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5. Life Response

I thought of a friend with whom I had lost contact for a long time. I felt a craving to go and seek him at his place as a surprise. As I mustered courage and was about to leave for his place, I was told that someone, a stranger, was asking for me. I went out to see who it was. To my surprise it was the friend to whose house I was preparing to go. It was a pleasant surprise, a strange coincidence.

  • Really his coming to me was in response to my longing.
  • This is not chance or coincidence, but a rule of life, which I call Life Response.

Everyone can recollect dozens of such incidents. History is full of them. Fiction too is full of such strange happy occurrences. They are positive or negative. Sometimes they can be neither, neutral.

A poor girl fell in love with a soldier, a handsome looking scoundrel. A rich man whom this scoundrel had harmed fell in love with the girl. Charmed by the scoundrel's winning ways, her mind was fully poisoned about this rich man, who was really good, honest and idealistic but with offensive and blunt manners. Neither knew the other's mind. At a chance meeting place, the rich man proposed to the girl, who virulently abused him and turned him away. His explanations the next day through a letter mostly disabused her mind. Both of them left the place. After some time the girl's aunt took her on a tour and reached a town where the rich man lived. The aunt innocently suggested a visit to his mansion. The girl quickly rejected the offer. Soon she came to know the master of the mansion was away and expected the next day. The girl, changing her mind, agreed to visit the place. At the mansion the excellent reports of the housekeeper further changed the girl's attitude. It then occurred to her that she could have been the mistress of this mansion. Her one anxiety was to leave the mansion without the master ever knowing of her visit. She emerged out of the mansion and ran into the very person whom she dreaded to meet. This is the turning point in the story Pride and Prejudice that leads to their marriage. The moment Elizabeth changed her attitude to Darcy, Darcy appeared before her. His visit advanced by a day is a response life gave to her dislike changing into liking or love. In my words, it is a Life Response. Though we have seen a good many of them, we do not pay attention to them. To those who know all about life, they are no chance occurrences. All happens according to the laws of life. We can enumerate many of these laws, if not all.

  1. Life is a field of energy organized according to a system.
  2. It is life energy, not physical energy or mental energy.
  3. Life energy holds itself in an equilibrium.
  4. When the equilibrium is changed or disturbed, as in a fully automated factory, it restores itself.
  5. The restoration of the equilibrium necessitates a fresh act.
  6. The fresh act is the response of Life - a Life Response.
  7. Life Responses are positive, negative or neutral.
  8. Life has a character.
  9. Life Response has its own special characteristics.
  10. A positive move gives rise to a positive Life Response.
  11. A negative move gives place to a negative Life Response.
  12. In exceptional cases, the opposite responses too can issue.
  13. Each human trait such as love, anger, jealousy, and good will has its own chapter of Life Responses.
  14. Each value such as Truth, Honesty, Integrity, etc. has its own history of Life Responses.
  15. The rules of Life Response are the rules of life modified to the occasion.
  16. Both are governed by the Theory of Creation.
  17. The aspects of the Spirit are twelve. The planes of creation are eight. So there are 96 versions of them in each plane such as Life.
  18. Our epics, history, fiction, and world literature are full of life responses.
  19. Even fables, parables, and simple stories too honour the rules of Life Response.
  20. We can make Life Respond.

The above is not an exhaustive list of rules or laws of Life Response but covers the essentials. A full appreciation of Life Response will help us understand the three inversions I spoke of. In the above example from Pride and Prejudice the intensity of the emotions of both Elizabeth and Darcy is best portrayed by Jane Austen. Going back to the beginning of the story, Darcy in the first ball of the story comments to his friend that Elizabeth is not a beauty, but she is tolerable. That alienated her from him. Then she meets Wickham, a very charming man of exceedingly pleasant manners who tells her lies about Darcy. Also Darcy persuades his friend Bingley not to marry Elizabeth's elder sister Jane, who is a beauty, because of her low connections. While Elizabeth was smarting under these injustices, Darcy, ignorant of her prejudice, proposes to her in a language which is offensive. She abuses him and refuses. The two serious characters in the story are Elizabeth and Darcy. They were meant for each other. His unsophisticated manners cause a strong prejudice in her. The fire in her eyes attracts him. The pride of Darcy and the prejudice of Elizabeth stand in the way. As if by chance, they meet at Darcy's aunt's place. He proposes. Again they meet at Pemberley, his own house. His growing love for her, her subconscious response to his love, her attraction to his strong character throw each in the other's way. The reconciliation goes through several events. The significant turning point is when she meets him unexpectedly the moment she changes her dislike into love. All the principles of Life Response can be explained from any one story, here Pride and Prejudice.

