There must be an external factor to be able to deliver them...

There must be an external factor to be able to deliver them from their habitual course. On the other hand, living things such as plants and animals have the ability to change their course from within themselves and if they meet conditions which do not accord with their life and its continuation, they themselves change their course.

When a sheep, a pigeon or even a fly meets an obstacle in its way, it will change its course even to the extent of a hundred and eighty degrees, thus moving in quite the opposite direction. Even plants can choose and change their course within certain limits and conditions. When the roots of a tree reaches a stone, they change its course. The human being, too, is similar to plants and animals in this matter.

Repentance is in fact a change of the course, not a simple one like that of plants and animals, rather something much more complex and worthy of analysis. Repentance is an internal revolution of the human being against the self. Plants and animals do not act against themselves yet the human being has the ability to do so. The rise of one group of human beings against another group is a natural and obvious matter since we expect the oppressed to arise against the oppressor.

This is also true of the rise of one country or nation against another country or nation. But the rise of a person against the self is not so simple and obvious. Why does it happen? The reason is that, in spite of having one body, a human being is intellectually and spiritually a complex being. The human being is a mixture of animal ferocity and passion, on the one hand, and of angelic qualities on the other.

Sometimes the pig takes over the command as a lustful being, giving no choice to the ferocious beast, devil or angel within to act. Suddenly one part rebels against this rule and subverts it in favor of the domination of another of its aspects. A sinful being is one who is dominated by the beast or devil within by which the angel and its noble qualities are imprisoned.

Repentance is the arising of the noble qualities within against one's own mean and wicked aspects, putting an end to their domination and destroying all their force. The converse is also true and the base aspects of the human being can defeat the noble aspects and govern the person to its own destruction. It is true that all the instincts and forces granted to human beings have some use and must be employed in their proper place and time.