LIFE RESPONSE INCIDENTS
IN PRIDE AND PREJUDICE


The Pride and Prejudice Project
 

 

  

“Life Response” is the way life suddenly, abundantly, and miraculously responds positively on the outside to a corresponding change of your consciousness inside, apparently defying notions of cause and effect, and space and time. E.g. you change an attitude and suddenly a moment later someone who you never knew before contacts you from half way round the world with news of a big contract, of monetary gain, or other success for you. We can learn to invoke such response from life all of the time, enabling vast accomplishment, success, and happiness in our lives.

In life response what might have taken considerable time occurs rapidly, as events, people, and place “conspire” to overcome normally perceived limitations and constraints, enabling unexpected circumstances to arise that render new, creative possibilities, overcoming the slow, meandering workings and unfoldings of Nature.

We present incidences of life response in Pride and Prejudice; in particular, a running tally of life response incidents in the story.

PART 2: Life Response Capsule Examples in Pride and Prejudice

 

PART 2: LIFE RESPONSE CAPSULE EXAMPLES IN PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Here are a number of life response incidences observable in Pride and Prejudice:

  • Eliza goes to see Jane at Netherfield because Jane became ill when she went there is a rainstorm on horse back. Eliza is so concerned that she walks through the mud. When she arrives there suddenly Darcy appears on the scene. Jane’s great concern for her sister is rewarded in kind with Darcy’s arrival (who will eventually be a boon for her through their marriage). (Darcy arriving is positive life response)

  • Mrs. Bennet’s has extreme interest and eagerness to marry her daughters off. When Bingley moves into his estate, Mrs. Bennett is one of the first to know, or knows very quickly. Her intent, interest for marrying off her daughter attracts. (Mr. Bennet then takes it up on his own by secretly meeting with Bingley, due more to his worries about finances; but also perhaps in reaction to her interests, which are in part also partially motivated by monetary gain. Or perhaps it is the reverse in that Mr. Bennet’s interest in his finances attracts Bingley to them, and Mrs. Bennet’s becoming rapidly aware.)  (Mrs. Bennet suddenly knowing is positive life response to her.)

  • On the other hand, Mrs. Bennet’s meddling in trying to win over Bingley for Jane backfires. (As we shall see later on, Bingley will leave with Darcy for London, nearly breaking Jane’s heart. This is a negative response to Mrs. Bennet’s meddling.) (negative life response to Mrs. Bennet.)

  • When Jane tells Eliza that she does not really believe what Wickham has told, we can see that she is in one sense returning the concern that Eliza feels for Jane in. (Positive life response for Eliza.)

  • Jane also warns Eliza about getting too involved with Wickham until more of the story is clarified. (This mirrors an earlier time when Eliza warned Jane about getting too quickly involved with Bingley until she knows he truly cares, and what his real personality is). (Positive life response for Eliza.)

  • Jane tells Eliza that Bingley disbelieves Wickham’s account of Darcy; as does Jane’s sister. Still Eliza cannot fully believe those so close to Darcy; i.e she distrusts them because they are prejudiced for him. This causes Eliza at the party to become very confused and distraught. Her mood turns decidedly negative. Suddenly around her everything responds to the negative state. Her mother talks very loudly and vulgarly, embarrassing her again, Mary’s piano playing and singing become a source of shame, and Lydia accelerates her wild nature and carrying on. (Negative life response for Eliza.)

  • At the dance Mrs. Bennet speaks out of the fact that her daughter Eliza will surely marry Collins, a verbal boast that proves completely false. (This is a negative life response to her boasting (i.e. loud speech; as well as forceful speech in the light of uncertainty, which is weakness.)

  • In this situation one person’s mental clarity in understanding, is mirrored by the other’s doing the same. Jane and Eliza are speaking of issues on their mind. Jane helps Eliza understand the reasons Charlotte is marrying Collins. She explains it rationally. This rationality of thought attracts a similar rationality of response when Eliza helps Jane understand the underlying truth of the letter from Caroline and Caroline’s motives, and that things can in fact work out with Bingley despite what Caroline may have written.

  • After Darcy proposes to Eliza, and she refuses, rather than defend his action about Wickham, he holds his tongue. The fact that he doesn’t try to justify his relationship with Wickham and remains silent, is an example of silent will, which enables the full truth to intensify, unfold and come out later, which will be in Darcy's favor and enable his marriage to Eliza, and make Eliza see her false association with Wickham. (Power of Silent Will.)

