolish evil.
The primary causes are ego and the inconscience in Nature.
Abolish the ego, seek the soul in Nature, evil will be abolished is the solution of integral yoga.
Containment of terrorists is no lasting solution.
Abolition of poverty is the ultimate solution.
What Elizabeth avoids in the vital plane comes to her in the physical plane. It is inescapable.
Non-violence unleashed violence.
Since 1929, addressing secondary causes has not helped the growing economy.
Domestic happiness cannot be addressed from economy, rights, temperament, etc. as they are all not the essential cause. It is the loyalty to the other and the desire NOT to dominate. At least excellent good manners can serve upto the penultimate point.
Ego is the cause, abolish it totally.
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| 24 | "You are quite right. To have his errors made public might ruin him for ever. He is now, perhaps, sorry for what he has done, and anxious to re-establish a character. We must not make him desperate." | - “To have his errors publicly exposed will permanently ruin him”.
The one real motive is the solicitude of the girls for Wickham.
Jane wants to spare him ruin. He brings it on the family.
She knew he attempted it on Darcy.
Sympathy for evil naturally strengthens the evil and his one target is one who sympathises as he is vulnerable by his sympathy.
It is not fairness or good behaviour in these girls. It is foolishness of feminine solicitude to masculine attraction.
It is a law that he whom you sympathise with, while he is evil, should ruin you.
Your sympathy relates you to him.
It is your weakness.
It is natural that evil not destroyed should try to act.
In the Guru-sishya relationship these laws are well worked out.
Leading disciples when they become gurus rarely mention the names of their gurus.
There is no human problem that cannot be understood if analysed from selfishness and meanness.
Why does Mary speak outrageous thoughts?
Being a neglected child, that behaviour easily catches the attention of all people.
What matters to her is attention of which she is starved.
It does not matter it is negative attention as long as it is attention.
Man seeks what he has lost in any fashion it is available.
What you refrain from doing due to misplaced or ill-placed sympathy, will be done to you copiously by the same source.
It is the law that the organizing energy organizes it fully.
Energy is a flow. It is not like a stone thrown.
The flow continues, builds itself, and shapes into force, acts as energy or force. Or it organizes itself into power. Someone should be a victim to the power.
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| 25 | The tumult of Elizabeth's mind was allayed by this conversation. She had got rid of two of the secrets which had weighed on her for a fortnight, and was certain of a willing listener in Jane, whenever she might wish to talk again on either. But there was still something lurking behind, of which prudence forbad the disclosure. She dared not relate the other half of Mr. Darcy's letter, nor explain to her sister how sincerely she had been valued by his friend. Here was knowledge in which no one could partake; and she was sensible that nothing less than a perfect understanding between the parties could justify her in throwing off this last incumbrance of mystery. "And then," said she, "if that very improbable event should ever take place, I shall merely be able to tell what Bingley may tell in a much more agreeable manner himself. The liberty of communication cannot be mine till it has lost all its value!" | - The decision to protect falsehood comforts.
- Jane is not only a willing listener, but listens without serious contradiction.
- She could not inform Jane about Bingley as it raises hopes without ensuring their fulfillment.
- Also, Darcy’s ruse would have to be told. She cannot do it.
- Later, Bingley who admitted his ignorance of her stay in London omitted to mention Darcy’s role.
- The suppression of this ruse is necessary to preserve the regard of Jane for Darcy even though she might pardon him.
- Revelation will remove the flavour of the regard.
- At each level of accomplishment, there are minor or insignificant acts that accomplish or by omitting they accomplish.
- More than doing the right thing, NOT doing the wrong thing needs greater wisdom.
- Lifelong joy of a man, accomplishing a global project often depends on such a thing.
- Edwina thus accomplished Indian freedom.
- Nehru thus created the loss of Kashmir.
- The development of Indian Freedom from 1910 to 1947 has such landmarks at every turning point.
- He who sees such details in any problem will become the master at that level.
