Loretta reads Mother's Questions and Answers:1956-10-24

Transcript of:

Mother's Questions and Answers: October 24, 1956

by Loretta, 2018 (1:10:31)

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Mother's Questions and Answers

This week, Mother gives a talk on a subject that is very well-known to her. We could even say she's an expert in this, a master of this subject. Usually she wants the students to ask questions – but she does not ask for questions. Instead she brings one which she says will make a good change. The last few times, the subject was always the same: on the supermind and on progress. So now she's changing everything; and we'll see she never gives the opportunity for questions at all. This is a prepared talk, on a subject that she knows very well.

And the subject that she brings is about what happens after Topic::death, and how one takes a new body. She's giving really technical information. I mean we're used to thinking of technical information for a machine, or something like that – but this is clear technical information on a process. And if one is interested in being conscious in this part of existence, it's extremely helpful what she says.

Mother spoke often about death. One of her particular jobs in this incarnation was to conquer death: to make the death process unnecessary as time went on, and as mankind continued to progress. This was part of the evolution coming with the new supramental forces that she and Sri Aurobindo worked to bring. In Savitri, Sri Aurobindo's epic poem, he speaks in detail about how Savitri (who is Mother) conquered Death.

On July 1st of 1970, Mother physically saw a disciple's individual soul, her psychic being. It was the first time Mother saw the soul, physically. She never tried to see it before then. She said that it seemed to say to her, “You're wondering what the new supramental being will be. Here it is! Here it is, this is it.” It brought Mother the understanding that the part of us that continues on through the evolving centuries – and transforms into the material body of the new being – is our psychic being, our individual soul.

Mother's Agenda
July 1, 1970

PDF (3 pages)

Sri Aurobindo and Mother used the word ‘psychic being’ for our individual soul. This word set it apart from the Atman: the traditional Indian word for the Great Soul, the All-Consciousness. It also sets it apart from the Jivatman, the portion of the Atman which is our own portion, and which stays with us all through our lives, but does not evolve. This is how we have our soul: our Jivatman puts forth a portion of itself into our heart, as our psychic being. Our psychic being evolves in us, through our lifetimes; and it evolves us. It organizes all of our being around itself – because it is our divine center. And when we are organized around our own true divinity, it is an integrated, conscious being that we become.

So this is our soul – it evolves and it will eventually evolve, with the coming of the new consciousness, will eventually materialize into the new supramental being.

Because our psychic being is a part of the Divine, coming to us through our Jivatman, it is immortal. It is the part of us that goes with us through births and deaths. Although it never really dies, it goes through the process. And it evolves.

So when this immortal part materializes as our physical material body, our body will not be subject to death anymore. Mother said that all that is incapable of being transformed as the true being – the real truth of our being – all that cannot do that will fade away, or, one could say, will die. And the rest of us (our true being) will go on evolving without the necessity of dying.

The reason our physical body has to die is that the physical is the least-conscious part of us. It evolves more slowly than our inner parts. And our body can't keep up with the changes, so it breaks down until it can't work anymore, and then we do what we call ‘die’.

The part of us that is the fastest to evolve is our soul, because it is part of the Divine, and it receives the divine forces directly, and it uses them to help us to grow and to become organized. When our soul is active and in the forefront of our consciousness, when it can do its work without hindrance from our other parts – everything in us, and everything in our lives is much better.

So it's clear – once our soul is a body, it will automatically keep up with the evolution; there won't be any more of what Mother is now talking about: dying and being reborn. We can't say “once the soul is in our body, this will happen,” because it's already in our body. Everyone's psychic being resides in their heart. So it's when our psychic being materializes as our physical body, that there won't be any more necessity to die.

Starting in 1945, Mother began working with the students and ashramites – she wanted to make them physically conscious. She formed the Playground, they built the Sports Ground; she spent hours every day with these people, getting them to do regular exercises, with the idea that they were putting consciousness in their body. And they were fully conscious that they were supposed to be receiving the new forces to progress faster. So Mother worked very hard to establish what we could call a ‘template’, or a first pattern, in our evolving universe; and that is now available on the subtle planes. And it helps people.

Mother also took this birth to create a passage for people to travel when they die. This new passage makes the death process much easier. She speaks about this to Satprem in the Agenda.

