Skip to Content

Volume II Chapter 16: Jane and Elizabeth Return Home

Chapter 16: Jane and Elizabeth Return Home

 
Summary: In May, Elizabeth and Jane are returning home when they run across Lydia and Kitty, who inform them that the officers in Meryton are soon leaving. Lydia hopes to convince their father to take them to Brighton where they are set to be stationed during the summer months. She also informs Elizabeth that the woman Wickham was looking to marry had left for Liverpool and that they are no longer getting married.
 
1
It was the second week in May, in which the three young ladies set out together from Gracechurch Street for the town of -- -- , in Hertfordshire; and, as they drew near the appointed inn where Mr. Bennet's carriage was to meet them, they quickly perceived, in token of the coachman's punctuality, both Kitty and Lydia looking out of a dining-room upstairs. These two girls had been above an hour in the place, happily employed in visiting an opposite milliner, watching the sentinel on guard, and dressing a salad and cucumber.
 
  1. In England of those days, even the coachmen were punctual.
  2. Punctuality is a social discipline. The mind of the society should have accepted that value.
  3. Punctuality can do to an unorganized nation as much as excellent food can do to a starving man.
  4. English life has become mental by becoming time conscious.
  5. The story starts here dwelling on Lydia’s wildness more pronouncedly
2
After welcoming their sisters, they triumphantly displayed a table set out with such cold meat as an inn larder usually affords, exclaiming, "Is not this nice? Is not this an agreeable surprise?"
  1. The happiness is the result of the combination of the father’s freedom and the mother’s energy.
  2. Meryton, though not an ideally good people, does not seem to be vicious or malicious. There is no streak of venomousness.
3
"And we mean to treat you all," added Lydia; "but you must lend us the money, for we have just spent ours at the shop out there." Then, shewing her purchases -- "Look here, I have bought this bonnet. I do not think it is very pretty; but I thought I might as well buy it as not. I shall pull it to pieces as soon as I get home, and see if I can make it up any better."
  1. Mr. Bennet is the product of freedom given by property.
  2. He is the expression of well fed energy untamed by any information that is socially useful.
  3. The fact that a venomous person like Wickham could not do lasting damage to the inmates there confirms this view.
  4. Wickham’s evil doings are motivated more by his personal gain which is pardonable than by an evil desire to hurt the other.
4
And when her sisters abused it as ugly, she added, with perfect unconcern, "Oh! But there were two or three much uglier in the shop; and when I have bought some prettier-coloured satin to trim it with fresh, I think it will be very tolerable. Besides, it will not much signify what one wears this summer, after the -- -- shire have left Meryton, and they are going in a fortnight."
 
  1. The moment Elizabeth’s mind is disillusioned about Wickham, the whole regiment is leaving Meryton. It did not happen already before she returned in which case it would mean she became bitter about Wickham, but it permits her to meet him and take leave of him. In that measure, her solicitude is there.
5
"Are they indeed!" Cried Elizabeth, with the greatest satisfaction.
 
6
"They are going to be encamped near Brighton; and I do so want papa to take us all there for the summer! It would be such a delicious scheme, and I dare say would hardly cost anything at all. Mamma would like to go too of all things! Only think what a miserable summer else we shall have!"
 
  1. Evil forces, hostile forces coming through falsehood will not part without hurting. It is called the parting shot. Solicitude for any reason will make the damage lasting into a tragedy.
7
"Yes," thought Elizabeth, "that would be a delightful scheme indeed, and completely do for us at once. Good Heaven! Brighton, and a whole campful of soldiers, to us, who have been overset already by one poor regiment of militia, and the monthly balls of Meryton."
 
8
"Now I have got some news for you," said Lydia, as they sat down at table. "What do you think? It is excellent news -- capital news -- and about a certain person that we all like."
  1. “I have some news for you” – Lydia.
    News has an inbuilt urge to travel.
    The urge is always some relish to the speaker, not the receiver.
    In this case the news is loaded with an inner motive that is urge.
    The sentiment she expressed for Wickham reveals her plot.
    Love, even illicit love, prides in speaking of it in confidence.
    The pride and conscience are never in conflict.
    All those who accomplish know the value of secrecy for accomplishment.
    The fact that Miss King escaped the tragedy of a marriage with Wickham spoken out by Lydia indicates she will also escape the tragic social consequences.
    Elizabeth’s pleading with her father failed, because she was one who gave Wickham up unwillingly.
    Had she given him up fully, she would have saved Lydia.
    Finally she was able to save her because she underwent further changes of heart.
    To a matter-of-fact society, what one feels or does not feel matters little. Its forms count, only the maintenance of those forms counts.
    Those who felt deeply in a cause and later were compelled by society to act otherwise pay greater attention to those forms than others.
    A wife goes out with another Man for five months and comes back to her husband’s warm welcome. Her son is proud of that marriage lasting till his father’s end at 90 years. Long live social forms!
    Lydia is acceptable to the society as she was then married.
    People who cherish rumour, especially those that spread it count little to the society, to their family and even to themselves.
    Those who spread rumours do not spread good news.
    Nothing in them expands in doing so.
    Wickham never cared for any girl there. His interest was in the harm he could do Darcy.
    As girls easily fall a prey to him, he was never attracted to them as others. His is the use value.
  2. “It is excellent news, capital news, about a certain person we all like”.
    The intention of the later initiative slips out here.
    There is no slip; they are the subconscious infection.
    A slip is an overpowering impulse that indicates the real intention.
    A slip of life is fatal to the individual or grace.
    Mary Thorne’s fortune comes to her by such a slip.
    Since 1956, Grace and Supergrace compel Life to slip in favour of Men; Men announce their stout refusal by silent ignorance or loyalty to conventions.
    While the Chinese obeyed Mother in the subtle plane, the Indians refused even in the subtle plane.
    The alertness of refusal is carried into the subtle plane.
    A person’s rasi never fails to reveal in the lives of people who interest them. Clever Men pray to Mother not to reveal it.
    Mother answers their prayers, the rasi rises in double measure later.
    If instead of praying they try to save their skins, had they prayed to save their victims from their rasi, they would be saved.
    If good people take interest in people of wrong rasi for whatever reasons, what they will lose is the higher benefits – Super grace will be reduced to Grace.
    One who wants to know his rasi can think of everyone interested in him, more so everyone in whom he is interested. Their life events will nakedly reveal their rasi. We can find in the people of wrong rasi all those they hate will be showered with Grace.
    Lydia’s calling him a certain person is an indication of her intention.
    News is the vocal excrescence of the instability of the shallow self inside.
    People with subtle sense of smell can smell the character of the incoming news.
    After Crawly was fully crushed and he resigned, his cause looked up outside without his knowledge. He sensed it as a slight uplift from depression.
9
Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other, and the waiter was told that he need not stay. Lydia laughed, and said -- "Ay, that is just like your formality and discretion. You thought the waiter must not hear, as if he cared! I dare say he often hears worse things said than I am going to say. But he is an ugly fellow! I am glad he is gone. I never saw such a long chin in my life. Well, but now for my news; it is about dear Wickham; too good for the waiter, is not it? There is no danger of Wickham's marrying Mary King. There's for you! She is gone down to her uncle at Liverpool: gone to stay. Wickham is safe."
  1. It is significant that Lydia takes up Wickham after Elizabeth dropped him.
  2. At the first meeting it was Lydia and Elizabeth who met him.
  3. Charlotte was the one missing when all the four men met the ladies on the road. She was the first to be married.
  4. Elizabeth took silent initiative to make Wickham talk.
  5. The only one who had the energy for initiative other than Lizzy was Lydia. So she eloped with him.
  6. Wickham silently developed a sense of revenge the moment he was exposed by Darcy.
  7. Note the name Wickham is too much on her tongue.
  8. It is best we see all the characters, all the events as ONE single movement of varying intensities even opposing forces, but the whole is an indivisible ONE.
    • Elizabeth dropped Wickham from her thoughts, his opportunity of Miss King is lost.
    • Mother says our interest in others, even in our enemies, expands their lives and opportunities in it.
