|
The
Mother Answers—Fear of Death - II
Page 2
What
does the tiger represent?
It
was probably... That day he had become angry with somebody,
he had lost his temper and entertained bad thoughts; he had
hoped that something very unpleasant would happen to this
person. Now, in occultism there is the "rebound''. You
send out a bad thought, it returns to you as an attack. That
is exactly one of the reasons why you must have a complete
control over your feelings, sensations, thoughts, for if you
become angry with someone or think badly of him, or if, still
worse, you wish him ill, well, in your very dream you see
this person coming with an extreme violence to attack you.
Then, if you do not know these things, you say, "Why,
I was right in having bad thoughts against him!'' But in fact,
it is not at all that. It is your own thought that comes back
to you. And the person may be absolutely unaware of all that
has happened, for—and this is one of the commonest laws
in occultism—if you make a formation, for instance a
mental formation that an accident or something unpleasant
should happen to a certain person and you send out this formation,
if it so happens that this person is in a very high state
of consciousness, does not at all wish anything bad, is quite
indifferent and disinterested in the affair, the formation
will come up against his atmosphere and instead of entering
will rebound upon the one who has made it. In this way serious
accidents have taken place. There were certain people who
practised that low deformation of occultism which is called
magic and they had made formations through magic against someone.
But this person happened to be far above this and could not
be touched by those formations. So they returned upon those
people, fatally. If they had made a formation of death, it
would have been they who died.
I don't know whether you remember or not the story
of the stones which fell in Sri Aurobindo's house? Everybody
knows it, so I won't narrate it.
What
happens to this formation once it has worked ill? Does it
continue?
No.
When a formation of this kind acts, it goes with a definite
purpose. It has been made with a definite purpose. It acts
and once its action is over, it disappears, it has no longer
any raison d'être. It was a formation for a particular
action. When the action is acomplished, the formation dissolves.
There are many other kinds of formations with more or less
durable lives. I tell you it is a science—you cannot
learn chemistry in an hour! But still, in a case like that,
when the formation returns and strikes the one who has made
it, it is finished. Its action is acomplished and comes to
an end.
Everybody doesn't know the story of
the stones... You narrated it only to the little children,
Sweet Mother.
I
narrated it to the little ones...
Yes,
but the older ones were not there! (Laughter)
It is nine o'clock. You have no other questions? If I tell
you the story...
Sweet
Mother, this morning you told us you would narrate...
Look here, I had another. How many stories can I tell you!
Well, the other one is very short. It is also interesting.
It is about curing oneself of fear. (Perhaps Pavitra knows
the name!)... There was a French scientist who had written
a book in which he narrated an experience he had had in the
Jardin des Plantes. He wanted to know to what extent
reason can have an effect over reflexes. I don't remember
now—for years I knew his name; I have forgotten it, but
still the story remains. He was a well-known scientist and
he has written about his experiment in a book. It is often
quoted as an example. He was very much interested in knowing
to what extent reason, intelligence with clear knowledge,
could have an effect upon reflexes, that is, upon movements
which come up spontaneously from the subconscious, automatic
movements, and he made this experiment: he went to the Jardin
des Plantes in Paris where not only plants but animals
also are kept. And among these animals there were huge snakes.
There was a snake there (I knew it, that snake), which had
the reputation of having a very bad nature. That is, it could
be made angry very easily. It was a very large snake and was
very beautiful; it was black. And the scientist had been told
by the keeper that this snake was very aggressive. These snakes
are enclosed in huge glass cases, the glass being sufficiently
thick to prevent any accident, as you may well imagine. So,
he went to the cage of this serpent just when it was hungry
(it had not eaten; when they have eaten they sleep). It had
not eaten, so it was active. And he stood there in front of
the cage, quite close to the glass and began exciting the
snake—I don't remember now what he did—until it
started getting angry. Then it coiled up and shot out like
a released spring against the glass, against the face of that
gentleman who was on the other side, and the man—who
knew very well that the glass was there and nothing could
happen to him—jumped back! And he repeated the experiment
several times, and not once could he control his movement
of recoil. He recoiled every time the snake jumped he recoiled!
(Laughter)
So he has spoken of his experiment. But he lacked one element
of knowledge, for he did not know that the physical movement
was acompanied by a considerable vital projection of the nervous
force of the snake, and that it was this that affected him.
It was because of this. He tried in vain to remain stiff,
to tell himself, "But after all there is no danger, nothing
can happen to me, there is the glass; why do I recoil?'' (Laughter)
It was that which came and gave him a shock and he jumped
back.
There you are, now au revoir, my children. The story
of the stones for another day. It is too late now.
3
March 1954
- The Mother
|