In Volume 3 of Mother's Collected Works, the Questions and Answers 1929-1931, there's a talk about whether all men retain their identities after the dissolution of their bodies. There, Mother taught that “The ordinary mass of men are so closely identified with their bodies that nothing of them survives when the physical disintegrates.”. They have not been conscious of their inner aspects; they have no sense of their inner processes; they have not worked on themselves. And their inner processes are a disorganized set of automatic functions, which simply disperse back to their source – their plane of being in the universe – when man dies. Mother said that in rebirth, there is no rule that holds good for all cases. She says that if you are conscious of death, it is because you are “fully organised and converted into a single individual, bent on reaching the goal of evolution”.

Questions and Answers 1929-1931
“Vital Conversion – Rebirth and Personal Survival”

PDF (3 pages)

The final result of everyone's evolution is a fully conscious being: a conscious being with all our functions and capacities organized, conscious, and functioning in the service of the Divine. That is to say the service of the highest. We have the possibility to speed up the process. We can take the time, and make the effort, to do this in ourselves. Every culture has some methods to do this; it's been going on down through the ages. In India, it is called yoga practice.

Sri Aurobindo's yoga is formulated for this work, and all of Mother's teachings and Sri Aurobindo's teachings go to help people to do this. And to help people understand what is going on.

Mother said that some people are reborn almost immediately. Some people, however, take centuries, and even thousands of years, to be reincarnated. They wait for the necessary conditions to mature, which will provide them with a suitable environment. But “If one is yogically conscious he can actually prepare the body of his next birth. Before the body is born he shapes and moulds it, so that it is he who is the true maker of it while the parents of the new child are only the adventitious, purely physical agents” that bring the child into birth and life.

All this was back in 1930-1931. Now, 25 years later, in this class, she speaks again on the subject. And she says that when a being dies (with this ability), and the being has kept around itself a being that has been fully organized and unified in its physical life, and then this being incarnates – at the moment of conception the being even selects the physical matter from the food the mother eats, and helps the assimilation to form the body of the child.

She tells us that this developed soul can stay in the inner planes, close to our physical plane, and can create its new body from there. And in this class Mother also says that if we have an obedient, docile, supple, physical being – which means our body, of course – if we have this supple body that is obedient and docile, and fully developed, it will have a subtle body.

Sri Aurobindo calls this fully-developed subtle body our ‘true physical’. This developed, true physical subtle body will “have enough suppleness, plasticity, balance to be able to adhere to the inner parts of the being and follow the movement of the soul” on its way after death.

This is a whole new way of looking at the body.

Usually people are taught: when you die, the body dissolves, it goes back to the earth – that's it. But in fact, even in this area, there is a yoga to do. And it's very definitely physical. We can see here why Mother worked so hard in the area of physical education.

And then in this class, Mother gives us a few instances of being able to consciously leave the body at death, and go into another body. In Indian spiritual tradition, these kinds of actions are described as things that great yogis can do. And people in the West have heard of this for years, as Indian spiritual knowledge has been coming to the West.

Mother also uses a relatively unfamiliar word to describe the soul's movements outside the body. She says its ‘peregrinations’. ‘Peregrinations’ very simply means ‘travels’; and she says she wants to use this word, peregrination, which can go in any direction – up, down, sideways – and not the word ‘ascent’, which means ‘to travel upwards’. So this is also a very clear teaching about possibilities when we leave our body.

Mother also gives a little description of how a conscious soul, which has fully developed itself in all the planes and parts of its being, can actually leave the body, leave the different developed parts in the different planes that they have come from – and these developed parts will wait there, until the developed soul comes back to pick them up on the way back to being born in a new body.

Sometimes, this happens after thousands of years. And she says if these are really well-developed, they just simply are immortal – they will not die, they will wait.

So now we're going to go on to Mother's class itself. Her wonderful prepared lecture on her expert subject (!) of what happens at death and rebirth. But first, here is one of Sri Aurobindo's poems about life and death. He calls it very simply, “Life and Death”.

Life and Death

Life, death, — death, life; the words have led for ages

Our thought and consciousness and firmly seemed

Two opposites; but now long-hidden pages

Are opened, liberating truths undreamed.