    • Lydia laughs at the formality of the elder sisters in asking the waiter to go, a subtle hint of life of what Lydia was going to do with the news she has brought.
    • Lydia calls him ‘dear Wickham’, the first such mention of his name in the story. Is this the only time dear is used in mentioned his name?
    • “My news is about dear Wickham”. (P. 195)
      No one else had ever used dear in reference to Wickham.
      It is a clear message, no mere slip.
      An act that precipitates now starts showing earlier.
      Its subtle symptoms reveal.
      The subconscious peeps out in the subtle.
      The domain of the physical is severely limited, that of the vital goes beyond.
      The Mind can project itself far into the future or past.
      The spirit is all pervasive.
      The subtle suffuses the gross material physical.
      The causal is all pervasive.
      The reach of the subconscious is endless below consciousness.
      That of the subliminal is universal.
      That Lydia has ideas of marrying Wickham is seen in her ‘dear Wickham’.
      Lydia’s insistence that she should marry first has with the backing of her mother’s overpowering capacity to put off Jane’s proposal.
      Charlotte’s good will helps the marriages of Jane and Elizabeth.
      Therefore she was first married.
      Mrs. Bennet’s force on behalf of Lydia was greater.
      Lydia’s interference of the reading was a rude refusal of Collins who readily landed on Charlotte.
      Lydia was anxious to secure Collins or Wickham at Philips’.
      She gave up Collins in the reading, Wickham at Philips’.
      As soon as Bingley took to Jane, Lydia forgot him.
      Darcy was the one she never considered as a husband.
      Lydia was insistent, her mother backed her fully.
      Charlotte had the strength of good will.
      Jane responded to Bingley and relied on his liking.
      Darcy was vacillating between attraction and repulsion.
      Arrival of Collins made Darcy urgent.
      Arrival of Wickham made it more powerful.
    • “There is no danger in Miss King marrying Wickham”.
      A danger, if not dissolved, shifts its venue.
      The danger to Miss King shifted to Mrs. Bennet’s family.
      It was originally a danger to Elizabeth.
      More fundamentally, it was the danger to Darcy from Wickham, from falsehood to Truth.
      When Darcy recognized its significance to him and rose to the occasion and paid for it, absorbing Lydia and Wickham into his extended family, the danger was fully resolved. Had he not transformed himself psychologically, but only went through the outer motions, it would have resurfaced.
      To Lydia the danger was to Wickham.
      To Elizabeth the danger was to Miss King.
      Really the danger was from falsehood to Truth.
      Danger is the adventure in smaller circumstances.
      Expand the existing atmosphere to enjoy danger and danger will pass away.
      Today in the changed social atmosphere her elopement would be a routine work.
      Our environment can expand so elastically that the present pollution will not be pollution but a flowering of Nature.
      Copernicus was jailed for his discovery. Today he will be celebrated.
      The present economic crisis will be seen as a boom if the management of Money is differently organized with Man as the centre.
      Had the Roman Empire raised public finance, it would have lasted forever.
      When the sensitivities are refined as well as expanded, today’s cruelties become no cruelties or even enjoyable events.
      For the crisis to go, the economic view has to change.
      For pollution to disappear, the view of matter has to change.
      Man ceasing to be selfish, most of the present problems will vanish.
      If Nature can respond positively to every touch, there will be no pollution.
      Man not seeking upward movement will wipe out many difficulties.
    • “Wickham is safe” – Lydia.
      Safety is the next goal to survival.
      Physical safety is primary.
      Social safety is next.
      Psychological safety comes next.
      Spiritual safety is the last.
      In the name of spiritual safety, religions wage war endangering physical safety.
      Wickham’s safety is in Lydia’s Mind.
      Is Wickham safe with Lydia?
      With whom can Wickham be safe?
      What is safety for Man which will ensure all the conceivable forms of it?
      One rule generally valid is the higher one, when it does not consciously exclude the lower, includes all the lower safeties.
      Integral yoga says not to exclude what is exceeded.
      The Sannyasi shuns life; the yogi makes life his yoga.
      Lydia cannot offer any safety to Wickham.
      Wickham will lose Lydia if he is not maintaining his charm by his own attentions as well as raising the quality of his charm.
      Life is not sustained by charm, it is sustained by duties.
      Duties becoming a charm to Man makes life yoga.
      One can make life charming to him by a higher attitude to it.
      Can one retain his charm for another like Lydia for long, forever?
      That effort may make integral yoga easy.
      To continuously captivate degenerating energy in the net of charm he must be constantly rising in his own scale of charm.
      A mother or anyone who raises a child rising to the child’s expectation will gain the knowledge of a lifetime in one year.
      A growing child’s expectations of engagement, entertainment, education quickly reaches the end of the world, exhausts one’s resources in a few hours.
      Yoga is to grow like a growing child.
10
"And Mary King is safe!" Added Elizabeth; "safe from a connexion imprudent as to fortune."
  1. “Wickham is safe” “Miss King is safe” show the change of Elizabeth’s attitude
  2. “Mary King is safe from a connection imprudent as to fortune”.
    Elizabeth’s condemnation of Wickham is mild.
    One who marries Wickham will readily lose her fortune.
    He is not sure to remain with her.
    Beyond the safety of fortune and the loyalty, Elizabeth does have the knowledge that to live with Wickham is a psychological suffocation.
    She felt that violently when Charlotte accepted Collins.
    The suffering with Collins is more social and less psychological.
    The suffocation to be a wife of Wickham is more spiritual and more psychological than social.
    Once exposed, to live with Wickham is a criminal shame, not a social shame.
    She knows Wickham if anyone knows.
    It is a wonder she brings herself to condemn him with financial imprudence.
    It is an unpardonable criminal understatement.
    The lingering charm she feels for Wickham overlooks, ignores his ruinous propensities.
    Suppose she is an independent girl enjoying social impunity, she would seriously consider marrying him. Should she refuse, it may be for his lack of fortune, not for his malice or scandalous falsehood.
    In later life should he again be trapped in a great scandal, her first impulse would be to do everything in her power to save him.
    Lady Laura felt towards Phineas Finn like that.
    In a woman, her sense of loyalty serves her selfish falsehood in this fashion.
    Man or woman, what emerges like this is character, not even selfishness.
    Character is more deeply ingrained as fixed propensities than selfishness which is an attitude that can with determination be changed or mitigated.
    Man acting like this loses any self-respect he has.
11
"She is a great fool for going away, if she liked him."
  1. “She is a great fool for going away, if she liked him”.
    One views another from her point of view.
    Lydia thinks she can desist from going to Liverpool if she chooses.
    Lydia thinks she can do anything she wants.
    She is brought up with that idea of freedom.
    Freedom lies in the feeling of it rather than its availability.
    A lady behaves likes a lady when she is treated by all as a lady.
    How a child grows up depends on the way she is treated by others.
    A student develops his character or individuality by the way the school treats him, not by the way he feels.
    The outside society determines largely, not entirely.
    Indian children are told what to do.
    American children are to decide themselves what to think, what to do.
    One creates obedience, the other independence.
    Independence is the foundation for Individuality, not individuality itself.
    Society that compels obedience in the beginning later encourages Man to represent it.
    At the further stage which is the final stage, society expects Man, the Individual, to lead the society.
    At this stage human society becomes universal life.
    The unknowable that descended into the universe and Man fulfils itself when Man, the Individual, rises to universality and further rises to transcendentality, having his centre all over existence.
    Life then becomes a centreless circumference, rather a circle, all centres having the same circumference.
    It is akin to a democracy where every Individual is as valuable as the head of the nation. It is a body of all heads.
    Integration is not only a concept where each is related to every other but each is as important as the whole and each is a whole in every sense of the word defying our sense of dimensions.
    It is a Being choosing its own evolution for its own delight.
12
"But I hope there is no strong attachment on either side," said Jane.
  1. “There is no strong attachment on either side”.
    Strong attachment from either side is not a necessary element for marriage.
    Attachment leads to marriage is a partial truth.
    There can be marriage without attachment from one side.
    Elizabeth was not attached to Darcy at all, leave alone strong attachment.
