How they all tended, without our knowing it, towards the growth of our being and consciousness

The true sense of the (Divine)  guidance becomes clearer when we can go deep within and see from there more intimately the play of the forces and receive intimations of the Will behind them. The surface mind can get only an imperfect glimpse.

When we are in contact with the Divine or in contact with inner knowledge or vision, we begin to see all the circumstances of our life in the new light and observe how they all tended, without our knowing it, towards the growth of our being and consciousness, towards the work we had to do to be made,- not only what seemed good, fortunate or successful but also the struggles, failures, difficulties, upheavals.

But with each person the guidance works differently according to his nature, the conditions of his life, his cast of consciousness, his stage of development, his need for further experience. We are not automata but conscious beings and our mentality, our will and its decisions, our attitude to life and demand on it, our motives and movements help to determine our course: they may lead to much suffering and evil, but through it all, the guidance makes use of them for our growth in experience and consequently the development of our being and consciousness. 

All advance, by however devious ways, even in spite of what seems a going backwards or going astray, gathering whatever experience, is necessary for the soul's destiny. When we are in close contact with the Divine, a protection can come which helps or directly guides or moves us; it does not throw aside all difficulties, sufferings or dangers, but it carries us through them and out of them - except where for a special purpose there is need of the opposite.

- Sri Aurobindo