Life only is, or death is life disguised, —

Life a short death until by life we are surprised.

So – Mother's Questions and Answers, October 24th, 1956. We're in the Playground; the students are here, the ashramites are here. Mother has just read from her translation of one of Sri Aurobindo's works. And contrary to her usual procedure, she does not ask for questions. She starts...

24 October 1956

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I have something here, I don’t know if it will take us very far, but still it will make a good change. All these last few weeks the subject was always progress: how to progress, what hindered progress, how to use the supramental Force, etc. This is going on, I have a whole packet still! But we may change the subject for once.

Someone has asked me a question about death: what happens after death and how one takes a new body.

Needless to say, it is a subject which could fill volumes, no two cases are alike: practically everything is possible in the life after death as everything is possible on earth when one is in a physical body, and all statements when generalised become dogmatic. But still one may look at the problem in some detail, and sometimes one makes interesting discoveries.

The question is like this:

“When an especially developed soul leaves the body, does it take with it the subtle physical sheath? When it reincarnates, how does it introduce this into the new body?”

Even to answer this, as I have told you, it would be necessary to write volumes or to speak for hours. For, to tell the truth, no two cases are alike — there are similarities, classifications can be made, but they are purely arbitrary. What I wanted to do was to read to you the following, for it is quite amusing — oh, I don’t want to be... not serious! Let us say it is quite interesting:

“These questions are asked with reference to an old Indian tradition, the occult knowledge of the sage-king Pravanahana who is mentioned in the Upanishads (Chhandogya and Brihadaranyaka):

“It is said that after death, the soul of one who has done good deeds takes the path of the ancestors, ‘pitriyana’, it becomes smoke, night, etc., attains to the world of the fathers and finally to the lunar paradise. The Brahmasutra deduces from this that the soul takes with it all the elements, even those of the subtle physical, which will be needed in the next incarnation.”

So a question:

“Is this correct? Is the subtle physical sufficiently conscious in that case?”

We shall keep aside the questions; I am continuing:

“Then the Upanishads add: after having exhausted the store of good deeds, the soul leaves the lunar paradise, reaches the sky, then the air, then the clouds, taking on the nature of each of these things, precipitates on the earth as rain, enters the seeds, penetrates the body of the father in the form of food, and finally builds up the body of the child.”

This is really a rather complicated process, isn’t it? (Laughter) But I found it very amusing. And now the question (laughing):

“Is it necessary to follow this uncertain and hazardous process? Does not the soul directly animate the body with all the mental, vital and subtle physical elements organised around it and necessary for the next life? Does it take up the elements of the subtle physical world? If so, how do they harmonise with the hereditary characteristics? Above all, must it pass through the body of the father?”

There we are!

The only thing I can say is that it is possible things sometimes happen like that. Quite probably — at least I hope so — the person who described this may have observed a phenomenon of this kind; I hope it is not a mere mental construction of his occult imagination.... It raises a few practical problems! But still, of course, there is nothing impossible. Only, it is difficult to imagine the soul entering the rain, which enters the seed, which makes the plant sprout up, and then entering the father’s stomach in the form of food, more or less cooked (!) and finally proceeding to the conception of the child. I don’t say it is impossible, but it is very, very, very complicated!

I may say that I have been present at innumerable incarnations of evolved souls in beings either preparing to be born or already born. As I said, the cases are quite different; it depends more on psychological conditions than on material ones, but it also depends on material conditions. It depends on the state of development of the soul which wants to reincarnate — we take the word “soul” here in the sense of the psychic being, what we call the psychic being — it depends on its state of development, on the milieu in which it is going to incarnate, on the mission it has to fulfil — that makes many different conditions.... It depends very largely on the state of consciousness of the parents. For it goes without saying that there is a stupendous difference between conceiving a child deliberately, with a conscious aspiration, a call to the invisible world and a spiritual ardour, and conceiving a child by accident and without intending to have it, and sometimes even without wanting it at all. I don’t say that in the latter case there cannot also be an incarnation, but it usually takes place later, not at the conception.

For the formation of the child it makes a great difference.