    Many things lead to marriage of which attachment is one.
    Attachment is one possible component of a process that can lead to marriage.
    Once the marriage is over the plane of existence changes to society.
    Till then it is in the realm of probabilities.
    The several components are need, energy, attitude, motive, context, strength, character, manners, behaviour, chance and every possible social endowment.
    A marriage takes place if the traits coming together gather enough momentum for marriage.
    Of these many strands, attachment from either side is the attitude based on either emotions or need.
    This is not only true of marriage, but true of any final decision regarding a lasting work to be done.
    Such a decision is a landmark and watershed between a long preparation and a lasting long work.
    Both are of vastly differing character often having no resemblance.
    An exact analogy will be the college degree leading to an employment.
    It is true one leads to the other without having any apparent relationship.
    One certainly cannot be evaluated in terms of the other.
    It is much more so in politics, the preparation and performance.
    Accomplishment is apparently an amorphous whole bearing no resemblance to its components.
    It is like a chemical reaction in which the final precipitate is vastly different from the initial inputs.
    It is so because the preparation and the outcome both belong to a wider whole process that includes both. Hence the perplexity.
    Comprehensive Theory catches the part as well as the whole along with the process.
13
"I am sure there is not on his. I will answer for it, he never cared three straws about her -- who could about such a nasty little freckled thing?"
  1. “He never cared three straws about her”.
    Wishing one well does not imply wishing ill of another.
    Lack of regard for Miss King is not regard for Lydia which she implies.
    Lydia seeks him who had already deserted Elizabeth and Miss King.
    Man trusting the one who has betrayed him constantly is a wonder.
    The vital that relies on another is incapable of seeing the betrayal.
    It is one thing that Man sees and feels helpless otherwise.
    The truth is he does not see at all that he is betrayed.
    It is a state of consciousness where one sees what he wants to see.
    A great wonder is if one starts studying these states of consciousness and does it successfully, it is still possible that he may be the victim of this state. This is the self-awareness of vital consciousness.
    One can do this in the name of philosophy, rationality, even science.
    What we call Self-awareness is for those whose Self is awake.
    In the name of the freedom of Brahman, the caste system was created.
    Christian love has resulted in organized church injunctions.
    The freedom of the individual to find his own God ended the population identifying with 150 denominations of Church.
    The god he discovered is his denomination.
    Based on the theory of state withering away USSR created the police state.
    Extraordinary intellectual freedom in France robbed them of their capacity to defend their political self-respect.
    It is one thing aspiration for freedom simultaneously creates bastions of slavery and fast adherents to fundamentalism.
    It is quite another thing that in the name of a principle, the opposite is organized.
    The first is the phenomenon of dualities.
    The next is Man’s resourcefulness in self-deception.
    It is true self-deception is a way of life till the Self awakes.
    It is universally present.
    Lydia hopes he would care for her!
14
Elizabeth was shocked to think that,however incapable of such coarseness of expression herself, the coarseness of the sentiment was little other than her own breast had formerly harboured and fancied liberal!
  1. It is an act of sincerity in Elizabeth to acknowledge to herself the coarseness of her own sentiment.
  2. The difference between Lydia and Elizabeth is only in manners.
  3. Elizabeth, who sees the coarseness of Lydia’s expressions, finds the same in her feelings. That is her contribution to the family breakdown
  4. “Elizabeth was shocked to think that”.
    When our thoughts are spoken by others, those who do not know that phenomenon -- someone talking another’s thought – are surprised.
    It was Elizabeth’s thoughts that Lydia spoke out.
    Elizabeth was sincere enough to acknowledge she could have the same thought.
    Wickham went away from Elizabeth to that thing. She could pardon him, not her.
    A wronged wife is hurt by the other woman, not her husband.
    It is so because he loves his wife, faithful or not!
    It means he loves himself and is not capable of finding fault with himself.
    There is as much truth in betrayal as in friendship as both are the same.
    In accepting a deserted friend, one can feel noble in forgiving!
    Love grows in intensity by separation, quarrel or even betrayal.
    When they reunite the friendship is more intimate and sweeter than before.
    Couples who remarry after some years of divorce gain much experience in human nature which enables them to appreciate the partner better than before.
    Such an appreciation deeper than before can come in for positive or negative reasons.
    Positively it comes out of the maturity of years.
    Negatively they come to value what was lost; also they become more acutely aware of their own deficiencies.
    Either way it is a progress.
    To know the partner’s weakness and not to speak of it is a maturity on which one can rightly congratulate himself or herself.
    Instead, this transition can be discovered in knowing the partner better in her better parts which is really civilizing ‘influence’.
    A civilizing influence may keep the unwanted memory.
    An influence that is cultural forgets what is to be forgotten.
    Culture is the residue of desirable Memory.
    Sincerity can never fail. It can never hurt. Sincerity need have no reservations. It is superior to culture.
  5. “The coarseness was little other her own breast had formerly harboured”
    Mother says many would murder if only they had the courage.
    The distance between the thought and the act is a distance in civilization.
    Mental sensitivity is that the Mind cannot stand a certain thought.
    Language is a great medium which has precisely captured in words each shade of sentiment.
    Prose develops as life develops.
    Poetry develops as society matures in static greatness.
    All great poetic phrases become household words in a few centuries.
    Centuries of existence creating history, centuries of history resulting in civilization and further centuries of civilization are required to distil a little culture is a pregnant saying.
    Elizabeth and Lydia are the children of the same mother.
    They are one, but different; one in essence, different in expression.
    Elizabeth thinks what Lydia speaks out.
    Cultural sensibilities start with shame and end in hospitality.
    Sarcasm is the petulant perversity of the inhibited freedom by vulgarity.
    Sarcasm in any fashion refuses culture in any shade.
    Insensibility is an earlier stage than sarcasm.
    Sarcasm murders goodness of any description.
    Sarcasm is the result of darkness expressing through intelligence.
    In a truly essential sense, all the powers of Spirit and Matter find a complex expression of a mixture in any small trait e.g. impatience or gentleness.
    As philology studies the roots of words from several other languages, a study of this description can be a rich addition to the body of knowledge.
    Thought originates in the body and reaches the Mind through emotions.
    Thoughts are in the atmosphere and enter into us from outside.
    Thoughts are mentalised formations of emotional experience.
    Emotions are energy forms of acts of the body.
    Acts are the energies organized by human movements.
    Acts in the Being are formulation of light and seen in the vision.
    Acts in light carry less of karma than acts in darkness.
15
As soon as all had ate, and the elder ones paid, the carriage was ordered; and after some contrivance, the whole party, with all their boxes, workbags, and parcels, and the unwelcome addition of Kitty's and Lydia's purchases, were seated in it.
  1. “As soon as all ate and the elder ones paid”.
    The hierarchy of age is maintained in cultures that try to disregard it.
    Even the Supermind has gradations. Hierarchy pervades all existence.
    Monotonous sameness, non-existent Nihil do not exist in creation or in the Absolute.
    Hierarchy makes for variety, variety richness.
    From potential to the actual there arise grades.
    Involution and evolution need the grades and justify them.
    The range is from the infinitesimal to infinity.
    The unknowable becoming knowable implies grades.
    Unity and Multiplicity are parts of a greater original whole of Infinity even as preparation and performance are parts of a whole of existence.
    To be constantly moving up is delight or bliss evolving into delight.
    That is how the Divine enjoys, says the Mother.
    Man enjoys greatly moving down the level of grades.
    It is the aspiration of Non-Being, greater than that of the Being.
    The aspiration of the Non-Being, and how the Divine enjoys are complementary processes.
    Delight is the cause, Delight is the process, Delight is the goal.
    Delight is the experience of Being in its own consciousness.
    Spirit becoming Matter and Matter becoming Spirit are involution and evolution.
    It is the process of objectifying, the secret of creation.
    Mind cannot see the objectifying while Supermind can.
    Supermind is the instrument of perception the moment the Absolute decided to objectify.
    Mind is the field between Spirit and Matter.
    Supermind is the field between the Absolute and the cosmos.
    Creation ends, He says, with the creation of Mind.