In this story Mr. Bennet lives in Longbourn with his wife and five daughters known for their beauty. Life is in an apparent equilibrium. The eldest is 23, Elizabeth is 21. They each have £ 50 annual income as dowry though the father has £ 2000 a year. The daughters will not inherit it as the estate is entailed away on their cousin Mr. Collins. To this village, Bingley, a rich man from the North arrives with £ 4000 a year. He is single. The whole village of Meryton feels excited. Life that was in equilibrium was disturbed by the arrival of Bingley with Darcy. Every mother with a grown up daughter has her eye on Bingley for her daughter. Darcy with £ 10,000 a year is also single. At the first ball, his pride visible in the society alienates him from the Meryton community. The visit of Bingley and Darcy that has stirred up the peaceful life of Meryton finds two echoes. The Militia arrives and with it arrives the handsome Wickham. He is of cultivated manners. He carries himself with ease and grace. This is the man who wrongfully extracted £ 3000 from Darcy and attempted an elopement with his sister. Also Mr. Collins, on whom the estate is entailed, arrives to propose to Elizabeth. The whole story is how Elizabeth struggles to overcome her prejudice against Darcy and Darcy overcomes his pride.

  • Life, we said, has its rules.
  • It holds itself in equilibrium.

The daughters of the Bennet family growing older with no hope of getting married creates an unexpressed pressure on the fabric of Meryton village. Bingley and Darcy arrive in response to that urge. Wickham and Collins are brought there as an echo of the arrival of the other two. What moves the whole village and the four young men is primarily not any idea or an act but the youthful energies that crave for marriage. At least, in this case we see it is essentially life energy. Next we say that Life Responses are positive or negative or neutral.

  • The arrival of Bingley and Darcy are ultimately positive responses.
  • They are positive in the sense they come there in response to the healthy aspiration of the grown-up girls to get married.

Mr. Collins, educated at Oxford, is of the first generation of education. His poor background and high education have landed him in the patronage of Lady Catherine of whom he is proud. He never misses an opportunity to mention her name. Thus he constantly makes a fool of himself, almost a clown. He is stupid and forward. He is boorish. Elizabeth is ashamed of him. He has come there to marry one of his cousins - Mr. Bennet's daughters. Just then Wickham arrives, charms every female breast and delivers to Elizabeth a false scandal about Darcy. She is fully bewitched by his looks and more so by his aristocratic manners. She is lost in her dream of Wickham. It leads to the tragedy of his running away with her sister Lydia. Another tragedy occurs in Elizabeth's life. The man whom it is a shame to talk to, Mr. Collins, proposes to her. It is mortifying to her pride. Now our question will be why has life thrown up these two negative responses?

  • Negative consciousness attracts negative life response is one more rule of Life Response.

Elizabeth is the daughter of Mr. Bennet, a gentleman in every sense. In his youth, he was attracted by the beauty of Mrs. Bennet who is not educated or cultivated. She is a coarse woman and is proud of her vulgar ostentation. Jane, the eldest daughter, inherited her beauty. Elizabeth, the second, inherited her father's culture and common sense. The other three daughters are vulgar, boisterous and are exhibitionists. Elizabeth, in spite of her culture, does not SEE that the low behaviour of her mother and younger sisters is offensive. She naturally acquiesces in it. If Darcy comes to her attracted by her fine eyes, Collins proposes to her because she is the daughter of Mrs. Bennet. Wickham's monumental falsehood descends on her as her own inner position is false. Her high hopes for a good marriage, in spite of her low family and poverty, are false.

Her ‘false hopes' attract Wickham's falsehood.