- Now that Elizabeth unburdened herself, the tumult of her mind was allayed. Had she decided to expose Wickham it would have been powerfully disturbed and the social cataclysm of elopement would not have been there
- “She got rid of two of her secrets that weighed on her for a fortnight”.
Secrets weigh one down as they carry the weight of social knowledge.
Society learns about what a Man does and approves of it. That is the security he derives from the society.
The secrets we have carry the same weight as social opposition.
Conscience is the support of one’s psychological security.
This is the subconscious security the society offers.
Mother says conscience is an adversary.
The subconscious social security is of falsehood.
It carries the power of destruction if the society disapproves of one.
Man who reaches his God is to overcome the falsehood of his own as well as the falsehood of the society.
Falsehood is the power of ego socially approved or organized.
Man has to overcome his ego as well as the social collective ego.
All secrets are not made of falsehood.
Delicacies, sensitivities, preferences, circumstances demand secrecy which is not necessarily made of falsehood.
Secrecy is an essential part of life as well as existence.
A seeker of God is not free to share all his knowledge with others.
They have a sacred personal character much of which will not go into words.
Those that can find expression are not to be expressed unless there is sanction.
Much news becomes secrets in view of others’ sensitivity or stupidity.
The soul that carries the universal secret does not readily disclose it to the possessor.
Other great knowledge becomes secret in view of the lack of receptivity of those to whom it is intended.
The Absolute is such a secret.
The Marvel is a secret that excels the Absolute.
Poetry becomes the knowledge of such secrets in words.
As language conceals thoughts, poetry speaks out ideas that become secret thoughts.
Savitri remains recondite to his devotees.
He raised each line of Savitri to the level of Overmind.
Those who have the overmental receptivity can decipher it.
Poetry touches the hearts of the population as it carries the weightiest possible idea in the most intelligible vocabulary.
Bharathi spent ten years with Him.
All his poetic productions were written during that period.
Bharathi expressed all His ideas in his poetry.
They were ideas that go beyond the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita.
Nowhere the poet acknowledges the source of his inspiration.
Poetry belongs to a stagnant period of the society.
Society is fast expanding so that even reading poetry is not the fashion.
Maybe the prose of the world itself will become poetic prose to express His ideas in future.
It is conceivable that even conversation may become poetic.
His ideas can be more readily practised than explained in prose.
Once the ideas are lived, it can create its own prose later for their explanation.
Divine Life can well be poetic life.
Divinity is the poetry of life.
Knowledge that expresses beauty can be poetry at its height.
Knowledge that explains Truth is the philosophy of life.
The language of the philosophy of life is prose.
Human language is of the words that describe action, movement, relationship, ideas, and thoughts.
A language that can render Savitri into terms of life must be one of one’s mother tongue.
It will be a prose that will poetically express the profound ideas of The Life Divine. - “Was certain of a willing listener in Jane” (P. 201)
Listening is mental self-giving.
Elizabeth expects a sympathetic listening from her sister.
Sympathetic listening is vital-mental self-giving.
The egoistic individual by such listening breaks out of the ego a little into universalizing.
Breaking out of ego by external pressure is evolution.
Doing so by self-choice is one’s own yoga.
Egoistic consciousness goes to the origin of Mind.
Mind begins with cosmic consciousness.
The Origin of ignorance is the point where Mind forgets Supermind.
The sixth ignorance begins as soon as we forget the Absolute.
The Divine Soul that is in the Supermind is always present before the Absolute.
To know the relationship between Maya, Supermind, Divine Soul, ignorance is a great step in knowing The Life Divine.
We see Darcy’s love of which no one knows, and Bingley’s love which is known to all meet at the ruse.
The news or ruse reaching her made his proposal explosive.
It led to the ruse unwinding itself because of the elopement.
His magnanimity came to her through the girl who eloped.
We see the sequence externally, not the inner significance of events.
In every inner significance of an ordinary event is the secret of creation.
The Absolute retains its essentiality in every such event and allows itself to be realized making such realization manifestation.
In our own life such a significance will readily reveal.
They are the points where Man is turned to Mother.