  • At a gathering of the soldiers at the house, Wickham is there, and he takes a walk with Eliza. Lizzy is still somewhat infatuated with him, though when Darcy is brought up she admits that Darcy is better than she originally thought. Wickham is bothered by this. Eliza perhaps picks up on this. Wickham walks away in some embarrassment. Eliza notes that she now is happy to see him go. Just after this Lizzy’s aunt and uncle arrive on the scene inviting her to Derbyshire which is near Pemberley. Thus Lizzy putting Wickham out of her mind because she now sees his badness, attracts her aunt and uncle to change their original plans which will bring her to Derbyshire which is nearer to Pemberley where Darcy resides. At the fabulous estate, she changes her mind for the better about Darcy, and he suddenly appears on the scene, which enables all good fortune to follow. (Positive life response for Eliza.)

  • After Eliza at Derbyshire reads the letter from Jane of the elopement of Lydia and Wickham, she decides to immediately do something. Immediately Darcy arrives seemingly right out of nowhere. (It is also an indicator that Darcy will be the one who will later solve the problem; and that this (the elopement) will be the avenue for his love to be accepted. This is all subconscious to him of course.) A life response to her interests in solving this problem, i.e. do the right thing, and the showing of her concern about her family's predicament. She is even willing to cancel the very important meeting with her aunt and uncle with Darcy at Pemberley -- which would be in her own interest -- which attracts Darcy, who becomes the instrument for the solution. This is also a  synchronicity. It is also from his side a way to fulfill his inner desire to change his nature (instigated by his love for Eliza), which is subconsciously fulfilled by solving the Lydia-Wickham debacle.  So for his side it is a life response too because as he has decided to change himself life offers him in this meeting an opportunity to prove it, which will further attract Eliza (which he will get by improving his nature.)

  • Mr. Bennet comes to see that he has not been involved in the raising of his children; that he has been indifferent to them because he sees them as silly girls. He realizes the error in his attitude in full when news of the cancellation of the elopement comes to him. This reversal of consciousness attracts the positive outcome to the elopement; i.e. It is cancelled. (Positive life response for Mr. Bennet, and for his family)

    (This is yet a third instance of a reversal of attitude as it relates to the elopement that enables life to response positively in kind through the cancellation of the elopement, and the shame and disgrace it would have created. (Mr. Bennet’s reversal, which cancelled the elopement, also paves the way for the marriage of Darcy and Eliza, raising his family vastly in social prestige and wealth.)

    Mr. Bennet receives a letter from his brother explaining how the marriage can be arranged for Lydia and Wickham, and how a proper financial arrangement can be made. In other words the problem has been pretty much resolved. This positive outcome is a life response to the uncle’s previous positive attitude about the situation when he first learns about it, which leads to this solution. (Power of positive attitude.)

  • Bingley returns to Netherfield. Jane is skeptical about whether he will stay. Eliza feels there is a possibility that he could come for Jane (as Lizzy has felt before). Mrs. Bennet hopes Bingley will come, but Mr. Bennet this time refuses to go after him as he did the first time. At that very moment he decides thus Bingley appears. (Positive life response for Mr. Bennet to his holding back. He has learned from experience!)

  • Lady Catherine meets with Eliza and orders her to stop any sort of marriage plans with Darcy. The opposite takes place, which is a negative response to her negative motives. (This in turn creates a positive response from Darcy’s perspective, who later learns of that meeting between LC and Lizzy. The fact that Lizzy refuses to say to LC that she wouldn’t marry him, encourages him to see Lizzy again, which ends in success as he and Lizzy agree to marry. (Negative life response for Lady Catherine. Meddlesomeness) Also Eliza's strength enables the outcome (i.e. her marriage to Darcy) to be an eventual positive life response from her side.

  • Eliza discovers that Darcy had single-handedly overcome the elopement and the ruin of the Bennet family. She sees that she has been very wrong about him. She sees that Wickham was the bad one not Darcy. She sees that Darcy's comments about some members of the Bennet family are in fact quite correct and embarrassing. She changes her attitude about Darcy, and soon thereafter he comes literally do her doorstep, proposes and they are married, leading to their own happiness, to the rise in great prosperity of her own family, and the coming together of the two social classes. (Positive life response for Eliza.)


Reversals and Life Response
I very much enjoyed reading your article on Hock in the latest issue of Consecration. His reversal of attitude leads to remarkable results. A is constantly speaking of the power of reversal as the key to human progress. This illustrates. Darcy’s reversal of his attitude and his behavior brings Eliza to his very door. Eliza’s acceptance of her family’s vulgarity as an expression of her own consciousness and her reversal of her resentment against Darcy for making her conscious of it brings him and his proposal. It would be interesting to view various instances of life response as expressions of reversal the way Dee reversed his reaction and resentment. In accepting the teller’s job, he acted externally as one renouncing the social distinctions of his former high position. What he had done outwardly, the garbage made him do inwardly and the response was magnificent. (MSS)


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