The Spiritual Aspirant Has the Potential to Overcome the Limits of His Birth and Social Circumstances

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We are born into a family, a
culture, a society, a given

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economic and political system,
an educational process and a

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vast number of social habits,
customs and predilections which

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create for us a framework within
which we are expected to take up

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our destined place in society
and carry it forward.

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Meeting the expectations of the
society within which we are born

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and responding to the pressures
from family, friends, peers and

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Co workers to conform with the
norms of our social environment,

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we can easily see that such a
situation seems to create for us

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a fixed destiny that we either
blessed or doomed to follow.

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We tend to put our predicament
in celestial terms where we

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consider the astrological
framework that somehow maps our

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destiny.
For us, and for most people,

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these conditions apply and they
follow their destiny from birth

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to death, even if, as we see in
many cases, quite unhappily and

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dissatisfied with the direction
and outcome of their living

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circumstances.
We can trace the arc of life for

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most people as having a
predetermined trajectory,

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momentum and endpoint.
And yet we see people who seem

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not to be bound by such a
destiny, who for one reason or

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another, find themselves ready
to abandon or leave behind the

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life so carefully set before
them and try to achieve

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something different.
These people tread the road less

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taken, so to speak, whether it
be an art, science, invention,

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exploration or in taking up of a
spiritual life.

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To the extent that they focus on
achievement in the external

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world, they are still bound by
many of the habits, customs and

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expectations of the society
around them.

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Those few, however, who take up
the inner quest, the spiritual

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quest, soon learn to extricate
themselves progressively more

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and more from the web of social
customs, mores and expectations.

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As they begin to actively evolve
and change internally, they link

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themselves to the Divine and
through aspiration, prayer,

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meditation, contemplation,
concentration, or through

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selfless action dedicated to the
Supreme, they forge the links

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that helped them become
receptive and responsive to the

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divine evolutionary purpose and
the forces active to bring that

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about.
This link of the aspiration and

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the corresponding responsive
energy can eventually bring

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about, over time and against all
obstacles, a divine fulfillment,

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Sri Orobindo observes.
Quote Destiny in the rigid sense

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applies only to the outer being
so long as it lives in the

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ignorance.
What we call destiny is only in

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fact the result of the present
condition of the being and the

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nature and energies it has
accumulated in the past, acting

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on each other and determining
the present attempts and their

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future results.
But as soon as one enters the

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path of spiritual life, this old
predetermined destiny begins to

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recede.
There comes in a new factor the

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divine grace, the help of a
higher divine force other than

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the force of karma, which can
lift the sodic beyond the

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present possibilities of his
nature.

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One spiritual destiny is then
the divine election which

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ensures the future.
The only doubt is about the

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vicissitudes of the path and the
time to be taken by the passage.

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End Quote.
Reference Sri Aurobindo and the

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Mother, The Hidden forces of
Life, Chapter 7.

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Spiritual Forces of Help and
Succor, page 170.