Truths of Life in Fiction
June 2, 2007
Every event in life expresses a truth. There must be a few hundred incidences in Pride and Prejudice. Here we make an attempt to enumerate those truths of life. The story itself starts with the famous about a single man with a large fortune being in want of a wife.
1. People project what they are on to another person (the opening statement of the story.)
2. The belief of the Britisher is a woman must be handled softly.
3. Children represent parents. They express the qualities which the parents don't express.
4. The first child takes after the father. The mother is attached to the last child. The mother is expressed by the later children.
5. Make of virtue of necessity - Mary.
6. Man criticises in others himself. - Mr. Bennet.
7. In exposing his wife, he exposes himself.
8. Tolerance is in practice criticism - Mr. Bennet
9. The less intelligent is more dynamic - Mrs. Bennet
10. The physical refuses to learn - Mrs. Bennet
11. Children will never be able to see the defects of the parents.
12. The parents will never be able to see the defects of the children.
13. To see one's defect as an endowment is human nature - Lydia.
14. Liking makes you oblivious of shortcomings in people.
15. Education cannot compensate deficiencies in nature. It rather exaggerates - Mr. Collins.
16. Smallness of the mind sees its defects as endowments.
17. The physical loves drama.
18. The urge of the physical is irresistible.
19. Self-sufficiency is stupidity - Lady Catherine.
20. Stupidity expresses as authoritativeness. Authority of a stupid person believes the world will obey him, like King Canute. (Lady Catherine's wish to determine the weather the next day).
21. Shyness is always mistaken as pride - Georgiana.
22. Pride is the incapacity to learn manners.
23. A well-bred man easily enters conversation -- Fitzwilliam
24. Life rewards good will - Charlotte
25. The snob delights in servility - Collins.
26. Opposite qualities can be expressed by the same character - Wickham.
27. Countenance counts - Wickham.
28. Rationality of the superstitious is self-righteousness - Elizabeth.
29. Initiative cancels - Mrs. Bennet.
30. Parents are partial without exception - Mr. and Mrs. Bennet
31. Education embellishes - Bingley's sisters.
32. Good manners without character is hypocrisy - Caroline.
33. The more you try to attract, the more it moves away - Caroline.
34. One cannot escape an interested woman - Caroline.
35. Physical self-sufficiency invariably hurts itself by initiative, like the monkey who removed the wedge. When a small man tries to offend another, he ends up offending himself - Caroline.
36. No event occurs without announcing itself sufficiently early - Darcy's love.
37. Man's subconscious does not miss the offence intended - Mr. Collins's letter about Lydia.
38. Subconscious understanding is instantaneous.
39. Neglect can end in accomplishment - Mary.
40. Accomplishment seeks display - Mary.
41. One secret of life is, marriages are decided on pretty faces. It means, handsome countenance is a social complement. Human life has not developed yet to make marriage a psychological complement. Had it been so, romantic marriages would be between ugly people.
42. Society develops its organisations based on physical sensations.
43. Human aspiration for equality was accepted by the social aspiration and translated among the settlers of America as a wage ten times higher than Europe.
44. Social evolution becomes real, meaning, the ideas are translated into action, by the social circumstances compelling man to create organisations to achieve social aspirations. Because the social mind is not developed, the creation of social organisations depends on physical sensations. This requires an inversion of the mind of Greece, the vitality of Rome and spirituality of India.
45. The practical strategy is, the higher the vibration, the lower they sink. (Buddha, Ashoka and a great Mauryan emperor were from Bihar which is the most backward state in India. Jayaprakash Narayan who was from Bihar rose to the number two position in Indian politics and never became No. 1. This is an organisational philosophy followed in education, money with necessary variations. In England, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 replaced the bloodshed of the French Revolution but it did not destroy the physicality. It went up to vitality. That is why Mother says, the country which has not undergone physical transformation will go under water. )
46. Lydia is the symbol of dynamic physicality in Pride and Prejudice. Her problem was vitally solved. It remains to be solved at the physical level. If Lydia had really felt shame and changed her heart, England need not go under the sea at the end of the century. In that sense, it is the small, significant fact in the story.
