This is not true (that if our will is not working, then it is the Divine Will). Its logical conclusion will be that if you succeed, then it is a personal will and if we fail, it is the Divine Will! No, not at all. The Divine Will cannot be judged by the apparent outer results. For example, the Divine may want you to go through temporary failures or setbacks, as we see in the case of the Pandavas, who lost the game of dice. It is not that the Divine wanted them to lose. Failure and success do not come because the Divine wants us to lose or succeed. In fact, that is the thing that is of lesser value. The real thing is our growth towards the Divine Nature and this depends upon the attitude we take towards circumstances. A lot of things happen or are allowed in life simply as an exercise towards personal growth. The world, in our early stages of evolution, takes the form of a gymnasium where difficulties, challenges, oppositions come so as to school us in inner strength, resilience, plasticity, faith, endurance. During this phase, we may think, in our ignorance, that our life depends upon the little test in the classroom. But as we all learn later, it is just a preparation to help us grow in different ways and to bring out our latent capacities. In this stage of evolution, success and failure are not the real issue. It is the attitude which is most important. It is only when we have passed through this primary schooling of Nature and have got rid of personal preferences and selfish choices that ordinarily drive us.
When the mind and heart are at peace and equanimity has replaced the general agitation and restlessness due to desires and preferences, then one is ready to perceive the Divine Will.
Here are a couple of passages from the Mother revealing us about the way to know the Divine Will.
‘To choose without preference and execute without desire is the great difficulty at the very root of the development of true consciousness and self-control. To choose in this sense means to see what is true and bring it into existence; and to choose thus, without the least personal bias for any thing, any person, action, circumstance, is exactly what is most difficult for an ordinary human being. Yet one must learn to act without any preference, free from all attractions and likings, taking one’s stand solely on the Truth which guides. And having chosen in accordance with the Truth the necessary action, one must carry it out without any desire.
If you observe yourself attentively, you will see that before acting you need an inner impetus, something which pushes you. In the ordinary man this impetus is generally desire. This desire ought to be replaced by a clear, precise, constant vision of the Truth.
Some call this the Voice of God or the Will of God. The true meaning of these words has been falsified, so I prefer to speak of “the Truth”, though this is but a very limited aspect of That which we cannot name but which is the Source and the Goal of all existence. I deliberately do not use the word God because religions have given this name to an all-powerful being who is other than his creation and outside it. This is not correct.
However, on the physical plane the difference is obvious. For we are yet all that we no longer want to be, and He, He is all that we want to become.
How can we know what the divine Will is?
One does not know it, one feels it. And in order to feel it one must will with such an intensity, such sincerity, that every obstacle disappears. As long as you have a preference, a desire, an attraction, a liking, all these veil the Truth from you. Hence, the first thing to do is to try to master, govern, correct all the movements of your consciousness and eliminate those which cannot be changed until all becomes a perfect and permanent expression of the Truth.
And even to will this is not enough, for very often one forgets to will it.
What is necessary is an aspiration which burns in the being like a constant fire, and every time you have a desire, a preference, an attraction it must be thrown into this fire. If you do this persistently, you will see that a little gleam of true consciousness begins to dawn in your ordinary consciousness. At first it will be faint, very far behind all the din of desires, preferences, attractions, likings. But you must go behind all this and find that true consciousness, all calm, tranquil, almost silent.
Those who are in contact with the true consciousness see all the possibilities at the same time and may deliberately choose even the most unfavourable, if necessary. But to reach this point, you must go a long way.
Should preferences be neutralized or forgotten?
One should not have them!
When the mind becomes silent, when it stops judging, pushing itself forward with its so-called knowledge, one begins to solve the problem of life. One must refrain from judging, for the mind is only an instrument of action, not an instrument of true knowledge—true knowledge comes from elsewhere.
If one refrained from judging, one would arrive at an ever more precise knowledge of the Truth and nine-tenths of the world’s misery would disappear.
The great disorder in the world would to a large extent be neutralized if the mind could admit that it does not know.’
(Ref. https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/21-december-1950#p5)
And until one knows the Divine Will, it is best to act in the light of the highest reason available before oneself and see what is likely to take us closer to the goal and what might take us far, offering it all at the Feet of The Divine.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