    It is by the cosmic action of Mind Life and Matter are created.
    Hence the significance of Ignorance.
    Ignorance is a higher knowledge, higher in the sense of capable of creating higher delight.
16
"How nicely we are crammed in!" Cried Lydia. "I am glad I bought my bonnet, if it is only for the fun of having another bandbox! Well, now let us be quite comfortable and snug, and talk and laugh all the way home. And in the first place, let us hear what has happened to you all, since you went away. Have you seen any pleasant men? Have you had any flirting? I was in great hopes that one of you would have got a husband before you came back. Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare. She is almost three-and-twenty! Lord, how ashamed I should be of not being married before three-and-twenty! My aunt Philips wants you so to get husbands, you can't think. She says Lizzy had better have taken Mr. Collins; but I do not think there would have been any fun in it. Lord! How I should like to be married before any of you! And then I would chaperon you about to all the balls. Dear me! We had such a good piece of fun the other day at Colonel Forster's. Kitty and me were to spend the day there, and Mrs. Forster promised to have a little dance in the evening (by the bye, Mrs. Forster and me are such friends!); and so she asked the two Harringtons to come, but Harriet was ill, and so Pen was forced to come by herself; and then, what do you think we did? We dressed up Chamberlayne in woman's clothes on purpose to pass for a lady -- only think what fun! Not a soul knew of it, but Colonel and Mrs. Forster, and Kitty and me, except my aunt, for we were forced to borrow one of her gowns; and you cannot imagine how well he looked! When Denny, and Wickham, and Pratt, and two or three more of the men came in, they did not know him in the least. Lord! How I laughed! And so did Mrs. Forster. I thought I should have died. And that made the men suspect something, and then they soon found out what was the matter."
  1. Lydia is physical.
  2. ‘Dear Wickham’ “She is a fool to go away if she liked him” “Have you met men?” “Jane will soon be an old maid”, all put together shows in which direction her mind is moving, perhaps without her knowing it.
  3. “How nicely we are crammed in”.
    Babies need physically be on the mother.
    To be crammed in is enjoyable for physical consciousness.
    Work is of interest to physical consciousness because the body is in action.
    The highest desirable action is the non-action of the body or vital or Mind.
    A higher action is that which is moved by that Silence.
    The Divine enjoys that action in which Silence is Silent and active.
    Creation in Mind is creation of opposites.
    To harmoniously combine them in action is Supramental existence.
    Body creates by action.
    Mind creates by thought.
    Supermind creates in harmony.
    The Absolute does not create.
    It releases what is already in existence in Infinity.
    Infinity is infinite existence that allows infinite non-existence.
    Darcy’s reception of her abuse is non-existence in social life.
    The non-existence of ego is the silent existence of the Soul.
    The Soul being Purusha does not act, it only witnesses.
    The Soul being the Psychic evolves.
    Darcy socially evolved to a higher psychological status.
    Mr. Bennet, having been presented with such an opportunity in Darcy’s engagement accepted the delightfully beneficial result after the initial part ignorant comment.
    Elizabeth used such an opportunity to deserve Pemberley moving to the Mind.
    Jane reacted as her father.
    Bingley was a silent suffering helpless witness of a wider process of which he was a cog in the wheel.
    Collins was aware of the atmosphere by his perfect action.
    Mary’s education had no chink in her armour to let the Force in.
    To a silent observer of good will, a byproduct is Longbourn —Charlotte.
  4. “Jane will be quite an old maid soon”.
    There is a preoccupation for each. It differs according to the age.
    Preoccupation is life.
    For the animal food and shelter are the preoccupation.
    Vital social life is the preoccupation of men and women.
    In old age one is preoccupied by physical degeneration and mental decomposition.
    For about two centuries shopping has become the preoccupation of all populations.
    Sri Aurobindo speaks of Man’s preoccupation seeking God.
    Ideal men are preoccupied all their lives with their ideals.
    Ideals preoccupy men when they are striven for, achieved or their failure to achieve.
    Romance plays that role in everyone’s life before marriage.
    After marriage, thinking Men spend their time applying their experience to their lives, evolving working formulas for the world.
    Preoccupation when it recedes becomes a settled occupation of the being.
    We see in Lydia how girls are so occupied with marriage.
    The women do not have the other distractions Men have.
    Men have an opportunity to pursue girls of their choice.
    A woman has to lie in wait.
    Hence the occupation becomes the preoccupation of the very being.
    Occupation is of the Mind.
    Preoccupation is of the subconscious.
    Survival is the steady occupation of the bodily substance.
    Popularity is such a one for Men in public life.
    Power is the essential substance of the glamour of popularity.
    Public life is for the one who is outgoing.
    Faculties like public speaking create the craving for popularity.
    One cannot create a footing in public life unless some foundation is there as wealth or power. Otherwise the foundation is the expanding personality.
  5. “How ashamed I should be of not being married before three and twenty”.
    That Lydia can speak of shame in some context is a credit to her.
    Absence of intense physical enjoyment ever-present is shame to her.
    After her wedding she was proud to be overflowing and not ashamed.
    The family of Mr. Bennet comprises of a range from the lowest human specimen to the beginning of aristocracy.
    That such a family should have elevated two of the children above their level is not the usual result of upward social movement.
    The two ends of that movement would be confined to the two ends to which the parents belong.
    To cross those bounds excessively is not usual.
    We saw Pemberley balanced by a poor army officer far lower than the attorney whose daughter Mrs. Bennet was.
    That which stirred on the surface of the family was Jane’s life.
    Lydia slipped down to raise Elizabeth.
    So much for the energy.
    The power of sustaining organization must be there to uphold another equilibrium.
    Lydia’s move essentially destroyed every possibility.
    To reconstruct the dissolved organization an established organization must decide to destroy itself partly but consciously.
    The long time taken for Jane to come into her own is thus seen.
    Wickham lost his job, was not willing to marry, had debts in more than one place to pay. Lydia blissfully dissolved the social fabric of Longbourn. Surely Money was needed plentifully, but Money alone could not repair the damage. The lost family was to be restored by the willingness to lose the prestige of Pemberley with an invisible extension to aristocracy and the personal responsibility Darcy had to be staked, counteracting the irresponsibility of Wickham and Bennet. The total loss of prestige is to be restored and more than compensated for by the prestige of aristocracy as located in Pemberley.
  6. “Mrs. Forster and me are friends” (P. 196)
    The entertainments always explain the culture of the place.
    At a Colonel’s house, in those days when Men with no stockings were called half-naked, the quality of entertainment was coarse.
    Mr. Bennet found the colonel sensible.
    There are symbols of each culture seen in certain indices.
    The worst acts in the best occasions, the best acts in the worst occasions, the best acts in the best avenues, the worst index in a worst place all speak for themselves.
    The President of a country steals while he was a royal guest at the palace is revealing.
    An unemployed Man after receiving the dole, having demanded work in vain, swept the streets in lieu of it.
    The Mohul at Delhi long after the kingdom was liquidated was held by the British as the real power that was ruling.
    Alexander agreed to treat Purushothaman as a vanquished emperor.
    Akbar who could not overcome the seige for years resorted to bribery successfully.
    A father kills his son on hearing the horoscope saying he would be jailed by that son.
    The Japanese in a sinking ship patiently waited for a blind Man to leave.
    Cricket audience lustily cheering the brilliant performance of the outside team against the home team.
    Men rising in honour of a woman entering the room.
    Soldiers from the British and German camps celebrating Christmas jointly.
    During bomb threats, men were in a queue to buy food for their pets.
    The Italians, the Spanish, the French writing English more fluently than the native writer.
    Churchill and De Gaulle both knowing both languages employed interpreters to insist on their petulant prestige.
  7. “Harriet was ill”.
    This illness is an omen of the ill-luck to come.
    No single event fails to announce itself before hand.
    Not only before, but even after the event is over, there will be symptoms.
    Life never strikes without a warning.
    No house that is going to crash fails to drop one stone as a symptom.
    No Man’s life is without opportunities small or big.
    Man refusing the opportunities is more common than life refusing the opportunities.