47. That transformation was undergone by Darcy as the 4th reversal, not as the 8th reversal. America sacrificed three lives per acre in reclaiming the land. That is why she was spared the necessity of being the theatre of war. But still she had to enter the European theatre and sacrifice millions of soldiers.
48. In 1929, the Crash could have been avoided had Morgan been alive. There was neither an institution nor Morgan to repeat the miracle of 1907. For us to discover that Stock Exchange transaction in 1929 October 20th, Monday morning, which sparked off the Depression, and identify a hundred other events in trade, business, politics, family life where that lapse was indulged by individuals, would be to put the Theory of Social Development on a statistically sound basis.
49. A corresponding but negative incident in India is the orthodoxy avoiding the auspicious hour by advancing the Independence day celebration by one hour.
50. There is a similar incident to Nehru's relationship with Kashmir.
51. Compare Elizabeth's withholding the information from her father about Wickham.
52. I repeat the principal: every major event, positive or negative can be traced to a small, significant event earlier. A corresponding positive event in Elizabeth's life is when she felt gratitude to Darcy after reading his letter and again after reading her aunt's letter.
53. It will be an interesting exercise: a) to pronounce the principle of each small event in P & P though there are a few hundreds, and b) to trace the small, significant event behind every major event.
54. In the story, there is no love from Jane or Bingley or Elizabeth or Lydia or Wickham. It was clearly marriage and only marriage. Only from Darcy it was not marriage, but it was not love. It was passion of No. 6 which saved his individual property. Incidentally it was Pemberley which brought about the change in Elizabeth's mind. For him, it was the saving of his personal property and by extension, saving the aristocracy of England. Had it been love on the part of Darcy and on the part of Elizabeth, English aristocracy would have been transformed.
55. Any insult aimed at someone will never be forgotten. It will surface when there is scope, because forgetting the insult is half way through transformation.
56. Collins never forgets it. He reacts twice by sending two letters.
57. Cynicism can never miss an occasion to be subtlety offensive.
58. Elizabeth talking about her genius being spurred by the impulse to abuse Darcy, is her father's suppressed anger against his wife.
59. All my comments are uni-dimensional. There is scope to make them multi-dimensional and integrative.
60. The family of Longbourn is a very happy one. When Lydia came back nobody found fault with her. Even the village Meryton, though anxious to see Lydia lost, does not seem to be vicious or malicious in its active gossip. The principle that cheerfulness is a greater foundation for social accomplishment is seen in the Bennet family.
61. In Darcy accepting Elizabeth, he is driven to accept Wickham and his doings. Had Wickham succeeded with his sister, he would have spent all her money and ruined Pemberley. The rightness of that course of social evolution is underlined by Lydia's marriage.
62. We have seen Jane's psychological contribution to her marriage.
63. When Lydia won the fish in the lottery ticket, on her way back she was talking about it so loudly that Elizabeth was not able to speak to Jane about Wickham. Lydia was talking so loudly that her mind was shut out. In Gardiner's house, Lydia says her mind was like that. She said she did not hear what Mrs. Gardiner said. After marriage, she continued to be so at Longbourn. In spite of such coarseness, she was rewarded with marriage. That is the atmosphere of the story.
64. Darcy and Elizabeth had to act within those limits for a face saving exercise.
65. To repeat, that loud-mouthed Lydia can still be made successful with a shameless Wickham was the theme of the novel. What a passionate Darcy, longing for a pair of bright eyes, could accomplish within those limitations, is explained by the story.
66. It is most rewarding to see that after Darcy's engagement, in spite of all the psychological growth and revolution he had undergone, neither he nor Elizabeth were able to stand the exhibitionism of her mother and aunt.
67. We understand Charlotte out of her good will recommends to Elizabeth to respond to Darcy. It was her initiative in the subtle plane to evoke a response from Collins.