Turning to Mother at that point on one’s own is aspiration.
The inversion in the aspiration is his hour of God. - “Something lurking behind which prudence forbade disclosure”.
What we forget is the prudence of life that spares us the distress.
The less we have to forget thus, the more we progress.
Complete progress needs no memory as life then is subliminal.
Memory makes the surface permit the successive Time movement.
For Self-education at home no examination is necessary.
Memory is the examination for the surface life.
Human life is a psychological construction in a constructed society.
Prudence, mentioned above, is one of its necessities.
Prudence in animal life is to protect oneself and for survival.
In spiritual life prudence is essential not as Man needs, but to protect him from occult forces.
It is also necessary to open spiritual opportunities.
For the lack of organisational prudence in matters of Money that has started moving fast globally, a crisis has precipitated.
A similar prudence in a crisis free world will make prosperity global.
Organised food production, organisation in transport have made Man forget them taking them for granted.
Money can be given such an organisation.
The world that has made primary education compulsory will discover that Man on his own will make college education his minimum equipment, when such an organisation is introduced in education.
Higher organisation renders superfluous the function of lower organisation.
Growth of organisation helps the society to grow.
Further growth needs shedding of organisation.
Outer organisations become inner organisation of values.
Culture is the highest organisation so far evolved.
Culture sheds ceremonies to be replaced by cultural values.
Ceremonies become sensitivities. - “dared not explain how sincerely she was valued by his friend”.
God does not hide himself at all from the eyes of Man.
God for Man, He said, is Light, Freedom, Immortality.
They are the God to Man’s spiritual aspiration.
There is no Man who does not aspire for something. It is his God.
The descending Supermind could not reach us as Supermind.
It came to us as Power that prevented catastrophes in Korea, Cuba, China.
A devotee can recognize how Supermind has come to him in all the landmarks of its descent. They are marks in his life or spirit where It landed.
Mr. Bennet’s decision to prevent the officers is a mental decision.
He had not used his mental will till then.
Compelled by the enormity of the catastrophe, he did so.
He was compelled by the catastrophe, and the catastrophe was created by the Force of the Revolution.
Mr. Bennet’s decision, in this case, was impelled by the force of the Revolution. It was the supramental force in disguise.
That it was the supramental force was confirmed by the positive result.
The other two weddings made possible by Lydia’s marriage were the stamp of supergrace.
The two characteristics of supergrace are 1) Bringing more than what is asked for, 2) The end result in the beginning.
Devotees have often seen such exhibitions in their own lives.
An unconscious devotee receiving results unconsciously is the rule.
It is possible to go to those moments and become conscious.
A feeling of gratitude brings that consciousness.
Gratitude thrills the body.
Consecration that brings the result is what we know.
Consecration that thrills makes us conscious.
It requires a concentration. It is the all-inclusive concentration giving us a wide massive opening.
To attempt it as often as possible is to have yogic consciousness. - “That very improbable event should ever take place”.
This decision is one that shows the genius of the author through Elizabeth.
To her the improbable event is Jane’s wedding.
Actually the word improbable shows the deep precise sensitive awareness of Elizabeth to the secrets of human nature.
This restraint of hers has emanated from the Force in the atmosphere, though she had the potential.
The world functions from an inconscient energy.
The Supermind sits as an engine in the events and drives it.
There is no event in our life that is not so influenced.
We do not see the driving force often.
Even when a positive result does not issue the force acting is supramental.
The marriage of Lydia is the action of the Force; the elopement is by the Force.
It is possible to explain each act of life like that.
Any benefit is by sensing the Force, not by general understanding.
The poet sees the world we see.
What is matter of fact and dull to us is poetic to his vision.
The fact is great poets see all life as poetic beauty.
At certain times as in Bennet’s decision and Elizabeth’s reticence we sense the Force behind.
Even Darcy’s magnanimity in wanting not to claim a reward for his goodness, even the reward of his love, is the act of a gentleman. The Force acts there, but we can only infer it, not sense it.
The Divine sight. The Divine hearing. The Divine sense is real.