If the incarnation takes place at the conception, the whole formation of the child to be born is directed and governed by the consciousness which is going to incarnate: the choice of the elements, the attraction of the substance — a choice of the forces and even the substance of the matter which is assimilated. There is already a selection. And this naturally creates altogether special conditions for the formation of the body, which may already be fairly developed, evolved, harmonised before its birth. I must say that this is quite, quite exceptional; but still it does happen.

More frequently there are cases in which, just at the moment of its birth, that is to say, of its first gesture of independence, when the child begins to develop its lungs by crying as much as it can, at that moment, very often, this sort of call from life makes the descent easier and more effective.

Sometimes days and at times months pass, and the preparation is slow and the entry takes place very gradually, in quite a subtle and almost imperceptible way.

Sometimes it comes much later, when the child itself becomes a little conscious and feels a very subtle but very real relation with something from above, far above, which is like an influence pressing upon it; and then it can begin to feel the need of being in contact with this something which it does not know, does not understand, but which it can only feel; and this aspiration draws the psychic and makes it descend into the child.

I am giving you here a few fairly common instances; there are many others; this may happen in innumerable different ways. What I have described to you are the most frequent cases I have seen.

So, the soul which wants to incarnate stays at times in a domain of the higher mind, quite close to the earth, having chosen its future home; or else it can descend further, into the vital, and from there have a more direct action; or again it can enter the subtle physical and very closely govern the development of its future body.

Now the other question — the one about departure.

That too depends on the degree of development, the conditions of death — and above all on the unification of the being and its attitude at the time of leaving the body. The question here was about fully developed beings, that is, fully developed psychic beings — and I don’t know if it means a psychic being which has profited by its presence in a physical body to do yoga, for then the conditions are quite different. But in a more general way, I have often told you that, with regard to the external envelope of the being, everything depends on its attitude at the moment of death, and that attitude necessarily depends on its inner development and its unification.

If we take the best instance, of someone who has unified his being completely around the divine Presence within him, who is now only one will, one consciousness, this person will have grouped around his central psychic being a fully developed and organised mind, an absolutely surrendered and collaborating vital and an obedient, docile and supple physical being. This physical being, as it is fully developed, will have a subtle body — what Sri Aurobindo calls the “true physical” — which will infinitely surpass the limits of its body and have enough suppleness, plasticity, balance to be able to adhere to the inner parts of the being and follow the movement of the soul in its... I don’t want to say in its ascent, but in its peregrinations outside the body. What the soul will do, where it will go — it all depends on what it has decided before leaving the body. And this capacity to keep around itself the being that has been fully organised and unified in its physical life, will allow it to really choose what it wants to do. And this also represents a very different field of possibilities, from passing consciously from one body into another, directly — there are instances in which one of these fully conscious and fully developed beings has slowly prepared another being capable of receiving and assimilating it, and in order not to stop its material work when it leaves one body, it goes and joins another psychic being, merges with it, combines with it in another physical body; that is an extreme case, extremely rare also, but one which forms part of an altogether traditional occult knowledge — to the instance at the other extreme, where the soul having finished its bodily experience, wants to assimilate it in repose and prepare for another physical existence later, sometimes much later. And so this is what happens, among many other possibilities: it leaves in each domain — in the subtle physical, in the vital, in the mental domain — the corresponding beings; it leaves them with a sort of link between them, but each one keeps its independent existence, and it itself goes into the zone, the reality, the world of the psychic proper, and enters into a blissful repose for assimilation, until it has assimilated (laughing), as described in this paper, all its good deeds, digested all its good deeds, and is ready to begin a new experience. And then, if its work has been well done and the parts or sheaths of its being which it has left in their different domains have acted as they should there, when it descends again, it will put on one after another all these parts which lived with it in a former life, and with this wealth of knowledge and experience it will prepare to enter a new body.... This may be after hundreds or thousands of years, for in those domains all that is organised is no longer necessarily subject to the decomposition which here we call “death”. As soon as a vital being is fully harmonised, it becomes immortal. What dissolves it and breaks it up are all the disorders within it and all the tendencies towards destruction and decomposition; but if it is fully harmonised and organised and, so to say, divinised, it becomes immortal. It is the same thing for the mind. And even in the subtle physical, beings who are fully developed and have been impregnated with spiritual forces do not necessarily dissolve after death. They may continue to act or may take a beneficial rest in certain elements of Nature like water — generally it is in some liquid, in water or the sap of trees — or it may be, as described here (laughing), in the clouds. But they may also remain active and continue to act on the more material elements of physical Nature.