Towards the end, the major events of the story arise. Lydia runs away with Wickham. Darcy, who was on the point of proposing to Elizabeth a second time, goes in search of Lydia and gets her married to Wickham, brings Jane and Bingley together, giving rise to a rumour that Darcy and Elizabeth are to marry. Lady Catherine, the aunt of Darcy, who was fondly hoping that Darcy would marry her daughter is outraged by this rumour and rushes to Elizabeth. She showers threatening abuses on her. Elizabeth is unmoved. In the hope that the stubbornness of Elizabeth would disabuse Darcy, Lady Catherine appraises him of the ingratitude of Elizabeth. On the contrary, this report revives his hope of marrying Elizabeth and he eventually marries her. Lady Catherine's abuse of Elizabeth and complaints to Darcy have the opposite effect of her expectation. One rule of Life Response is in an atmosphere surcharged with emotions, any move will serve that atmosphere. Here is an atmosphere of intense love of Darcy for Elizabeth and her equally intense longing for him to come back to her. Lady Catherine's expectation calculates in one way. Life acts in the other way. It is not whimsical of life. There is a law behind it. Charlotte, who is unmarried, is full of goodwill to Elizabeth. She is the one who saw his interest in Elizabeth. She advises Elizabeth not to be infatuated with Wickham and respond to Darcy. Her wishes come true. It is in her house that Darcy proposed to Elizabeth. The story reveals that this girl of 27, who has passed beyond the age of marriage, ends up marrying Mr. Collins.

  • Charlotte's good will for Elizabeth brought her the great boon of inheriting Longbourn, an estate of £ 2000 a year. Good will is luck.

Darcy is truthful to the end, in spite of being proud and aloof. His truth which is a truth of inner emotions, saves him twice from the machinations of Wickham - once in his sister's planned elopement and again in his marriage with Elizabeth - and life offers Darcy what his Truth deserves. If the study of several examples here makes the reader see the significance of Life Response, I shall feel rewarded. It is a wide topic deserving the full length of a book, which an American devotee is presently writing. His web site 1 will give more information. I shall add a few more examples to illustrate further a few more principles or the same principles further.

In an old Tamil story, a boy returns from London. Sabapathi is the name of the servant who evinces extraordinary interest in the things his young master had brought back from London. Before going out, the young man saw Sabapathi's intense curiosity and warned him not to touch his things. "They will tell me if you touch them". Sabapathi could not contain his curiosity. He examined every object his master had brought. He came to a clock which was a novelty and curiosity too. It was an alarm clock. It began to ring. Sabapathi now believed his master's warning to be true. He thought the clock was magical. Putting it on the floor, Sabapathi covered it with a basket and prostrated before it praying, "Please do not tell the master". Just then his master entered.

The clock betraying Sabapathi is a result of his intense curiosity and fear. The relationship between the master and servant is one of deep loyalty which cannot be broken. The articles from London are very powerful and have created an intense curiosity in Sabapathi. That curiosity has disturbed the equilibrium of trust between the master and the servant. It is not a trust that can be broken. In that case, Sabapathi would be dismissed. It is too great a secret for Sabapathi to live with. The bubble of the aberration has to be burst. The master needed to know the breach and pardon him. That is the choice of life. In the existing circumstances, the alarm set at random came to the rescue. It rings while the master arrives. It ends in Sabapathi being caught. Looked at carefully, this incident absolves Sabapathi of his crime and ensures his proper behaviour. Life acts as if it is a person and it has a personality. The truth is life does have a personality and we are one live point of the fabric of life.

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1 http://www.growthonline.org  

‘The Hound of Heaven' is a fine poem by Francis Thomson. A pious Christian wants God to take him into his fold. He was very attached to his life, his family and many other things of life. Still his prayer was sincere. God came down in a chariot to take his devotee to Heaven. The reality of going to heaven frightened him and he sought refuge in his family, friends and everything he was devoted to. Everywhere he heard the voice, "We cannot offer you refuge when you are denying God". God finally overtook him. Man runs away from his luck and seeks refuge in his mundane affairs. He evokes a response from God and can't escape from it. As God responds to a deep yearning, Life responds to a vital craving. All emotions, thoughts and acts can evoke responses.

  • Life responds when expectation is not there.