68. Mrs. Bennet's vulgar exhibitionism that startles and offends the whole Netherfield household was a major contribution to the family leaving for London. Those events have occurred in the story to show that it was still within the power of Mr. Bennet to get his daughters married in spite of having married Mrs. Bennet.
69. Elizabeth wants Darcy after the engagement to tell her what in her he liked. Her insistence comes dangerously close to his being disillusioned by his engagement.
70. In the case of Catherine, the more she insisted, the closer the couple came together because she was a dying force. Elizabeth's impertinence in insisting on Darcy disclosing why he liked her, was a foolish attempt to open up a wound he has closed in himself. It was not as if he was in love with her family. He maintained his attraction for her in spite of the family. At that point Darcy pleads ignorance. That is unconsciousness. It is grace preserving the engagement against her prodding to spoil what has happened.
71. A small man by virtue of circumstances is in a position to offer a handsome help to somebody above him. It is socially considered to be very offensive. Man loves to receive help from someone above him, not his equal or his inferior. Even in that case, the help hurts. Help always hurts in different measures. Help will not hurt when it is offered by a person who is qualified to relate to the other person in the spiritual plane. At that level, material help becomes spiritual exchange of love.
72. Collins's help by wanting to marry one of Bennet's girls evoked no response from the family except from the mother. Foolishness finds itself resourceful and magnanimous when it is really offensive.
73. It was Bingley who first ‘introduced' Elizabeth to Darcy. It is in response to that act which Darcy resented, that makes him prevent the information of Jane being in London from reaching Bingley. No man wants any advice even in the shape of information from any other man whoever it is. (This is what Mother says man has to learn by himself. Nothing can be told to him).
74. Elizabeth's outrage at Charlotte's marriage ignores the fact that a poor person can enjoy humiliating circumstances if those circumstances can be ameliorating her poverty and alleviating her social degradation.
75. The levels of the false step: I have already written something about false step. The most important thing is the range. As elsewhere, this not taking the false step is a human endowment. At the lowest level, it gives the desired result which every other person who takes the step misses. At one step higher, it expands the scope of the results. At the highest level, it opens up the borders of the Supermind. In our evolutionary mind in facing daily issues, we come to a point at which everybody feels there is no solution. Accepting that social view is a false step. Suppose we don't accept it, life works through our faith and gives us a result which other people do not get. Suppose in the same situation we come to a mind which understands the Absolute. There are two sides, both of which are impossible. One negates the other. We are tempted to accept the one or the other or give up. Instead, we see the One in terms of the other, the Relative. That gives us a glimpse into the Absolute that is the Relative. We make a yogic progress and in life, we get a yogic result of the Supramental dimension. Our progress is in consciousness, our reward is in terms of life. We find in P&P different people responding in different ways to the situation of Lydia's elopement of which I have written already. I am just adding one more dimension now. Darcy's passionate love for Elizabeth got her as a wife for him. Suppose it was really romance and truly love on his side which she has discovered during the period of transition and rose to the occasion, their accomplishment would have transcended marriage and entered into the zone of possible romance. Suppose that had happened, Darcy would have become the leader of England who would abolish the aristocratic privileges and extend them to the population. The value of the novel is because it is cast in this perspective.
76. When Lydia told that it was a secret about Darcy being at her wedding, Jane said she did not want to know. Elizabeth also restrained herself from asking questions. The capacity to honour someone's privacy in an issue where the entire family fortune is involved is unbelievable. Maybe for Jane it is a behaviour. It may not be so for Elizabeth because her whole existence and her family security depends on what it was. It does not seem to have struck her that he had gone there in search of Lydia for her sake till her aunt explained to her. In the Indian context, I can see Elizabeth dragging Lydia to her room and physically shaking her and getting all the information instantaneously. From where we are in India today, I don't think in a few hundred years we could reach that self-control and culture. Those people in England do have character. And that is why it is difficult to change character. Because the restraint of Elizabeth was great, the reward was great.