I have given you here a certain number of examples; I tell you, I could talk to you for hours and there would always be new examples to give! But this covers the subject broadly and opens the door to imagination.

There we are.

Le 24 octobre 1956

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J’ai ici quelque chose, je ne sais pas si cela nous conduira très loin, mais enfin cela va faire un changement. Tous ces temps derniers, il était toujours question de progrès : comment progresser, ce qui empêchait de progresser, et comment utiliser la Force supramentale, etc. Cela continue, j’en ai tout un paquet encore ! Mais nous pouvons changer de sujet pour une fois.

Il y a quelqu’un qui m’a posé une question concernant la mort : ce qui arrive après la mort et comment on reprend un nouveau corps.

Inutile de vous dire que c’est un sujet qui pourrait remplir des volumes, qu’il n’y a pas deux cas semblables, que pratiquement tout est possible dans cette vie après la mort, comme tout est possible sur la terre quand on est dans un corps physique, et que toutes les affirmations, quand elles veulent être généralisées, deviennent dogmatiques. Mais enfin, on peut regarder le problème dans certains détails, et quelquefois on fait des découvertes intéressantes.

La question est comme ceci :

« Quand une âme particulièrement développée quitte le corps, prend-elle l’enveloppe physique subtile avec elle ? Quand elle est réincorporée, comment l’introduit-elle dans le nouveau corps ? »

Déjà, pour répondre à cela, comme je vous l’ai dit, il faudrait écrire des volumes ou parler pendant des heures. Parce que, à dire vrai, il n’y a pas deux cas semblables — il y a des analogies, on peut faire des classifications, mais c’est purement arbitraire. Ce que je voulais faire, c’est de vous lire ce qui suit, parce que c’est assez amusant (oh ! je ne veux pas être... pas sérieuse ! disons que c’est assez intéressant) :

« Ces questions se posent à propos d’une vieille tradition indienne, de la connaissance occulte du sage roi Pravanahana dont parlent les Upanishads (Chhândôgya et Brihadâranyaka) :

« Il est dit qu’après la mort, l’âme de ceux qui ont fait de bonnes actions prend la voie des aïeux, “pitriyâna”, devient la fumée, la nuit, etc., arrive au monde des ancêtres et finalement au paradis lunaire. Le Brahmasûtra en déduit que l’âme prend avec elle tous les éléments, même ceux du physique subtil, qui seront nécessaires à la prochaine incarnation. »

Alors une question :

« Est‑ce exact ? Le physique subtil est-il suffisamment conscient dans ce cas-là ? »

Nous réservons les questions, je continue :

« Puis les Upanishads ajoutent : après avoir épuisé l’amas de bonnes actions, l’âme sort du paradis lunaire, arrive au ciel, puis à l’air, puis aux nuages, en prenant la nature de chacune de ces choses, se jette sur la terre en pluie, entre dans les graines, pénètre dans le corps du père sous forme de nourriture, et finalement constitue le corps de l’enfant. »

C’est vraiment un procédé un peu compliqué, non ! (rires) Mais j’ai trouvé cela très amusant. Et la question : (riant)

« Est-il nécessaire de suivre ce processus incertain et hasardeux ? L’âme n’anime-t-elle pas le corps directement avec tous les éléments mentaux, vitaux et physiques subtils organisés autour d’elle et nécessaires à la vie suivante ? Prend-elle des éléments du monde physique subtil ? En ce cas, comment s’harmonisent-ils avec les caractères héréditaires ? Surtout, doit-elle passer par le corps du père ? »

Voilà !

La seule chose que je puisse dire, c’est qu’il se peut que parfois cela se passe comme cela. Il est probable (au moins je l’espère) que celui qui a fait cette description a observé un phénomène de ce genre ; j’espère que ce n’est pas seulement une construction mentale de son imagination occulte... Cela soulève quelques problèmes pratiques ! Mais enfin, évidemment, il n’y a rien qui soit impossible. Seulement, on voit avec difficulté l’âme pénétrer la pluie, qui pénètre la graine, qui fait pousser la plante, et puis qui entre sous forme de nourriture plus ou moins cuite dans l’estomac du père, et puis finalement procède à la conception de l’enfant. Je ne dis pas que ce soit impossible, mais c’est très, très, très, très compliqué !

