Infinite Grace: Overcoming the Law of Inertia to Effectuate Change

The law of inertia holds that it takes energy to move something that is stationary, and the more massive the object is, the more energy required to move it. A similar principle operates in human actions. We have our fixed habits, whether physical habits, instincts, trained responses, preconceived notions, biases, determined routines, etc. that represent our ‘status quo’. This all operates essentially on its own, as the same law of holds that a body in motion tends to stay in motion. So we have our fixed habits, routines and orbits that we follow regularly and it takes energy to change any of these and establish a new way of understanding, a new way of doing things, a new way of responding. The embedded habits of Nature and nurture are very powerful in their own right. They are there to provide a form of stability to the creation, and any change needs to work out the details in such a way as to not totally destabilize the systems. Thus, our physical nature, our vital nature and our mental nature all have certain prerogatives and rights of obstruction, delay and denial built into the developmental systems. Only when a needed change achieves the necessary quantum of energy, and has overcome the objections and obstructions can it take hold and propagate widely.

To the extent that we focus our attention on the difficulties, the obstructions, and attempt to address them directly, we will likely not have the necessary force and energy and focus needed to overcome long-established and deeply rooted patterns. That is why it is necessary to refocus the attention on the higher powers of the spiritual evolutionary development and the spiritual force that is attempting to manifest, as that is the power, knowledge, and intentionality that is needed to accomplish change over time.

We may therefore look to the concept of aspiration, which is a turning of the attention to the higher force; consecration, which is a focusing and fixing of that connection once we establish it, and receptivity, which is allowing that force to enter and effectuate change as the method of overcoming the inertia of the world as it currently functions. We may call this response the action of the Divine Grace.

The Mother notes: “In the whole manifestation there is an infinite Grace constantly at work to bring the world out of the misery, the obscurity and the stupidity in which it lies. From all time this Grace has been at work, unremitting in its effort, and how many thousands of years were necessary for this world to awaken to the need for something greater, more true, more beautiful.”

“Everyone can gauge, from the resistance he meets in his own being, the tremendous resistance which the world opposes to the work of the Grace.”

“And it is only when one understands that all external things, all mental constructions, all material efforts are vain, futile, if they are not entirely consecrated to this Light and Force from above, to this Truth which is trying to express itself, that one is ready to make decisive progress. So the only truly effective attitude is a perfect, total, fervent giving our being to That which is above us and which alone has the power to change everything.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch.7 Spiritual Forces of Help and Succour, pg. 174