    Men have positive negative rasis.
    For life there is nothing negative; it is all opportunities.
    A long unfulfilled ambition is more than fulfilled – a cement house instead of a brick house – for one on the verge of dissolution. The devotee has accepted it as a gift. One can pronounce a few hundred statements if he knew all the circumstances. Let me give a few.
    • Life reverses its rule by seeking him when it was his turn to go
    • The accomplishment rises vastly in quality.
    • In addition borrowing too came.
    • the lender offered to reduce the interest and lengthen the period of return.
    • All came unsought, from sources non-existent.
    The crux does not lie in the material opportunity.
    Nor does it lie in the psychological opening.
    More than the spiritual fulfillment, it is a rare privilege to dissolve oneself in surrender – surrender to Her.
    Gita’s surrender offers
    ÷©õm\®,  moksha.
    Here surrender turns one into Mother.
    This is a new spiritual possibility on the horizon.
  8. “Cannot imagine how well he looked”.
    Entertainment is experience in education.
    To imitate, one needs the skill of Nature.
    Charlie Chaplin came fourth in a contest of his likeness.
    Literature excels life.
    Imitation excels real life.
    To be what you are requires a subconscious capacity.
    To be what someone is requires a conscious skill to equal the reality.
    By implication it has to be better. If a fallen man endeavours to equal his peers, he will excel them.
    Lydia’s skills are minimal, her energy is endless.
    Her mother calls this unbridled energy good humour.
    To a mother a child is flawless, the last child very much so.
    Lydia perhaps rehearsed how to hide the identity.
    She enjoys hiding a Man, cramming in the coach, laughing and shouting all of which means raw energy expressed unprocessed.
    Except that Wickham was among the audience, there was no indication of her design on him.
    If that is true, she acted on the spur of the moment.
    It contradicts the secret Kitty cherished.
    Whether it is a secret of imagination or a fact is not known.
    Criminals hiding in their known resorts are vulnerable.
    It reveals no shrewdness on the part of Wickham.
    Perhaps he was unmindful of being found out.
    She was unaware of the consequences.
    Perhaps Wickham felt immune to punishment.
    It goes with his insensitivity.
    To think Lydia balances Elizabeth, Wickham Darcy shows the range of social life.
    In that case, the range of life must be immense.
    For yoga the two ends are Life and Spirit.
17
With such kind of histories of their parties and good jokes, did Lydia, assisted by Kitty's hints and additions, endeavour to amuse her companions all the way to Longbourn. Elizabeth listened as little as she could, but there was no escaping the frequent mention of Wickham's name.
  1. Frequent mentioning of Wickham’s name – the first sure sign of future elopement
  2. “Elizabeth listened as little as she could. There was no escaping the name Wickham.
    By not listening we can move away from the problem, not solve it.
    The frequent naming of Wickham is the right indication.
    The best one can do in a circumstance of potentially unhelpful situation is to wean himself away. This is to be neutral.
    Lydia saw a potential advantage when Miss King went away and began to work on it.
    Can we think of a parallel in Elizabeth in the opposite direction?
    A problem does not lend itself to be addressed unless it acquires a certain proportion.
    Those who will help largely when one falls ill will not offer a small help earlier when it could be prevented.
    Elizabeth can have no idea of working on herself now in such a fashion as to prevent the elopement.
    The world does not have that knowledge.
    It is a subtle knowledge of life.
    Assuming that she had that knowledge, what was in her power.
    She must have withdrawn her mental adoration of Wickham.
    What Elizabeth does in her Mind, Lydia does in life.
    Elizabeth has that power in her own Mind to prevent the tragedy.
    Suppose she had done so in her mind, she would have found that at a certain point when she was trying not to adore Wickham, her Mind, in spite of her, would noisily adore him.
    That little noise in her Mind not under her control, is the subtle equivalent to physically running away.
    Devotees have the power of consecrating that vibration to prevent a later event.
    One who does so will discover the power of Mind; here it is in prevention but I am talking about creating opportunities.
    More than creating opportunities thus, to surrender any thought brings in Mother’s opportunities.
18
Their reception at home was most kind. Mrs. Bennet rejoiced to see Jane in undiminished beauty; and more than once during dinner did Mr. Bennet say voluntarily to Elizabeth --
  1. Jane’s heart is not really touched.
  2. Mr. Bennet has his mind on Lizzy.
  3. “Jane in undiminished beauty”. Jane’s heart is untouched and that is why her beauty is undiminished
19
"I am glad you are come back, Lizzy."
  1. “More than once Mr. Bennet expressed his joy at her return”.
    Elizabeth was no mere pet to her father. He consciously developed certain attitudes in her Mind.
    They are faculties of her Mind.
    Children do as parents do, not as they are told because the communication is subliminal. It develops by being together, by one taking to another, by a positive psychological disposition.
    Gandhiji so developed the second level leadership of the Congress.
    Nehru was the only parent who consciously did it to his child.
    James Mill did it to his son Stuart Mill with respect to education.
    Faculties can be developed with difficulty, not values.
    Values too can be developed in willing instruments.
    What is not possible is those who do not want to learn.
    In doing so, he created a better tool.
    To develop thinking there must be freedom to think and encouragement.
    To develop imagination there must be inspiration.
    To develop discrimination, there must be situations to exercise oneself.
    To develop patience there must be inner strength imparted.
    To develop equality of non-reaction he must be infected by a vibration of non-reaction.
    Insistence on non-reaction will create reaction.
    Capacity for non-reaction is infectious.
    Emulation of values, imitation of habits.
    The differentials in energy, the right attitude of reception, the power of the context, the non-insistence on teaching are positive aspects.
    Anything can be taught in the right conditions.
    Lack of receptivity is the greatest bar to learning.
    If there is anything worse, it is the anxiety to teach.
    Anxiety to teach is egoistic.
    Ego will be stiffly resisted.
20
Their party in the dining-room was large, for almost all the Lucases came to meet Maria and hear the news: and various were the subjects which occupied them: Lady Lucas was enquiring of Maria, across the table, after the welfare and poultry of her eldest daughter; Mrs. Bennet was doubly engaged, on one hand collecting an account of the present fashions from Jane, who sat some way below her, and, on the other, retailing them all to the younger Miss Lucases; and Lydia, in a voice rather louder than any other person's, was enumerating the various pleasures of the morning to anybody who would hear her.
  1. The Lucas family is proud of Mr. Collins.
  2. Charlotte’s mother enquires about the poultry!
  3. Her mind, like that of Mrs. Bennet, was on it.
  4. Lydia’s voice was louder.
  5. Something in her was ready for action.
  6. Charlotte’s mother asks after the poultry of her eldest daughter, thus revealing the level of mind she possesses
  7. “All the Lucases came to meet Maria”.
    Travel is a novelty to the nerves adores by Mind.
    A daughter well settled is a wonder of rapture.
    The Lucases feel equal to Longbourn and more.
    To be basking in the Sun of Rosings is better than property of Longbourn.
    Rosings is patronage to Lodge; Pemberley is property to Longbourn.
    Pride in the shadow is forerunner of the reality of property to another.
    Mrs. Bennet’s teasing brought marriage and Longbourn to Lucas.
    The silent pride in Rosings is secure relationship with Darcy.
    Darcy’s transformation saved Longbourn for Pemberley.
    The Lucas family meets Maria half way.
    Mrs. Bennet is generous in her invitation to the Lucases in spite of depressing domestic circumstances.
    Be cheerful, life will be cheerful.
    Human punishment is divine reward.
    Divine life converts intensity of cruelty to raptures of delight.
    From senses to Mind, from Mind to Soul and thence to the Psychic.
    The Rishi bypasses the limiting senses.
    The yogi purifies the senses to extend the soul-scope.
    Concentration that matures into consecration shifts from the surface to the subliminal.
    The universe reconciles, transcendence transmutes.
    Widening the view, the ego is weakened to dissolve.
    Conflicts in universal impersonality become complementary harmony.
    In Transcendence Multiplicity discovers the intensity of unity in the Individual.
    The ignorant ego in time is the universal Purusha in the Timeless universal.