Je peux dire que j’ai assisté à une quantité innombrable d’incarnations d’âmes évoluées dans des êtres qui étaient ou en préparation ou déjà nés. Comme je l’ai dit, les cas sont assez différents ; cela dépend plus de conditions psychologiques que de conditions matérielles, mais cela dépend aussi des conditions matérielles. Cela dépend de l’état de développement de l’âme qui veut se réincarner (nous prenons le mot âme, ici, dans le sens d’être psychique, ce que nous appelons l’être psychique), cela dépend de son état de développement, cela dépend du milieu dans lequel il va s’incarner, cela dépend de la mission qu’il a à remplir — cela fait beaucoup de conditions différentes... Cela dépend énormément de l’état de conscience des parents. Parce qu’il va de soi qu’il y a une différence formidable entre faire un enfant volontairement, avec une aspiration consciente, un appel vers le monde invisible et une ardeur spirituelle, et faire un enfant par accident et sans l’avoir voulu, et quelquefois même sans le vouloir du tout. Je ne dis pas que dans ce dernier cas il ne puisse pas y avoir aussi une incarnation, mais généralement elle se produit plus tard, pas à la conception. Pour la formation de l’enfant, cela fait une grande différence.

Si l’incarnation se produit à la conception, toute la formation de l’enfant qui va naître est dirigée et gouvernée par cette conscience qui va s’incarner : le choix des éléments, l’attraction de la substance — un choix parmi les forces et même la substance de la matière qui est assimilée. Il y a déjà un triage. Et cela donne naturellement des conditions tout à fait spéciales pour la formation du corps, qui peut être déjà plus ou mois développé, évolué, harmonisé avant sa naissance. Je dois dire que c’est tout à fait, tout à fait exceptionnel ; mais enfin cela se produit.

Il y a des cas plus fréquents où, juste au moment de sa naissance, c’est-à-dire de son premier geste d’indépendance, quand l’enfant commence à se faire les poumons en criant autant qu’il peut, à ce moment-là, très souvent, cette espèce d’appel de la vie rend la descente plus facile et plus efficace.

Parfois des jours et quelquefois des mois se passent, et la préparation est lente et l’entrée se fait très progressivement, d’une façon tout à fait subtile et presque insaisissable.

Parfois cela vient beaucoup plus tard, quand l’enfant luimême devient un peu conscient et qu’il sent une relation très subtile, mais très réelle, avec quelque chose qui d’en haut, de très haut, est comme une influence qui pèse sur lui ; et alors il peut, lui, commencer à sentir le besoin d’être en rapport avec ce quelque chose qu’il ne connaît pas, qu’il ne comprend pas, mais qu’il sent seulement ; et cette aspiration tire le psychique et le fait descendre en lui.

Je vous donne ici quelques cas assez fréquents ; il y en a beaucoup d’autres ; cela peut se produire d’innombrables manières. Ce que je vous ai décrit, ce sont les cas les plus fréquents que j’ai vus.

Alors cette âme qui veut s’incarner, quelquefois elle reste dans un domaine du mental supérieur, à proximité de la terre, ayant choisi sa demeure future ; ou bien elle peut descendre davantage, dans le vital, et de là, avoir une action plus directe ; ou alors elle peut entrer dans le physique subtil et gouverner de tout près le développement de son corps futur. Maintenant l’autre question, celle concernant le départ.

Cela aussi dépend du degré de développement, des conditions de la mort — et surtout de l’unification de l’être et de son attitude au moment de quitter le corps. Il était question ici d’êtres pleinement développés, c’est-à-dire de psychiques pleinement développés (et je ne sais pas si l’on parle d’un être psychique qui a profité de sa présence dans un corps physique pour faire le yoga, parce que, alors, les conditions sont tout à fait différentes). Mais d’une façon plus générale, souvent je vous ai dit que tout dépend, en ce qui concerne le revêtement extérieur de l’être, de son attitude au moment de mourir, et cette attitude dépend nécessairement de son développement intérieur et de son unification.

