The events that sway the world are often the results of trivial circumstances. When immense changes and irresistible movements are in progress, it is astonishing how a single event, often a chance event, will lead to a train of circumstances that alter the face of a country or the world. At such times a slight turn this way or that produces results out of all proportion to the cause. It is on such occasions that we feel most vividly the reality of a Power which disposes of events and defeats the calculations of men. The end of many things is brought about by the sudden act of a single individual. A world vanishes, another is created almost at a touch. Certainty disappears and we begin to realise what the pralaya of the Hindus, the passage from one' age to another, really means and how true is the idea that it is by rapid transitions long-prepared changes are induced. Such a change now impends all over the world, and in almost all countries events are happening, the final results of which the actors do not foresee.

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Disciple: There are two ways of foretelling the future: the astrological calculations which are based upon the general lines of character and happenings indicated by the stars, another is that of clairvoyance in which the image of the future event, correct even to the minutest detail, is brought before the vision. How does this happen?

Sri Aurobindo: These clairvoyants are awake on the physical plane and because they are passive these images which are already there in the subtle impose themselves upon their vision; of course, you .must have this vision in order to know the future.

Disciple: Can the events, thus foreseen, be averted? Generally, there is something always missing in the vision which does not allow men to escape it, e.g., the, place or the time of the event is not indicated etc. But there are some instances in which the foreknowledge of the event has allowed the man to change the result foreseen.

Sri Aurobindo: There is a vital image which is a possibility and it can be prevented; secondly there is the image of the event on the subtle physical plane which, if it is fixed, can't be avoided.

Disciple: Are there events absolutely fixed which cannot be changed?

Sri Aurobindo: Yes, there are. If you want to change then you have to go to a plane which is higher than the one where these things are decided and that is not always easy.

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