    The Individual grows by universalisation, matures by transcendence remaining in Time converting it into Simultaneous integrality.
    Ego-Purusha-Psychic is the progress.
    Individual-universal-Transcendence are the rising planes.
    Mind—Overmind—Supermind are the fields of action for evolution.
    Finite—infinitesimal—Infinity.
  8. “Lady Lucas inquiring across the table about poultry”.
    Interest of Men and women varies vastly.
    Of all the aspects of the Parsonage, Lady Lucas could think of the poultry first.
    In the most important international summits, often the determinant is the quality of wine and dishes.
    Stalin and Churchill liked each other because both were good eaters.
    Louis XIV loved those guests who ate well.
    It is true great things and small items go together, even one determines the other.
    It symbolizes the finite that is the infinite.
    The words of the saint, ‘unless food is brought to me to where I am with yearning devotion, let me not eat’.
    One’s spiritual realization can fix such a detail forever all throughout one’s life is the truth contained in this statement.
    Commonly the quality of food and the quality of service thus created determine the quality of his spiritual realization. This is also the Truth.
    It shows the saints had the knowledge of integral existence in creation.
    Painting one’s picture from his toe speaks of the same phenomenon.
    Krishna’s thirteen years in thirteen days speaks of it.
    In the Internet we see that conquering the smallest flaw when it is the last signifies a breakthrough.
    A cyclone that forms in the sea has a point of significance. Its changing determines its formation.
    One who prays to dissolve the cyclone sees such a point in his vision and when his light touches that point the cyclone dissolves.
    Alexander Dumas speaks of the charm of a clip.
    We know the power of a single consecrated letter to Cadburys.
    Rich, mature, spiritual culture in a family produces children that are flawless products of perfection.
    At least one Cabinet Minister lost forever the esteem of Nehru wrongly or awkwardly pronouncing a French word in a class in jail.
  9. “Lydia in a voice louder than any other person”.
    Determination to have a work done generates a loud voice.
    Spiritual opening at the depth robs the voice forever.
    Every act, decision, emotion inside has its own way of expressing outside.
    The articulated voice of a prophet or a pioneer who will be followed by all the world is heard by the world as a slogan such as “Proletariat of the world, unite” or Non-violence or Reject the Brahmin.
    A rishis tapas of a life time is realized in a short mantra.
    National culture comes to be observed by foreigners in a trait such as perfection, honour, unreliability.
    Indian spirituality thus presides over her soil as spiritual peace.
    Alighting from the plane in America, one sees her Freedom in the atmosphere.
    Families coming from outside for a bride if they see the mother of the girl at a water course they can know all about the bride.
    Bingley, in his elation of dancing with Jane, called Darcy stupid and made him speak ‘tolerable’ making those two words decide the course of the story.
    We see the significance of an ICS officer founding the Indian National Congress.
    In the rich harvest unusual there in Ramapuram in 1969 we see her present prosperity.
    Loud voice is expressive of deep determination of the physical.
    Non-speaking is expressive of silent accomplishment.
    A determined walker is an efficient executor.
    An organizer silently broods or thinks.
    One who understands people becomes popular.
    Forced smile -
    £aø\ ]›¨¦ - indicates treacherous behaviour.
    One who speaks ignoring all those around is one who will assert his opinion.
    An agile body shows capacity for endless work.
    Asking help from sources not related indicates gross ingratitude later.
    One who espouses greater idealism than is really possible is one who will give way at the first appearance of temptation.
    A rich house as Rosings is a fit place for others to have their work completed.
21
"Oh! Mary," said she, "I wish you had gone with us, for we had such fun! As we went along, Kitty and me drew up all the blinds, and pretended there was nobody in the coach; and I should have gone so all the way, if Kitty had not been sick; and when we got to the George, I do think we behaved very handsomely, for we treated the other three with the nicest cold luncheon in the world, and if you would have gone we would have treated you too. And then, when we came away, it was such fun! I thought we never should have got into the coach. I was ready to die of laughter. And then we were so merry all the way home! We talked and laughed so loud, that anybody might have heard us ten miles off!"
  1. Lydia asks Mary to appreciate her dynamism.
  2. This is the subtle anticipation of her elopement.
  3. The description of Lydia of how they travelled is clearly her celebrating her ‘future adventure’ so that people at ten miles off will applaud.
  4. “If Kitty had not been sick” (P. 197).
    When the Mind indulges in what the vital is cultural enough to overcome, the stomach feels sick.
    In periods of transition upwards this conflict arises.
    For one whose sensitivity has overcome meat, if he eats it out of habit, during the period of digestion, the inner being revolts.
    Those who accept an ideal for society’s sake, activities that go against that ideal pleases him.
    A Man received an affluent guest on his wife’s death and he could not deny a broad smile all through the visit.
    Kitty implicitly is led by Lydia, but is sick at her boisterous ways.
    The head of a Mutt sued in the court that the poems of Ramalinga Swamigal were atheistic and must be prevented from publication. In the court when the Swami entered, the entire waiting audience stood up. The Mutt head too stood up. To a question of the white judge on why he stood up, he answered as others stood up he too did so. The case was dismissed.
    Shankara opposing the Buddha became half a Buddist.
    You endorse what you oppose.
    Psychic is pure, though what accompanies it is not pure.
    Psychic, whatever the involvement, never gets affected by impurity.
    Shankara who preached inaction all over India was actually executing the greatest possible action.
    Devotees imperfectly following ‘All life is yoga’ end up in finding or making
    ‘All yoga is life’.
    Such a hesitation is not seen in Wickham, Mrs. Bennet and Lydia.
    To the end they were steady in their inspirations.
    Napoleon was thus affected by Royalty.
    What Kitty felt was at a primary level.
    At the deepest level you become the thing that you oppose.
    It happens by conversion or subconscious contagion.
  5. “I do think we behaved handsomely”-Lydia.
    Kitty too has a compunction without having a conscience.
    At the most primary stage one who errs is unaware of it.
    As a next step, as in Kitty, there is a feeble awareness.
    When one is aware of the error and cannot but do it, he moves to the next step.
    Next he desists but something in him regrets.
    When a Man vows not to do so, we know he has moved one more step.
    He does the right thing, refuses to err, but he goes into a sad depression.
    Doing a right thing, avoiding the error, is lifeless for him.
    Selfish men compelling themselves to give a formal present feel so.
    Next the formality becomes of social importance – Form is important.
    When he fails to do so, his sensitivity is hurt, his things go astray.
    He brings himself not to err in his emotions.
    He is enthusiastic to act rightly.
    Acquires a sensitivity to do the right thing.
    Unable to pardon those who err here.
    The reaction shows an immature conviction.
    He does his part, unmindful of what others do.
    It becomes a bounden duty.
    It becomes a pleasant duty.
    An occasion to do the right thing is found to be a privilege.
    Would be interested in doing so unperceived.
    Praise for such an act is embarrassing.
    One develops a sentiment to make this attitude a value.
    It grows horizontally and vertically.
    People around him automatically act like him.
    His value, at this stage, can be institutionalized.
    One can do so trumpeting his ideal.
    One can also do so silently.
    It, at last, becomes an unconscious cultural virtue.
22
To this Mary very gravely replied, "Far be it from me, my dear sister, to depreciate such pleasures. They would doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for me -- I should infinitely prefer a book."
  1. It is not entirely out of preference to read. She is noticed by no one. So, she had found an occupation.
  2. Between the physically developed energies of the younger girls and the mentally developed character of the elder one is Mary, who exhibits the physical application to a mental occupation without being able to digest it.
  3. “Far be it from me to depreciate such pleasures”.
    Making a virtue of necessity is the lot of many.
    Them, we call hypocrites, apart from the pity we have.
    There are those who do not know whether they are here or there.
    Their population is considerable. This is a phenomenon in all walks of life.
    In the formation of society, Men fall into various layers, maybe over a hundred layers or grades, the high achievers, idealists, realists, practical men, those who attempt all, those who trail behind, etc.
    Each of these grades splits further into several distinct groups.