77. The good will of Mrs. Gardiner was really great and it is right that such a prize in life comes to Elizabeth through her. I see it as a response to Elizabeth's own good will to Jane. The self-discipline the aunt and uncle show in not asking her about Darcy at Lambton is not a behaviour I have seen in life. For the individuality of a person to be developed, the greatest possible freedom is necessary. I see in this aunt and uncle respecting the privacy and freedom of Elizabeth, deciding not to intrude on her privacy by asking a question or hinting at it, the general social freedom available within the family for one to develop individuality. It is something inconceivable in a country like India. Individuality is so sensitive and tender an emotion, that it cannot brook the presence of one vibration of authority.
78. Georgiana tells Elizabeth her brother never exaggerates. For one who normally exaggerates, this statement of Georgiana must be striking. The capacity not to exaggerate is an attitude that should have been self-developed by the person. That means Darcy was a character of truth. Therefore he was able to see the truth about himself spoken by Elizabeth. We must also remember that in spite of that much of truth in him, he demeaned himself to resort to a ruse about Jane.
79. About Jane: Opinions are powerful either to accomplish or to prevent accomplishment. To start with, she couldn't suspect Caroline of deceit. Later, she owns that she was deceived. Her mind was disabused of that opinion. That way she prepares her mind for receiving Bingley.
80. In the entire story, except in Caroline, we see no deceit, ploy, ruse, to gain something. The novel carries a clean atmosphere.
81. In the last page, the story speaks of reconciliation with Lady Catherine. It confirms Darcy worked for the preservation of the aristocracy, not its destruction. It was not so much aristocracy descending as the other classes rising to their level.
82. The establishment is respected even when it is defeated. Lady Catherine, after she was vanquished by Elizabeth, says she would not send her compliments to Mrs. Bennet and she would not take leave of her. It is a historical experience that the dying forces survive for a very long time in spirit, as we see the British legacy in India, or the reverence for Europe which still remains in America. Indian judiciary is more than corrupt but in all crucial national issues there is a public demand that a judge should be enquiring into it. That is the truth of the dying forces that once ruled the society.
83. Whimsical Darcy: Mr. Gardiner talks about Darcy being whimsical. Elizabeth was hurt that Gardiner has not understood his character properly. Darcy's position was not something typical or usual or even once in a lifetime. No one is known to have undergone the transformation like Darcy. To Mr. Gardiner it looks whimsical. But in practice Darcy proves not whimsical. When the expression of a principle is evaluated in terms of an individual act, man is 100% off.
84. The invitation of the Gardiners to the Lakes was vastly interesting to her. She was almost inspired. Her enthusiasm burst forth. Now we know her enthusiasm was not for the Lakes. Her subconscious awareness of Pemberley released that enthusiasm.
85. Wickham: He was unprincipled, capable of deceit. His mother was extravagant and there was no money to educate him. The elder Darcy educated him. The sense of obligation in Wickham converted itself into falsehood. Help once received is returned by betrayal or hurt is once more confirmed. The question of help itself is raised now. The rule is true for the presence of the ego. As long as there is a vestige of ego, this rule holds good. When ego is not there even in a trace, help is the interaction of souls which increases love.
86. There is no mention in the book about Charlotte going to Pemberley. In the normal course of things, the one person Elizabeth would invite to Pemberley would be Charlotte. It is not possible because she has to come there with Collins. Charlotte's good will was paid by life by her marriage. And there is no excess to be compensated. Charlotte herself was planning to marry Darcy to Elizabeth so that Collins could receive some promotion. Once the mercenary attitude enters into good will, the good will loses its charm.
87. Compromise with lower ways of life makes an average man cynical. This statement explains Mr. Bennet's life. His philosophy was resigning to the inevitable evil. He knew by experience that the more he resists it the stronger it will grow. He did it for 25 years. What man cannot rightfully achieve, life achieves by its initiative. It is Lydia's elopement that made him put a full stop to his destructive indulgence of his wife. When Lydia ran away, he put his foot down and said no more of that. The moment he asserted his authority, Lydia's infamy was reversed and opened up invitations to Bingley and Darcy.
