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The
Mother Answers—Fear of Death - III
Page 1
Why
have you written "The Fear of Death'' just now?
Because
it was necessary to say this.
So
far you had not said it, Mother, why do you say it now?
Ah!
There are many things I have not said. One must indeed begin
one day. I don't think or have the impression that there was
any occasion for it so far. Perhaps it came as the result
of an experience... Why, yes, I thought later that people
would see a special significance in it, but there isn't any!
(Laughter) Perhaps within you there is something.
There is one thing I have noticed, that every time somebody
dies in the Ashram, many people are seized by panic. Now,
I cannot say I appreciate this very much! Perhaps it was because
of that that I wrote this article. For truly it is high time
we were free from these things—a sort of trembling. I
remember, the first time someone died in the Ashram, there
was a veritable panic. I know lots of people of this kind,
whom I won't name; they came here (they were already quite
old) with the idea that, because they lived here, they would
not die! It was an old idea, a very long time ago. And the
first time someone died, it literally caused a panic. We received
heaps of letters saying: "How is it possible? But then
we are not safe!" I was obliged to tell them that immortal
life is something acquired with much effort, and not only
much effort but the renunciation of so many things that there
is not one among all those who were protesting who would give
up his attachments for this immortal life. That is, they would
prefer to die and keep their old habits to living immortally
and losing them! There are many things which must be given
up... I have just mentioned this by the way in that article,
but there are yet many more. All the small personal satisfactions,
generally, must disappear—satisfactions of all kinds.
I remember having spoken to someone that was a long time ago—of
the possibility of physical transformation, and I told him
that one of the results would be that one would no longer
need to eat, that one would recuperate strength directly from
the universal forces or else from the Divine. And this person
in an absolute consternation said to me, "And all the
fine things one eats!'' (Laughter) So, it is like that.
If
we become immortal, then creation must cease?
Which
creation?
The
birth of men.
Oh!
Naturally. Why, even long before becoming immortal. If anyone
wants in the least to transform himself, this is the first
thing that must stop. I have said it elsewhere, but...
Is
fear the only cause of death?
Oh, no! Not at all. That is not what I have said, besides.
I said that if one wanted to conquer death it was necessary
to begin by not fearing it, which is quite a different thing.
But I have not said that it was fear that brought about death.
You
have said: "One can neither hasten nor delay its hour.''
But death comes if one stops progressing. So, if one progresses,
one can put off the hour. Or does this mean that from one's
birth the day and the moment of death are predestined?
No.
This is altogether something else and on another plane. I
have written elsewhere that one dies only when one consents
to die—which seems to contradict what I have said here.
But this is the truth. I have told you this once already,
I believe; in any case, I have written it somewhere. There
are two points of view. Here I have taken quite an ordinary,
material point of view, that of the physical consciousness.
But I have explained somewhere that there are, as it were,
different "layers of determinisms'' in our being. The
physical existence has a determinism; the vital existence
has a determinism; the mental existence has a determinism;
the higher mental, the psychic have a determinism. And then
the higher existences have determinisms—the supramental
existence has a determinism. And the determinism of everyone
comes from the combination of all these determinisms (I am
sure I have written this somewhere). If, for instance, at
a given moment, when the entire physical determinism must
necessarily bring death, you suddenly enter into contact with
an extremely high determinism, like the supramental one, for
example, and you succeed in joining the two, you change your
physical determinism completely at that moment: death which
had been determined by the physical determinism is abolished,
and the conditions change and are pushed back.
I
do not speak of this in that article. I have taken a purely
material point of view. I have given the example of people
(and people who lived almost exclusively in their material
consciousness, their physical consciousness, you understand,
mental, vital and material), and who eagerly wanted to die
from the time they were fifty—they lived to be eighty-seven!
I have had an instance of that. I had another example the
very opposite of this, of someone who ardently wanted to live
very long, who felt that he had many very important things
to do and that he must not die, and he took all kinds of precautions
against that—and yet he died. There may be cases which
seem contradictory, but that is only an appearance. There
are explanations for all these things, they obey different
laws. Here I have taken the purely material point of view.
If you do not make a higher determinism intervene, truly you
can change nothing. That is the only way of changing your
physical determinism. If you remain in your physical consciousness
and want to change your determinism, you cannot... During
the First War I knew a boy who had been told he would die
of a shot (you know in war one dies easily), and he had even
been given an approximate date. And that caused him such agony
that he had succeeded in getting a long leave. He came to
Paris on leave. He was an officer and had his pistol in his
pocket. He jumped from a tram and fell down, the pistol went
off and he was killed on the spot. He could not escape.
I could narrate any number of such examples to you. But this
belongs to a single plane, the material plane the purely material
physical, mental and vital plane. It is only a higher knowledge
and a contact with the higher planes and the descent of these
higher planes into the physical plane, which can change circumstances.
So too, if one succeeded in bringing down the supramental
plane permanently into the physical life, physical life would
be transformed, that is, it would change totally. But only
on this condition. I do not speak of this in that article,
that's another subject.
Anything
else?
10 March 1954
- The Mother
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