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After
Death - VI
Page
1
...
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 passs 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.
24
October 1956
- The Mother
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