A work of a genius lays them bare to our dull eyes.
The idea of writing these principles is to make it more evident to the reader.
After a deep meditation sometimes such a vision rises for a second.
These comments can give the mind the sense of seeing those aspects more often than usual. - “Bingley may tell in a much more agreeable manner”.
Life always exceeds rationality.
At best we can only be rational.
Still, while being rational, it is wise to concede that the results will always exceed rational planning or rational expectation.
Human sensitivity feels Bingley can speak better; life’s rules require not to speak it at all.
When problems arise we often manage to solve them. As life has a better solution than Man, spirit has a still better solution than life.
Whether it is Man, life or Spirit that is solving the problem, an attitude or strategy is needed.
Our attitudes are based on our understanding.
Those based on sensitivities are better.
Elizabeth feeling sorry for not having hidden the elopement from Darcy based on an understanding after the event, is seen as foolish.
Had she done so, the present results would not be possible.
Not to rely on understanding and to let the events take their course is consecration to life.
To call in Mother, discount understanding, brings Her understanding into action.
This is a foolish way or at least an unrefined way of invoking Her Force. Initially this is permissible.
This happens when the result is consecrated.
Consecrating our initiative, Her initiative comes into play.
Consecrating our understanding, Her understanding comes into play.
Consecration can go beyond understanding to the faculty of thinking, to its origin in the Mind, to the origin of Mind that is Supermind.
Darcy refused to react to her abuse. Also he decided to take her words as words of Wisdom. In doing so, he has accepted Elizabeth as his god. - “The liberty of communication cannot be mine till it has lost all its meaning”.
Man has no liberty of such communication.
Certainly he has no liberty of initiative.
Nor has he the liberty of thought or wish.
Man who knows he has no liberty of any kind moves towards his god.
Liberty for Man is liberty to ego.
It starts with the Mind, proceeds to the vital and the body where it is strongly entrenched.
The rule of the physical ego is symbolized by the war.
The hold of the vital ego has Money as the symbol.
The power is more powerful, Man has found out that power too is under Money.
The present crisis of Money shows the foundations of the vital ego are shaken.
Mental ego centres around Man’s own idea.
Man does not know that all ideas are from outside.
The Internet has systematically on a global scale started demolishing the supports to the mental ego.
Man cannot own property, power or even an idea.
Individuality is born when individual possessiveness is given up.
The Individuality of action produces an abundance for the society, by Man representing the strength of the collectivity.
Vital Individuality must organize collective power as if the whole society acts through one Individual.
The ideas spoken by the mental Individual are the evolving ideas of the society advocated by one with the entire force of the society.
Man loses his egoistic liberty to gain the freedom of universality.
The foundation for such great acts is the wealth earned out of the evolving true consciousness.
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| 26 | She was now, on being settled at home, at leisure to observe the real state of her sister's spirits. Jane was not happy. She still cherished a very tender affection for Bingley. Having never even fancied herself in love before, her regard had all the warmth of first attachment, and, from her age and disposition, greater steadiness than first attachments often boast; and so fervently did she value his remembrance, and prefer him to every other man, that all her good sense, and all her attention to the feelings of her friends, were requisite to check the indulgence of those regrets which must have been injurious to her own health and their tranquillity. | - Secret and Sensitivity: Elizabeth withholds the news that Bingley values Jane and only Darcy stopped the relations. In this is she insincere to Jane or is she sensitive to her? As everywhere, it depends on the attitude not the propriety
- One’s sensibility must be honoured. Otherwise injury done once remains forever
- “Jane still nourished a tender affection for Bingley”.
The woman waiting for Man is the feminine principle in life.
Silent Will achieves in the higher plane whereas spoken will achieves in our plane.
The feminine principle works everywhere.
It achieves more than the masculine principle.
The masculine principle offers the energy which is organised into results by the feminine principle.
Reading and digestion of what is read are such principles.
Man who earns in one generation mostly loses it in the next generation because what is generated is not assimilated in the next generation.
Should he create an organisation and allow his children to rise in it on their merits, such a fall can be averted.