Si nous prenons le cas le meilleur, de quelqu’un qui a complètement unifié son être autour de la Présence divine en lui, qui n’est plus qu’une volonté, qu’une conscience, cet être-là aura groupé autour de son être psychique central un mental pleinement développé et organisé, un vital absolument soumis et collaborant, et un physique obéissant, docile et souple. Ce physique, étant pleinement développé, aura un corps subtil — ce que Sri Aurobindo appelle un « physique véritable » — qui dépassera infiniment les limites de son corps et qui aura une souplesse, une plasticité, un équilibre suffisants pour qu’il puisse adhérer aux parties intérieures de l’être et suivre le mouvement de l’âme dans son... je ne veux pas parler d’ascension, mais dans ses pérégrinations en dehors du corps. Ce que l’âme fera, où elle ira ? Tout dépend de ce qu’elle a décidé avant de quitter le corps. Et cette capacité de maintenir autour d’elle l’être qui a été pleinement organisé et unifié dans la vie physique lui permettra effectivement de choisir ce qu’elle voudra faire — ce qui représente aussi un champ très différent de possibilités, depuis passer consciemment d’un corps dans un autre, tout droit (il y a des cas où l’un de ces êtres pleinement conscients et pleinement développés a lentement préparé un autre être qui soit capable de le recevoir et de l’assimiler et, afin de ne pas cesser son travail matériel quand il sort d’un corps, il va se joindre à un autre être psychique, se fondre en lui, s’ajouter à lui dans un autre corps physique ; cela, c’est le cas extrême, extrêmement rare aussi, mais qui fait partie de la connaissance occulte tout à fait traditionnelle), jusqu’au cas, à l’autre extrême, où l’âme ayant fini son expérience corporelle désire l’assimiler dans le repos et se préparer à une autre existence physique plus tard, quelquefois beaucoup plus tard. Et alors il se produit ceci, parmi beaucoup d’autres possibilités : il laisse dans chaque domaine — dans le domaine physique subtil, dans le domaine vital, dans le domaine mental — les êtres correspondants ; il les laisse avec une sorte de lien entre eux, mais chacun garde une existence indépendante, et lui-même pénètre dans la zone, la réalité, le monde psychique propre et y entre dans un repos béatifique assimilateur, jusqu’à ce qu’il ait, (riant) comme il est décrit dans ce papier, assimilé toutes ses bonnes oeuvres, digéré toutes ses bonnes oeuvres, et qu’il soit prêt à recommencer une expérience nouvelle. Et alors, si son travail a été bien fait et si les parties de son être ou les revêtements de son être qu’il a laissés dans les différents domaines s’y sont comportés comme il faut, quand il redescendra, il revêtira l’une après l’autre toutes ces parties qui vivaient avec lui dans une vie passée, et avec cette richesse de connaissance et d’expérience, il se préparera à entrer dans un corps nouveau... Ce sera peut-être après des centaines ou des milliers d’années, parce que, dans ces domaines‑la, tout ce qui est organisé n’est plus nécessairement soumis à la décomposition que nous appelons ici la « mort ». Dès qu’un être vital est pleinement harmonisé, il devient immortel. Ce qui le dissout et le disloque, ce sont tous les désordres intérieurs et toutes les tendances, justement, de destruction et de décomposition ; mais s’il est pleinement harmonisé et organisé et pour ainsi dire divinisé, il devient immortel. Pour le mental, c’est la même chose. Et même dans le physique subtil, les êtres qui se sont pleinement développés et qui ont été imprégnés des forces spirituelles ne se dissolvent pas nécessairement après la mort. Ils peuvent continuer une action, ou ils peuvent prendre un repos salutaire dans certains éléments de la Nature comme l’eau — généralement c’est dans un liquide, c’est dans l’eau ou c’est dans la sève des arbres — ou ce peut être, comme il est décrit là, (riant) dans les nuages. Mais ils peuvent aussi rester actifs et continuer d’agir sur les éléments plus matériels de la nature physique.

Je vous ai donné là un certain nombre d’exemples ; je vous dis, je pourrais vous parler pendant des heures et il y aurait toujours des exemples nouveaux à donner ! Mais cela couvre le sujet d’une façon un peu générale et cela ouvre la porte aux imaginations.

Voilà.

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See also

• Rebirth