04 / 02 / 2002

The Process of Decision-Making

Acts flow out of decisions of the mind, as the decision of the mind directs the act of body.
Therefore, decision lies in the descent where mind rules over the body, matter.
Looking at it from the view of the three poises of Time—Time, Timelessness, Simultaneous integrality—decisions are in the third status, not from Sri Aurobindo’s point of view of Spiritual evolution, but the one from that of the body.
Being, Becoming, Being of the Becoming all have their subdivided statuses of three planes of Time.
Acts occur in Becoming in the outer, in Being in the inner and in the Being of Becoming in that atmosphere of the whole that includes the outer and inner.
Whether it is an outer determinism or in the inner decision, the resultant, in some way, includes both. The question is which dominates which.
The rule or rules for either sphere—outer, inner—are the same.
In a field of action, we see energy, direction, force, organisation, power, skill and results.
Theoretically, it is of interest to note that a failure is as much an act as success as an ACT is neutral to result.
Further, the stages of energy, force, power each of them subdivide into a whole field and results can be sought after as if each plane is a whole. In the plane of results, we look for the final product but in energy, energy is the result and in force, formation of force is the result.
We can confine ourselves to RESULTS now.
We know results accrue when skill successfully plays on power.
So, decision—making can be seen as something that brings about RESULTS.
We go to the old formula of energy flow diagram.
All that is required is the data.
Michael Brecher in ‘Succession in India’ gives all this data as primary factors which when fitted to the energy flow diagram fit exactly.
The finesse lies in moving from the result to the preceding event and successively from event to energy, from energy to motive, from motive to the tradition ad infinitum.
The event of choosing India’s Prime Minister is an event of national or even international importance. That being so, the process extracted by a scholar from an accomplished result vouchsafes the validity of the process.
Any event, if one can analyse with Brecher’s objectivity and thoroughness, will yield the secret.
Parts of this process are taken for granted in a causal fashion in routine events as when we see

o A weak man fails.

o An organised work succeeds.

o A pen purchased.

o A mutually beneficial agreement is readily and smoothly arrived at.

o A complicated process ending unexpectedly discloses its truth on knowing certain secret moves.

Darcy’s marriage is simple to understand when the know all the preceding facts, motives of each person concerned and the rules of life that guide psychological energies.
Anyone can marvel at the exactness of this process when he subjects his past experiences to this analysis.
The precision is so great that Time, Place, Mode, Extent of effectivity, Joy for various persons can be exactly fixed by this process. The exactness increases in the subtle plane.
Astrology all over the world several centuries ago achieved this precision of prediction armed with subtle insight.
We are not to discover anything new, if we consent to reexamine the validity of earlier wisdom.
Astrology apart, there is a truth about this process valid for all processes of human life.
It can be stated in various ways apparently unconnected.

An event can be analysed from below or above, below from observed facts, above from intentions that translate into facts.
An event can be predicted before its occurrence or analysed after it happened.
A result lends itself to analysis of its outer events or synthesis of inner promptings.
An event can be comprehended in terms of will, energy, force, power, and results.
It can be understood from any of the eight planes ranging from Sat to Matter or from one of their 96 poises.

Granted the equality that banishes human smallness and ensures their higher versions, one can fix a goal and work towards that successfully.
I place emphasis on the Token Act and insist in that the data it supplies to understand the process far exceeds the alluring results from which we cannot wean ourselves.
The Token Act can be had in an unorganised atmosphere ill understood by the protagonist as long as its energies are preserved by protection that ensures the stability of the field of action.
Faith is a knowledge of the evolving SOUL surfacing in the surface mind revealing the hidden subliminal there in action in which decision-making gives us the key of action in No.3.
When Sri Aurobindo speaks of the Spirit moving Matter, * He speaks of this knowledge in the substance of the physical as an ever present endowment.
Token act helps comprehend it. Luck is to possess that knowledge as an instrument of action.