The old Tamil Chettiar system of sending the children of rich people to start work from below in other establishments is a sound system that is known to have succeeded.
She cannot forget the Man she loved.
She cannot act overtly to consummate her love.
Bingley is so entirely submissive to Darcy that he fulfilled his unanticipated ideas by going to London one day earlier.
Her own tender affection, in its Silence, must reach the depth.
Elizabeth who assiduously works on the expressed and unexpressed emotions of Jane, does not know Darcy was working on a parallel to propose to her.
Working for another is work more fully for oneself.
It increases one’s receptivity two or three times.
He who consciously works for another increases his subconscious receptivity.
Conscious good will is subconscious accomplishment.
Conscious Silent will is total accomplishment in the conscious and the subconscious. - “Her regard had all the warmth of first attachment”.
The agitations of the heart, the excitement of expectation have various grades and qualities.
The warmth of first attachment gives Man ideas that are unreal.
For each Man it is a onetime experience.
And it is to be experienced, not explained.
One Man’s experience here is of no use to another Man.
His own experience is not of much use for himself a second time.
A fresh experience takes him afresh with almost the same vigour.
Life is to be lived according to material realities.
Mind generally does not guide here.
What guides here is the collective experience, drawn from the family.
Experiences benefit the future generations.
Marriage is a field where fine ideals and realities of life make a ready compromise, always on behalf of the latter.
Like the career, one can practice his ideas only one or a few times.
Knowledge and practice do not go together.
It is not impossible to arrive at a reasonable course.
Man who comes to marriage is unable to be reasonable.
Marriage itself is a field that decidedly prevents a reasonable behaviour.
To be reasonable successfully in impossible unreasonable conditions is possible.
One who takes the decision from behind these waves will succeed.
That can be reduced to an effective system based on his own inner realities.
All those who wish to honour their outer and inner realities can be fully guided to a total success.
What our reason misses, the reason of our senses cannot miss.
The system clearly leads anyone to that conclusion.
Even those presently unfit are shown by the system how to become fit.
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| 27 | "Well, Lizzy," said Mrs. Bennet one day, "what is your opinion now of this sad business of Jane's? For my part, I am determined never to speak of it again to anybody. I told my sister Philips so the other day. But I cannot find out that Jane saw anything of him in London. Well, he is a very undeserving young man -- and I do not suppose there is the least chance in the world of her ever getting him now. There is no talk of his coming to Netherfield again in the summer; and I have inquired of everybody, too, who is likely to know." | - Mrs. Bennet is one who opens up these wounds and destroys any remaining possibility.
- Once Mrs. Bennet enters the picture, accomplishment waits for her to exhaust all her resources.
- The woman is at a disadvantage in a marriage alliance. She has to wait for the man to propose. The weak party in a negotiation is like a woman. Mrs. Bennet speaks of Jane dying of a broken heart. Jane does not think so. She holds on to her position and expects no one to help her. From her point of view she exhausts her energy positively through appropriate values. The energy acting through values becomes spiritual energies. Exhausting them positively accomplishes the work
- The conversation on this page, as everywhere else, fully describes the level of Mrs. Bennet’s mind. This is her intellectual maximum
- That she is ashamed of the entail is a complete lie. Her own marriage belies it
- “Lizzy, what is your opinion of this sad business of Jane’s?”
In England of that time, a girl is given full freedom in her relations with a Man till she is engaged.
The system worked independently of the parents.
Mrs. Bennet had taken upon herself to manage Jane’s affairs.
Life will respond to the mother’s will, not to Jane’s.
Now she speaks as if somehow it had become a sad business.
Buying is different from selling though they are of the same plane.
Buying houses differs from buying lands.
Alliances cannot be treated on a par with buying and selling.
Man has only one method which will be applied indiscriminately everywhere.
He who successfully buys may not successfully sell.
Whatever Jane’s capacities were, she was not left free to try her chances.
Those who have meddled with others, elicit other’s opinion when it fails, other’s appreciation when it succeeds.
