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<p align="center" style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><b>
<font size="4">Sweet
Adversity</font></b></p>
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<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY style="line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"><FONT SIZE=3>&quot;So
long we lived in anxiety, now at last we are going to live in hope.&quot;
So said the delicious French playwright Tristan Bernard when the
Germans came in, occupied Paris, arrested and imprisoned him (in the
World War No. I). A noble truth nobly said by a noble soul thrown
into the very midst of danger and calamity. Indeed, a danger is a
danger so long as it is away and has not reached us. It is the
menace, the imminence that causes more fright and upsetting than the
thing itself. For it is imagination that enlarges and intensifies the
object and makes of us craven cowards. The uncertainty hangs like a
pall and casts a disabling influence upon the mind and nerves: one
does not know what exactly to do, since the full situation is not
presented or grasped and a fearful speculation becomes the only
occupation.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>But once the danger is right upon us and we are inside
the jaws of death, there is an end to all speculation and anxiety;
there are then two issues possible. One is that of absolute
helplessness and hopelessness, of an unquestioning resignation, a
quiet bowing down to the inevitable and implacable destiny. Many a
victim on the gallows felt like that: an incredible quietness seized
them in their last moments. Very often it is the quietness of the
shadow of Death – a supreme inertness, <I>tamas, </I>coming over
and possessing. But there is another issue, a more luminous egress.
When all uncertainty is set at rest as to the in vitability of the
calamity, when circumstances have really besieged us in their
unshakable steel-frame and we are doomed obviously, it is then that
comes the chance for the hero-soul to stand out and declare its
freedom and immortality – deny and strive to reverse the obvious.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Man has something in him which is irrepressible in the
worst</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page – 373</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>of
circumstances, which can and does live outside and beyond their
attacks and menaces. Adverse circumstances-the more adverse the
better-are God-sent in that sense, because they tend to throw us back
upon ourselves, upon our inner truth and reality, which otherwise we
would not have known or recognised. And it is the nature of that
truth and reality to be free and happy and hopeful absolutely. And
the consciousness which possesses that temper and vibration is master
of an energy, a force of execution-a will and power to do the
miracle.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>To live in hope, to work in hope is not merely to live
in illusion and to work for a chimera. On one consideration, to live
otherwise, in hopelessness, cannot cure matters, even if the matter
is truly and really as dark as it looks. To view a matter of fact
solely and wholly in the matter of fact way does not give the right
perspective of things, a proper appreciation of appearance and
reality. It is well known that often we project our imagination and
apprehension upon the external world and bring about or help to bring
about results that were only a possibility. Our fear calls for the
object feared and makes it a reality. Apart from that, however, and
on a deeper consideration, to live in hope is to react against the
danger apprehended, to call in a help and power that is or can be
always at our disposal, which can not only console but save. Even if
death be the end and there is no escape, yet we would be freed from
the wounds and scars that it inflicts upon our being with its
ignorance and unconsciousness, we would learn to pass over luminously
and in the full freedom of the spirit.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Hope is the image of the soul's prophetic vision. It is
not just a way of escape from present sorrows, but a bridge-head
leading to victory and fulfilment.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Page 
- 374</FONT></p>
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