88. Popularity among uninformed people is no compliment. The more you are disliked by low people, the more your opportunities will open up. Elizabeth was least liked by her mother and was even disliked by her. Her mother's intense liking of Lydia got her a worthless philanderer. Her mother's intense dislike of Elizabeth made Darcy fall in love with her. What is the subtle mechanism of these processes. When a low vibration likes, the object of liking becomes a low vibration. The result is appropriate low vibration. When a low vibration intensely hates, it creates the opposite vibration in the object of hatred. The very intensity of the dislike of a low person creates an intensity of the opposite vibration in the object of hatred. It makes a Darcy fall in love with Elizabeth.
89. Returning from Lambton, Elizabeth was very concerned about Jane's health and beauty more than being concerned about Lydia. It is Elizabeth's good will for Jane. Early in the story, she explains to Jane that she was the only pretty girl at home. If Jane marries well, opportunities would open up for other girls. It is a good will based on understanding. Darcy's persuading Bingley to drop Jane on any showing, is a reasonable course. Because it doesn't suit her purpose, Elizabeth resents Darcy's interference. To her it is quite rational. Darcy and Elizabeth know each other for a very short time. It is true that Darcy spoiled her sister's marriage. In the normal course of things, Darcy has done something good to Bingley. Bingley was not violently in love with Jane nor was it a question of romance either from Bingley or from Jane. It was a question of marriage. Elizabeth feels a righteous anger against Darcy. It doesn't strike her that she is being extremely selfish for Jane and for herself. She is far from rational. It is an irrational, selfish intensity which she explains to herself as rationality. Though Darcy's explanation was crude, he had all the justice on his side. The only honourable security for an educated, middle class woman was marriage. Elizabeth's family was very weak in that respect. The mischief was done 25 years before by Mr. Bennet's marriage. Elizabeth knows all this and speaks it out. But she was angry and describes her anger as righteous and rational. In spite of all those things, Jane gets married, Elizabeth marries Darcy because she represents a stronger social vibration whose writ was running large. A revolutionary vibration having become the evolutionary urge confers on her that vast benefit. She was basking in the sunshine of the changing times.
90. Jane: The Bingley sisters find her to be a sweet girl. And that impression continues even after they find out that two of her uncles are in law and trade. Their attraction for Jane is genuine and necessitated by Jane's character. We can as well say the strength of character of Jane which is seen in the attitude of the sisters, is the cause of her marriage with Bingley. It can be cited as one of the reasons for Caroline's reversal to Jane. It is true Carolina and Louisa were disenchanted on hearing about the attorney and Cheapside, which gave Jane the fever.
91. Love goes out irresistibly, does not hide. (Darcy tries not to be seen in love with Elizabeth).
92. Work will not be completed till the obstacle created is removed (Darcy cannot marry till Bingley marries).
93. The finite soul emerging through Non-Being is there all over life. (Lydia's shamelessness).
94. Intense people are in tune with life. (After Lydia left for Newcastle, Bingley came to keep up Mrs. Bennet's enthusiasm).
95. Life acts when Man exhausts. (Caroline exhausted her last shot at Pemberley at Elizabeth and then Lydia eloped).
96. The powerful form of yesteryears cannot know their content is empty. (Lady Catherine exercises her ‘spent authority' on Elizabeth).
97. Cause and effect cannot be reversed. (Mr. Bennet awaited a son to take care of the entail and failed to save money. Had he saved, a son would have arrived).
98. One can offer only what she has (Mary offers a sermon when Lydia ran away).
99. The physical collapses when it fails. (Mrs. Bennet confines herself to her room).
100. No. 4 knows what is, what is past and even what is to come. (Wickham senses that Elizabeth was hurt by Darcy and spreads his wares).
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