A government employee had a six-month arrear to collect. Years passed and his appeals were in vain. One day a friend came to him with an MLA and asked him to meet the Minister, a friend of the MLA. The employee took the MLA to the Minister. The Minister asked the MLA, "Is this man your friend? What benefit will accrue to you by helping him?" On hearing the MLA's reply, the Minister dismissed him. This employee was eager to know whether he could receive any help from some force of the Mother. "Mother can act if he refuses to rely on anyone or anything. As long as the reliance is elsewhere, Mother can't act. Life can respond when expectation is withdrawn" was the explanation he received. It was no easy task for him. One day as he was approaching his own desk, the peon told the employee that he was wanted in the office. It raised a scare in the employee, as his visits to the office earlier were inauspicious. The peon relieved him, saying it was some payment to him. The government had passed an order that in all matters of money disputes, 50% should be paid immediately. He got 3 months' salary.

Life is not moral or compassionate. Man, in his naiveté, assumes that life is compassionate or moral. One of the questions we often meet with is, "I am right, but punishment has descended on me. Why?" The assumption here is that right must win. In life we often see, or always see, that might wins, not right. Even gods choose to support the strong, not the weak man who is right. Jesus carried Love but he was crucified. Sri Aurobindo has said, "Power must descend before Love". Of course, in the very long run, love will win, right will prevail, but on the spot he who wins is the strong, organised, efficient person, whether he is right or not, true or not. At no time does Life Respond in favour of the weak, unorganised, inefficient, or irresponsible. But that too happens invariably if the weak invokes the Mother. Here also the Mother supports the weak in the event prayed for, but not permanently. She comes in, saves you on the occasion in spite of any shortcoming of yours, but as soon as possible you must permanently get rid of your weakness. Otherwise, the same problem will reappear in a bigger measure.

An urban devotee acquired a rural property and appointed an influential local person as a lessee. One day when the owner devotee was returning from his property, about 30 or 40 women and children stopped his jutka on a small imaginary grievance. Behind those women was a drunken man shouting. The owner was travelling along with his lessee. The lessee was tricky. Now was a great moment for him to have his owner at his disposal. He became a silent witness to the scene, waiting for the owner to plead for his support. It was a moment of crisis. Life does not offer half an hour for you to think and decide. You have to act on the spur of the moment. The owner devotee saw through the cunning of the lessee. He decided to act on his own, not seek the support of this treacherous lessee. He ordered his jutka driver to stop and confronted the drunken man directly. The lessee saw that the owner was independent, courageous and bold. He jumped from the jutka, ran to the man, pushed him to the ground and all was over in a trice. Had the lessee not acted, the courage of the owner would have still prevailed, but a scene of oral confrontation would have been unavoidable. The courage of the devotee evoked the Life Response of the lessee pouncing on the drunkard. After this event, the drunkard died very soon. It was not the strong arm of the lessee that pushed him down. He was confronted with the Force the devotee represented. It invariably happens. No one in life, however mighty he is, can cross swords with a devotee through whom the Force acts.

An American businessman running a Space Utilisation Analysis company had a turnover of a million dollars a year in 1972. He came to India to see his son in the Ashram. His son suggested to his father to solicit business from a newly founded fertilizer company. When the father and son went to that company, they said, "We need no consultancy, but dollars will be helpful". They needed $ 70 million. The father promised to procure it. The son was surprised, as it was an astronomical sum in those days for his father. After returning to USA, the father called on Bank of America with his proposal. They asked where his client was. "Only on February 17th we opened our South Asian Division in Indonesia for financing fertilizer industries", was their reply. It was on February 17th the father had met the Indian fertilizer company. It is known among the devotees of The Mother that She always acts like that through the existing agencies. Where there is no such agency, She creates one and waits for the devotee to come and avail of it. Very rarely does the devotee avail of it. In most cases the devotee does not see the opportunity that knocks on his door. The Mother acts here through the law of Life Response. Life is full of Life Responses. The only difference with the Mother is She acts according to Her dimensions. This businessman received a project 70 times bigger than his annual sales. To offer devotees 70 times bigger gifts or 700 times bigger is the privilege of the Mother.