Jane was powerfully disturbed by her mother’s lamentations.
Darcy who interfered with Bingley had the sense to rectify it.
Mrs. Bennet was unconscious in interfering, unconscious when faced with the result.
She did not have the faculty to evaluate her failures.
Man when he acts in disregard to the spirit, especially when it brings grace, is bewildered facing the result, as he has no way of knowing what is happening.
Nor was she in any position now to move on right lines.
Fifty years after the descent of the Supermind Mankind is like Mrs. Bennet When Mother averted a catastrophe in the subtle plane, the Indians refused to listen to her. She acted through the Chinese.
When things had gone astray, life acted through Darcy, not through Mr. Bennet or his wife.
The best method for Mother is to ask the mischief-maker set it right. - “I am determined to speak of it to no one” – Mrs. Bennet.
Such a declaration comes from one who will not stop talking.
Her incessant talk pains Jane.
He who cannot accomplish a thing satisfies himself by declaring to himself that he would do so.
It is a vicarious satisfaction.
It is significant that Mrs. Bennet never brought her husband in any of her plans for any of those girls.
She acts as if he were not there.
Man when he sees an opportunity acts more or less like Mrs. Bennet.
Rarely men meet with opportunities.
The opportunity may have several facts, but the urge acts at once.
A Man was persuaded to buy a property where an income of Rs. 35,000 was to be got by spending 65,000 rupees.
It is not one’s intelligence that decides in action.
In action what matters is the urge for initiative.
About three fourths of first experience is of this kind.
Men who have met with disastrous catastrophes will be found to have anxiously courted it.
It is often seen as the lure of Money.
The occasion to act is overpowering.
Bingley’s ‘stupid’, Darcy’s ‘tolerable’ are of this type.
Very rarely one exhibits equanimity in the first experience.
Marriage is not only a first experience but the only experience.
One may think of several experiences in view of the availability of divorce.
Seeking divorce, one goes down from the only experience to the inability to gain experience even in that one experience.
Any organization where strange events take place will fit this description. Whoever initiates that action would have acted unconsciously.
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| 28 | "I do not believe that he will ever live at Netherfield any more." |
| 29 | "Oh, well! It is just as he chooses. Nobody wants him to come. Though I shall always say that he used my daughter extremely ill; and if I was her, I would not have put up with it. Well, my comfort is, I am sure Jane will die of a broken heart; and then he will be sorry for what he has done." | - “He used my daughter very ill”. (P. 202)
No act can ever be one-sided.
If there is ill-usage it cannot be from one side.
This may not be socially sound, but according to the inner-outer correspondence this is fully true.
Taking her words at their face value, we see Mrs. Bennet pronouncing a sentence of punishment on herself.
It is a psychological truism that he who complains against various people, unconsciously gives out a list of his own temperament.
Elizabeth had to own to Darcy a variation of this principle about her reply to his proposal.
Mrs. Gardiner mentions another principle by which an accused goes and does exactly the thing he is accused of.
He who denies himself the expression of a trait for fear of public disapproval, finding it is known, feels free to express it.
Education of psychological self knowledge can very well become part of the system.
Sri Aurobindo speaks of the value of biographies and history.
Their education is silent and abiding.
Students of English literature, it was seen, became good managers because literature takes one to the core of life.
Between history and literature, the latter is a more powerful portrayal of life as it springs from imagination while history is in the physical plane.
History records facts, takes care to omit opinions. In fiction the author explains to us the intentions of the characters we miss.
Mrs. Bennet does not know Bingley would not think of her till she forgets him which actually happened when Lydia ran away.
Jane’s silent yearning will bring Bingley.
Mrs. Bennet’s wailings will keep him away.
Thoughts behave at different levels differently. - “Jane will die of a broken heart and he will be sorry”.
In the scheme of things, justice assumes this shade too.
Social justice is based on socially honoured values.
Psychological justice is determined by conscience.
Life’s justice, if it can be called so, is determined by what we are to life.
It is fixed by the laws of energy equilibrium.