    These groups are formed on the basis of function, talent, attitude, space, Time, etc.
    Everywhere there are well-knit distinct groups and others who hover around in various fashions.
    Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, Lydia thus each belong to one distinct group.
    Mary is cruelly neglected. Family ignores her, she joins them at all points.
    There seems to be no sympathy felt or expressed on anyone’s part.
    It is pathetic but brave of her to carve out a niche for herself.
    The ostensible reason is she is plain.
    A more important reason is she has no energy.
    She is too proud to ask the elders or youngsters to let her in.
    In practice she joins them on her own.
    She does not want to be left out.
    No invitation comes to her as to Jane or Lizzy or Lydia.
    Though there is no vindictiveness on the part of the mother, she never thinks of Mary.
    Mr. Bennet once recognized her existence and asked for excerpts.
    It was no question she could answer or anyone could answer.
    At no ball any young man came forward to dance with her or at least talk to her.
    She has fallen literally between the two stools of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet.
    So, she began to pronounce ideas that are anathema to all.
  4. “I should infinitely prefer a book”.
    In any political party that comes to power, there is an unwritten law that the portfolios of power go to one well defined type of cadres.
    Next to them are the office bearers in the party.
    Below them are the working cadres, who work all life without tasting even the offices in the party.
    It happens for real as well as artificial reasons.
    The real reason is people without talent or fact cannot be entrusted with power.
    The artificial reason is there is a fixed law of evasion which evades a certain set of people.
    Those who are neglected are aggrieved.
    They learn to behave as if they are not neglected.
    It is a pretty situation which defines itself with self-satisfaction as well as self-justification thus mustering enough psychological confidence to survive.
    When such an establishment is once formed a Ramanujam receives by an act of great condescension a B.A., or even an M.A.
    It is so in the academic community.
    It is much more severe in caste and class rigidities.
    Slowly it enters all types of organizations at all levels.
    Within the family we see its cruelest exhibition.
    Russell said that to win appreciation from colleagues is impossible.
    The formation of ego, the generation of good will are important in this context.
    Man who would part with material benefits will grudge good will.
    This is the raison d’être for sycophants who flatter a leader who cannot easily order it.
    There are Men who grow worldly wise to supply those services to themselves by themselves.
    Formation of self-deception, falsehood, rich superstition are thus made possible.
    One who is strongly adhering to truth is no wonder ostracized.
23
But of this answer Lydia heard not a word. She seldom listened to anybody for more than half a minute, and never attended to Mary at all.
 
24
In the afternoon Lydia was urgent with the rest of the girls to walk to Meryton, and see how everybody went on; but Elizabeth steadily opposed the scheme. It should not be said that the Miss Bennets could not be at home half a day before they were in pursuit of the officers. There was another reason, too, for her opposition. She dreaded seeing Wickham again, and was resolved to avoid it as long as possible. The comfort to her, of the regiment's approaching removal was indeed beyond expression. In a fortnight they were to go -- and once gone, she hoped there could be nothing more to plague her on his account.
  1. As long as her mind is on Wickham, the forces maintained an equilibrium there. The moment she withdraws the mind, the equilibrium is sought at the physical level – she elopes.
  2. Withdrawing the interest outwardly does not put an end to the movement.
  3. Elizabeth has definitely changed her mind towards Wickham and that directly leads to the militia moving from there to Brighton
  4. Elizabeth has changed her mind, but not lost her charm for Wickham. She would like to take leave of him. That is why the militia waits for her to come
  5. “Elizabeth steadily opposed the scheme of walking to Meryton”.
    To stem the tide of Lydia’s flow is like trying to stop a river without a barrage.
    Every family and every organization has its own manifold break waters.
    Mrs. Bennet consciously removed them and was accelerating the speed of the current.
    Her family resembles France in 1789.
    There was no formal government till Napoleon assumed power in years later.
    Orphans drift into the street and create the population known as street children.
    Men when asked to preside over families destroy the families and destroy themselves and disappear into oblivion.
    Mrs. Bennet acted like that and was oblivious of her course.
    She came into prosperity and freedom and did her best which is the worst.
    The only thing that can be said in her favour is her monumental ignorance devoid of venom or malice.
    She is like the monkey that pulled the wedge.
    Elizabeth was a non-entity in her scheme of things.
    In the open looting of the treasury by the corrupt politicians in India, we find the society advancing. The politician claims credit!
    In any thriving organization there are dynamic pests.
    Sometimes they preside over it.
    Elizabeth who now opposes the schemes forgets she was one of them earlier.
    There are Mrs. Bennets everywhere, only that they do not get the freedom she does.
    In revolutionary situations as in 1789, 1917, 1857 everyone is on his own.
    In 1857 it took three years for it to settle down completely.
    Whatever one is fighting for, the existing life is destroyed if it is not quickly brought under control.
    Mother’s statement of great reward or great punishment for a small move seems to be true for Mrs. Bennet’s family.
    Actually the family was face to face with disintegration and then revived by one Man’s effort.
    No one who steps out of the safe structure is ever safe.
  6. “She has dreaded to see Wickham”.
    Even after his desertion he was warm to her and she reciprocated ignoring his desertion.
    Now she has partially deserted him.
    A meeting with Wickham can no longer be real or even formal.
    She is powerfully reminded that she was utterly fooled by a story.
    She has no heart to offend him by exposing him.
    Whatever she did personally with him she could not publicly expose him.
    Even if that were possible she could not bring herself to be unkind to him personally.
    Her inability to speak out the truth in any fashion, his own imposing self-righteous impudence of which he is supplied with in abundance, put her in an untenable situation.
    She could not even share it with anyone.
    Even in her thoughts she could not contemplate it.
    So, life opened the floodgates of scandal of which she was the prime victim.
    The Germans, the Japanese fought to the last Man as if it was for a noble cause.
    Man who fights, fights for any cause, not necessarily a good cause.
    That is the rationale of fundamentalism.
    The physical does not learn, does not adjust, does not change or relent.
    It has to be destroyed by the external forces.
    So the two World Wars were fought.
    The economic incentive has the power to divert these physical energies.
    Hence the Revolution of Rising Expectations.
    Man will desert heaven for hell if oil is struck there.
    Darcy chose to do it from inside voluntarily.
    Only the awakened Spirit is capable of it.
    Her exposing Wickham was to her self-destruction.
    At the bottom of her own emotions she was identified with him.
    Such identifications last forever.
  7. “The comfort to her of the regiments’ removal was beyond expression”.
    She prefers the malady to be removed from her.
    It is one that, unless destroyed, will continue to harm her family.
    It was so because she is the saving grace of the family and the venom has infected her.
    There are only two ways, neither would spare him.
    She must destroy her softness inside for him by exposing him to the family or he must be publicly exposed.
    What happened now is he was resilient by his impudence to revive his appearance after his image was fully destroyed.
    That she would not willingly harm him was the real problem.
    Life demands that it cannot be escaped.
    The violence of 1947 in India was because of a similar reason.
    Freedom cannot escape armed conflict even if the ruler announces the intention to withdraw.
    For over 200 years he has enjoyed vast material benefits in an unmitigated fashion. It is property, Matter.
    Matter does not give up its possessiveness on its own.
    Before 1938 Sri Aurobindo who tried to avoid the war saw the black forces entrenched. He saw they had to be destroyed.
    The war broke out, was fought, and won, at the cost of his thighbone.
    Violence is needed at least as a token.
    Indian Freedom could have been won by Spirituality if the Freedom Movement, its leaders, its members were all devoted to truth.
    The country was divided based on the basic falsehood of caste.
    That falsehood is violence to Truth.
    Elizabeth’s SOFT CORNER is the falsehood that could not be brushed aside, compromised. It can only be destroyed.
    Darcy faced his own vital falsehood four square and destroyed it thanking her for her abuse. She had not gone to that length of cleansing her inner being.
  8. “Once gone there could be nothing more to plague her on that account”.
    What ails is inside, not outside.
    Buddha’s greatness was he could dissolve the ego.
    He could do so as he was a mighty soul.
    The last tenth man is not in the counting. It is in himself.
