Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 1

Divine Intervention

WHAT we have named Intervention is also known popularly as Providence. It is the element of the incalculable and the unforeseen in Nature. Nature, in one respect, seems to be a closed circle: it is a rigid mechanism and its movements are very definite and absolutely fixed admitting of no change or variation whatsoever. That was the idea which governed our earlier scientists when they spoke or the Law of Nature. Law of Nature was to them, in the great Sophoclean phrase, something indelible and inviolable, immemorially the same which no man or god dare alter or disobey. Laplace, one of the pioneers of the scientific outlook, said, in fact, that he could very well imagine a mathematician recording and calculating all the forces that act and react in the world and from the present position of things foretell the time and place of each and every event in the cosmic field. The idea of Karma, or Kismet, is a parallel conception in the domain of human nature and character. The chain reaction of cause and effect" is rigorous and absolute, follows a single line of movement and possesses a rigidly predetermined disposition. The principle is equally applicable either to a phenomenon of the physical world or to that of man's inner consciousness.

But we have arrived today at a stage when this old-world view has perforce to be discarded. We can no longer take Laplace seriously: for scientists themselves have established as a fact in physical Nature the indeterminacy of her movements, the impossibility of foretelling a la Laplace, not because of any deficiency in the human instrument but because of the very nature of things. Science is of course at a loss to explain the why or even the how of this indeterminacy. We say, however, that it is nothing but the intrusion of another,

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a different kind of force in the field of the forces actually at play. That force comes from a higher, a subtler level. Things and forces move in their ordinary round, according to the normal laws, bound ,within their present frame: but always there drops in from elsewhere an unknown element, a force or energy or impulse of another quality, which causes a shift of emphasis in the actual, brings about a change unaccountable and unforeseen. This is what is called miracle: the imposition of a higher law, a generic law governing subtler forms and forces upon an inferior and grosser sphere. And the higher or subtler the plane from which the new force descends – the plane can be anything between the one nearest to the material, the subtle physical or ethereal, and the one nearest to the other extreme, the spiritual – the greater will be the change in nature, quality and extent in the lower order. Such miracles, interventions, providential happenings are not rare. They are always occurring, only they do not attract attention. For it is these phenomena that are the real causes of all progress – cosmic as well as individual. Evolution is based upon this truth of Nature.

Man is not bound to the present pattern or complex of his nature and character: he is not irrevocably fixed to the frame – a Procrustean bed – given by the parallelogram of actual forces in or around him. Always he can call down forces or forces can descend into him from otherwhere and bring about a change, even a revolution in the mode and make-up of his character and nature and life. What we call "opening" in our. Sadhana refers to this factor in our consciousness. It means the possibility of the descent of a higher force in our normal nature. Nature is not such a solid stream-lined structure as not to admit of any interstices in it. We know of the comparatively vast spaces that separate atom from atom, the immense emptiness across which even the ultimate nuclear particles have to act upon each other. These are the loop-holes in the great net and it is precisely through them that other forces percolate.

Man or Nature does not mark time; they are always on the march. The march would have been a thrice vicious circle, a mere issueless repetition of the old and the agelong but for this stress of a higher destiny behind. Great souls,

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Vibhutis, Avatars themselves are incarnations of such descents of higher and other forces from toprung sources.

The higher the source the greater, more substantial and permanent is the miracle. The miracle of miracles awaits the destiny of man on earth when the supreme consciousness of the Divine will descend here into Matter and mould all mortality into immortality.

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