A girl wronged by an undeserving lover has no rescue to secure justice.
It is not only true of disappointed love; wherever the distances between persons are great enough, the punishment falls on the weak.
Society comes to value justice initially sacrificing a great many victims as the artist discards many of his sketches before he arrives at the best.
Society comes to accept certain values and then the value system is breached by an aberration. Jane’s case is one such.
Suppose the boy and the girl were of the same status, the conscience of the society would act subtly on the offender to compel him to do justice.
A weak victim does not enjoy that silent patronage.
Society has a tyrannical pleasure in punishing the weak.
It is the sadism ingrained in the collective conscience.
Acts of terrorism that evoke great protests if keenly perceived will be seen as an underlying joy in the population.
In the pre-Independence days in India national leaders felt that one cause of delay for independence was the silent admiration of the Englishman by the Indians.
It was more palpably felt in the abolition of slavery.
Slave owners passionately believed in its material benefits.
Slaves themselves knew they would work only under slavery.
Royalty lives in England long after its political demise because emotionally the Royal House has not outlived its use.
Freedom allows freedom to be a slave which is its farthest extension making it true freedom.
Sri Aurobindo gives that right to the Freedom of the Absolute.
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| 30 | But as Elizabeth could not receive comfort from any such expectation, she made no answer. |
| 31 | "Well, Lizzy," continued her mother, soon afterwards, "and so the Collinses live very comfortable, do they? Well, well, I only hope it will last. And what sort of table do they keep? Charlotte is an excellent manager, I dare say. If she is half as sharp as her mother, she is saving enough. There is nothing extravagant in their housekeeping, I dare say." | - “If she is half as sharp as her mother, she is saving enough”.
Man has always valued generous spending whether he follows it or not.
There are several silent ideals the whole society takes to and values.
Presently ego is so discouraged. One prides in being non-egoistic, an inversion.
Man respects himself for his capacity to be angry.
Society may not always approve of it.
One knows incapacity to be angry is an essential weakness.
Bingley values his readiness to act, to quit Netherfield in five minutes.
Darcy values superiority of Mind even when it expresses as pride.
Mr. Bennet values not interfering with his wife.
His wife values generous spending which she fully indulged.
She discloses her value that young people should enjoy themselves.
Jane values waiting to be loved.
To be a practical person is a much spoken value.
To treat others equally is a value that has gained currency.
Loyalty has always been a value, but loyalty to whom changes.
Loyalty to the family is being replaced by the loyalty to independence.
These are values that are fairly spoken of.
There are unspoken values that are upheld by the social sensitivity.
To be well dressed is one such value which the hippies attacked.
When we collect all the values in a society that are spoken of, we know of the value of the society.
Collecting the unspoken values, we understand the society.
Valuing their values, that society will happily assimilate you among them.
After 800 years ethnic groups remain separate, are proud of their separate identity.
Caste has come to stay in India as class in Europe by such individualizing cultural identities.
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| 32 | "No, nothing at all." |
| 33 | "A great deal of good management, depend upon it. Yes, yes. They will take care not to outrun their income. They will never be distressed for money. Well, much good may it do them! And so, I suppose, they often talk of having Longbourn when your father is dead. They look upon it quite as their own, I dare say, whenever that happens. | - Mrs. Bennet dwells on the entail like that.
- “They will take care not to outrun their income”. – Elizabeth about Charlotte.
Economic common sense ensures survival.
It controls the impulse to spend in terms of the income.
Mrs. Bennet never had it.
She never ran into debts, but failed to provide for the daughters.
Her extravagance was at the expense of her daughter’s future welfare.
The impulse to spend is vital.
Daughters’ future welfare is a thought.
Thought in the vital impulse is common sense.
Thought controlling the vital is a shrinking movement.
Vital impulse rising to thought is an expansive movement.
One is miserliness and the other is economy.
One is external control and the other is self-discipline.
Control can degenerate into cruelty or tyranny.
Self-discipline can mature into values and ripen into culture.
The value of cultures is distinguished by their collective sensitivity.