    The sun going round the earth, the broken pencil, the last tenth Man are great landmarks in the progress of knowledge. They are negative.
    The organization in lever, the organization in language, the organization in Money, the same organization in cyber space are striking positive landmarks of human progress. One more new faculty is needed as that which discovers the tenth Man, the missing perception.
    Who can speak of sensation to the physical Man, objectivity to the superstitious, infinity to the Mind that mistakes it for the boundless finite.
    Science is the knowledge of the soul, not that of intellectuality.
    Knowledge is of the Psychic, not of the witness Purusha.
    Ignorance was created in the world for the joy of overcoming it like the obstacle in the obstacle race, the hidden answer in the riddle.
    Democracy abolishes the superiority of classes, castes, families, birth.
    Rationality abolishes the superiority of seniority.
    Seniority belongs to Time in Nature; equality belongs to the soul in the Being.
    Observed results admit of inequality.
    Beyond the process that brings about the result is the essence of Spirit, Brahman.
    The essence of the ant hill and the solar system is the same.
    Superiority is the science of superstition.
    Appearances are constructions; the Absolute is not constructed.
    Nature admits of the flow and ebb in darkness.
    The Soul has no darkness, no flow.
    The evolving soul admits of the ebb and flow, creates it in light that is delight.
    Evil is the one occasion that admits of the greatest effort to overcome the separativeness in Nature.
    Evil is the Marvel of the ever-present Eternity.
25
She had not been many hours at home before she found that the Brighton scheme, of which Lydia had given them a hint at the inn, was under frequent discussion between her parents. Elizabeth saw directly that her father had not the smallest intention of yielding; but his answers were at the same time so vague and equivocal, that her mother, though often disheartened, had never yet despaired of succeeding at last.
  1. Within hours of the decision NOT to do anything with Wickham anymore, news of the Brighton scheme came
  2. The link is there; she has snapped on the surface, the rest has to be gone through
  3. Her father is as equivocal as she is unwilling to expose Wickham
  4. “She had not been home for many hours, before she found out the Brighton scheme”.
    Energy movement creates events.
    As soon as Lydia left, permitting no break in the movement, came Bingley.
    That was created by the completion of Lydia’s wedding.
    This was created by the proposal.
    Its origin is the earlier proposal of Collins.
    The four Men meeting on the road was the earlier event of importance.
    Elizabeth would be able to control Lydia if she went back to the proposal and handled the original source of energy – her partiality to Wickham.
    Go back to the original inspiration – Bingley’s coming there.
    Trace its origins beyond the shores.
    Look at the first initiative of asking Mr. Bennet to go to Bingley.
    Examine the first development, Bingley’s liking Jane, Darcy’s ‘tolerable’.
    See his ‘tolerable’ as the response of Darcy to the assertion of Bingley.
    See his ruse as a vengeance to Bingley’s ‘stupid’.
    Caroline’s cooperation to the ruse in the light of her fine eyes explains itself.
    Darcy’s urge to celebrate his love by speaking it to the rival is an initiative.
    It is more than true a work should not be seen or known by one who is inimical to it.
    Caroline’s knowledge of Darcy’s love precipitated as elopement which humbled Darcy.
    The two truths about intense love are.
    • A lover cannot bring himself to speak of his love.
    • The urge to speak of it is as great as his love.
    One great event branched off as several courses of life.
    Each such stream of energy attracted appropriate other streams of energy.
    There are innumerable minor eddies.
    They clash, work together, release momentum, carry events and personalities along, reveal truths, reiterate values of life, endorse every piece of human wisdom enshrined in proverbs, serve as a miniature of great movements they represent, act as mirrors of life.
  5. “Elizabeth saw her father had not the smallest intention of yielding”.
    A story has innumerable human choices.
    To study how each of these choices came into existence is to understand the story in terms of The Life Divine or The Theory of Development.
    Essentially the Theory is the process of the subconscious becoming conscious.
    Human choices are subconscious as well as conscious.
    One major decision of the collective goes among the individuals as millions of decisions.
    In the individual decision there is the determinism of the collective.
    Within its scope, the individual does choose.
    What chooses is the WILL of the individual.
    It is guided by the individual consciousness.
    The will acts through an accomplished ability of it which is a talent that is a skill expressing all his capacity so far accumulated.
    That skill is his energy originally organized into a skill by his experience.
    Wherever it is well formed, it is irresistible.
    Its hesitation to act is its incompleteness.
    A skill is complete when it reaches the physical where it acts at once.
    The energy that goes into action has three expressions – Mental, etc.
    Mental energy creates thought.
    Vital energy creates attitude.
    Physical energy fashions acts.
    A thought at the physical level of the Mind endlessly repeats in speaking.
    An attitude is an ever-living interest that looks at any situation in its light.
    An act expresses the moment the obstacles are cleared.
    If possible he clears the obstacle.
    His clearing the obstacles depends upon the strength of his will.
    This is how a nascent will acts.
    Dormant wills are routine habits that were once fashioned like this.
    Inspiration gets its energy from the activated vital.
    Mental inspiration generates inspired Thought.
    Soul’s inspiration creates a poet or a saint.
  6. “His answers were vague and equivocal”.
    The initial vagueness indicates the final indecision.
    Elizabeth wants to rectify an error without her doing her part, being the source.
    The father hopes against hope without exerting his will.
    A determined brute will make all the headway amidst undecided authorities.
    In an organization into which decay has set it, determined go-getters can get anything accomplished for themselves.
    There are human agencies that will sell rare manuscripts as waste paper.
    Jealousy understands the outstanding success of the brilliant by assuming the very opposite of the facts.
    Jealousy is the dawn that opens those parts that are idle to evolution.
    As long as there is a theoretical possibility for such a malicious assumption, jealousy will not vanish.
    The immobile spirit to which material sustenance came as an offering of privilege degenerated into a lazy Man asking others to feed him. The consequent starving for thousands of years has not cured him. Now he has to do the work no one will touch and deny himself the only expansive moment of a resourceful lie.
  7. The externals act when the inner is obstinate and stubborn.
    Obstinacy is the strength of falsehood in darkness.
    You can split atoms; can we dismember an opinion.
    A thought destructured, taken into its parts releases as much energy as the atom split.
    Buddha conquered the world dissolving the very faculty of thought.
    A thought fully consecrated is as powerful.
    To consecrate the faculty of thinking is to exceed Nirvana.
    One cannot consecrate a thought by another thought.
    A spark of the awakening soul can do it at the moment of awakening.
    Swabhava is difficult to handle as it is the original force that exceeds form.
    To expect another’s swabhava to change, one must change in himself at the origin of swabhava – Absolute.
  8. “Her mother, often disheartened, was never despaired of succeeding at last”.
    The determination of the physical is unwavering.
    Nothing can be achieved without such a determination.
    At the spiritual level such determination matures into giving it up in surrender.
    At the physical level, such a determination leads to self-destruction.
    Mind decides to surrender to the spirit. It is its own decision.
    How can the physical determination rise to vital decision?
    The determination to hold on must be replaced by a determination to rise to the vital.
    Such a determination converts its strength into vital energy for action.
    The moment Bennet decided not to indulge the wife anymore but to exert his right, an enormous amount of energy was released in the atmosphere and set the whole chaos right.
    A similar thing occurs in the Mind of Elizabeth.
    The enormous clouds of infatuation stopped the moment facts were presented and they melted virtually into thin air.
    All those great emotional energies turned into an understanding of shame.
    She moved to the Mind that saw clearly her despicable situation.
    No more she wanted to see him who would remind her of her shame.
    What happened to Darcy was rising from the Mind.
    Mrs. Bennet had a long experience of several denials leading to compliance at the end.
    Her disobedience was confined to violently differing from him.
    What he finally refused, she quietly accepted as she accepted the refusal to move to Brighton as a family.
    When opposites work together, each move of one is diametrically opposite to the other.
    It is not as if both are moving towards the same goal disagreeing on the process. Each wants to cancel the other fully. Either it breaks or rises to a higher level where they resolve into a higher outcome in the next plane.



story | by Dr. Radut