A heroic missionary wanted to start a school. His dynamism, activity, energy, and success were not approved of or appreciated by his principals. He was undaunted. He only needed permission to go ahead. To accomplish the work of such a mission without the financial support of the headquarters is unthinkable. Well, he did accomplish it single-handed. He was a soldier of accomplishment. It was not a town from where any donation could ever be collected. His only resource was his salary of Rs.400. In the late forties this was a big amount. The cost of a class room was Rs.10,000 as he had stuck to the type his mission was used to. Starting from scratch, he acquired 24 acres of land and by 1956 had completed half the needed classrooms. The rest were in sheds. He made a little money from the kilns he started for his own construction. His accomplishment was awe-inspiring. Some years later his sacerdotal silver jubilee came, which was a grand landmark in his priestly life. The amount of donations he could collect in 25 years there was a little more than Rs.2000. It was his own achievement unaided by the teachers there or the public.

Among the teachers was an enterprising devotee against whom a gossiping, tale-bearing clique had formed. It took the sensitive occasion of the Jubilee and his delicate relationship with his parent organisation to wrest a concession from the founder. In a way the founder was gullible. The caucus asked the young devotee to be removed for their cooperation on the sacred occasion. It was a heinous crime for him to commit. Unheard of in the history of the institution for 125 years, he served a notice on the devotee to oblige the clique. The notice was cancelled when the devotee forcefully represented his case. His reinstatement led to the offenders resigning for a short period.

He was not the Principal or the head of the institution, but he was the founder. In his credulity, the founder acted as a cad in obliging a vicious faction. Little did the founder realise that the position of the devotee in his school was exactly his own unenvious position in his own organisation. Well, this nasty episode was forgotten by all except the victim. At the end of 12 months, the mother institution removed the founder from his childand posted him in a hamlet as parish priest. The man was crushed out of existence. To me it was a Life Response to the behaviour of a cad.

  • Life restores its equilibrium when disturbed.
  • Life, when its foundations are shaken, crushes the forces that shake it.
  • It can happen positively in revolutions.
  • It happens negatively in acts of machinations.
  • The wife of one of the conspirators went mad on the day the notice was served.
  • Another conspirator received a big lift in his job ONLY to be humiliated by the entire body of the new institution he joined.
  • The initial reward for the culprit was because he gave the devotee a valuable Life knowledge - one must guard against his enemies.

Life Response is a theme touched upon here, not detailed as it deserves. But one more proposition issues out of it.

  • We can make Life Respond as we choose.
  • It can be done consciously.
  • One who can do it has a total mastery over the life around.

These attempts will never fail. If they are accused of not being confined to the law, it is because the result is overflowing. Its unpredictable, excessive success will apparently be not according to the precise definition of the law.

A pseudo guru never retained his disciples. He was a liar and he was vain. A fresh devotee had the necessity of going through him because of the guru's official position. The devotee took upon himself the discipline of serving this guru because the rules of yoga say the outer reflects the inner. The guru tried to collect a purse for himself and could not. All his life he was trying to collect some money but failed. This devotee offered to collect five times the amount the guru had tried to collect in vain. The guru ridiculed him but gave his approval to the campaign. The target for the devotee was 10,000. The devotee never made his effort public, nor did he solicit subscriptions outside his small personal circle. He had promises for 9500 when the collections started. At the end of one month it was 50,000. The next month it touched 100,000. By the time the birthday came when the purse was to be presented it was 1,63,000. On that day another 10,000 came. In the next 12 months it silently continued up to a grand total of Rs.2,45,000.

When a purse is to be collected, what responds to what? The money responds to the aspiration of service. It does not matter whose aspiration it is. Purse is an offering. An offering responds to bhakti or aspiration. When the effort is silent, the response becomes more intense. My aim in this book is only to mention that there is a theme known as Life Response and one who wants to learn it can make Life Respond.

A simple basic rule is any result we expect comes for a corresponding work. When the work is done, the result will come. Our elders say, "Don't seek; accept what comes". In essence, Life Response is a wider explanation of it. Whatever work or result we look for, it is enough if we concentrate on the prior work we need to do. When Man does his duty, Life does its duty of responding.

  • A keen study reveals the variations of life forces.
  • It also reveals the various ways in which results precipitate.
  • Negative, positive; weak and strong; right and wrong are some of the dualities life works through.
  • Knowledge of all these territories helps us act in such a fashion so as to evoke a Response from Life.



book | by Dr. Radut