The basis of culture is plenty, education and experience.
Scarcity cannot issue impulse of generosity.
Without education a generous impulse will be a coarse or crude exhibition.
It is experience that organizes the occasion of plenty by the compulsion of understanding into a cultured behaviour.
The mental exercise of making the uncultured appreciate the beauties of cultural behaviour makes the personal experience into impersonal knowledge.
A system of education can be conceived on this basis.
It can be delivered by teachers anxious to acquire culture.
A sadhak through this route becomes a yogi.
His own personal ascent thus changes into universal descent.
Hence one Man’s perfection can save the world.
We see then how darkness is no evil but a supreme opportunity to seek the greatest possible delight of Self-discovery.
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| 34 | "It was a subject which they could not mention before me." | - Darcy’s second proposal waits for Collins’ letter on Darcy.
- “It was a subject they could not mention before me” – Elizabeth on Longbourn.
Life is one of million expressions of culture.
All the time Man’s intelligence is in action.
Observation, thinking, responding, deciding, feeling, choosing, knowing are the end expressions of existence.
The centre of all these functions is the ego.
To replace ego by the Divine is yoga.
After the ego is removed Nature, Swabhava, will remain there.
Swabhava is the force of form we have taken.
Swabhava is the force of the truth the Absolute has seen.
The force and the form are Brahman.
The force and the form are in the Brahman.
Brahman is in them.
The force is realized in the form.
The form by a rhythm and process realizes the truth in the force.
It is Mind that separates it from others by division.
Actually the separation is effected by the ego.
Having removed the ego separation is not there.
Discovering the soul of Nature makes the form perfect form.
Perfect form expresses itself in Simultaneous Time.
In human life all these can be traced.
Man in darkness, imperfection, low consciousness, suffering, pain, evil, death moves to light, perfection, high consciousness, pleasure, good, immortality.
This is done by moving from the body to the spirit via life and Mind.
It is equally a movement from Atman to Ishwara through Purusha.
It passes through conception, limitation, and absorption.
It takes him from the Individual to universal to the Transcendental.
It makes him pass through subjective, objective states.
It changes the hidden bliss in him into delight of the Psychic.
The key to these changes is the human choice.
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| 35 | "No; it would have been strange if they had: but I make no doubt they often talk of it between themselves. Well, if they can be easy with an estate that is not lawfully their own, so much the better. I should be ashamed of having one that was only entailed on me." | - When Pemberley enters by one door the entail, Mrs. Bennet’s wailing on the entail, he who represents the entail, must leave through the other door.
- Events are so arranged that the one that enters demands another to enter with it and quit the place.
- “I should be ashamed of having one that is entailed on me”.
Man loves to think well of himself.
More than that, he loves to think ill of others.
What he would most prefer is others should think well of himself.
Energy in him praises himself.
Lack of energy to praise himself or others thinks ill of others.
Expanding ego loves to expand in others.
Positive aspiration is aspiration for the being.
Negative aspiration is the aspiration for Non-Being.
Can we aspire positively for the Non-Being?
Ego or Nature in us can only aspire negatively.
Psychic can aspire positively for that which includes Being and Non-Being.
Elizabeth’s appreciation of Wickham is aspiration for falsehood.
Elizabeth moving to Mind is to move from the negative aspiration to positive aspiration.
Darcy aspiring to be a gentleman in her eyes is the aspiration of the Psychic.
Aspiration for falsehood is aspiration for the Non-Being, a negative one.
Aspiration for truth is positive aspiration.
Aspiration for the truth in another’s falsehood – her abuse – is psychic aspiration.
For a sadhak to assume no evil, the quest is for Truth everywhere even inside the falsehood.
Should he succeed there, he will appreciate the greater opportunity of falsehood than Truth.
Truth makes one move above.
Falsehood makes Man move above discovering a greater Truth.
The role of the surface Mind, ignorance, falsehood, its evolutionary use for Man can best be appreciated by the attitude Darcy took to Elizabeth.
He saw god in her.
The sadhak assumes God everywhere.
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