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After
Death - IV
Page
3
Sometimes
when people are dying, they know that they are about to
die. Why don't they tell the spirit to go away?
Ah!
well, that depends upon the people. Two things are necessary.
First of all, nothing in your being, no part of your being
should want to die. That does not happen often. You have always
a defeatist in you somewhere: something that is tired, something
that is disgusted, something that has had enough of it, something
that is lazy, something that does not want to struggle and
says: "Well! Ah! Let it be finished, so much the better.''
That is sufficient, you are dead.
But
it is a fact: if nothing, absolutely nothing in you consents
to die, you will not die. For someone to die, there is always
a second, perhaps the hundredth part of a second when he gives
his consent. If there is not this second of consent, he does
not die.
I
knew people who should have really died according to all physical
and vital laws; and they refused. They said: "No, I will
not die'', and they lived. There are others who do not need
at all to die, but they are of that kind and say: "Ah!
Well! Yes, so much the better, it will be finished'', and
it is finished. Even that much, even nothing more than that:
you need not have a persistent wish, you have only to say:
"Well, yes, I have had enough!'' and it is finished.
So it is truly like that. As you say, you may have death standing
by your bedside and tell him: "I do not want you, go
away'', and it will be obliged to go away. But usually one
gives way, for one must struggle, one must be strong, one
must be very courageous and enduring, must have a great faith
in the importance of life; like someone, for example, who
feels very strongly that he has still something to do and
he must absolutely do it. But who is sure he has not within
him the least bit of a defeatist, somewhere, who just yields
and says: "It is all right''?... It is here, the necessity
of unifying oneself.
Whatever
the way we follow, the subject we study, we always arrive
at the same result. The most important thing for an individual
is to unify himself around his divine centre; in that way
he becomes a true individual, master of himself and his destiny.
Otherwise, he is a plaything of forces that toss him about
like a piece of cork on a river. He goes where he does not
want to go, he is made to do things he does not want to do,
and finally he falls into a hole without having the strength
to hold on. But if you are consciously organised, unified
around the divine centre, ruled and directed by it, you are
master of your destiny. That is worth the trouble of attempting
In any case, I find it preferable to be the master rather
than the slave. It is a rather unpleasant sensation to feel
yourself pulled by the strings and made to do things whether
you want to or not it makes no difference but to be compelled
to act because something pulls you by the strings, something
which you do not even see that is exasperating. However, I
do not know, but I found it very annoying, even when I was
a little child. At five, it began to seem to me quite intolerable
and I sought for a way so that it might be otherwise without
people getting a chance to scold me. For I knew nobody who
could help me and I did not have the chance that you have,
someone who can tell you: "This is what you have to do!''
There was nobody to tell me that. I had to find it out all
by myself. And I found it. I started at five. And you, you
were five long ago...
Voilà.
1
July 1953
- The Mother
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