Chapter 8

Another way of being

I have a feeling I am becoming another person.

No, not just that: I am entering ANOTHER world, another way of being … which might be called a dangerous way of being (in terms of the ordinary consciousness). As if…

Dangerous, but wonderful - how to express it?

First, the [body’s] subconscient is in the process of changing, and that is long, arduous and painful … but marvellous as well. The feeling of … (gesture as if standing on a ridge).

More and more, the body’s sensation is that faith alone can save – knowledge is not yet possible, so only faith can save.

But “faith can save” still sounds like an old manner of speaking… How to phrase it?… The feeling that the relation between what we call “life” and what we call “death” is becoming more and more different – yes, different (Mother nods her head), completely different.

Not that death disappears, mind you (death as we see it, as we know it and in relation to life as we know it): that’s not it, not it at all. BOTH are changing … into something we don't yet know, which seems at once extremely dangerous and absolutely marvellous. Dangerous: the least mistake has catastrophic consequences. And marvellous.

It is the consciousness, the true consciousness of immortality – not “immortality” as we understand it, something else. Something else.

Our natural tendency is to want certain things to be true (those we deem favourable) and other things to disappear – but that’s not it! It isn't like that. EVERYTHING is different.

True Immortality

In the beginning, when I started having the consciousness of immortality and when I brought together this true consciousness of immortality and the human conception of it (which is entirely different), I saw so clearly that when a human (even quite an ordinary human, one who is not a collectivity in himself – as is a writer, for example, or a philosopher or statesman) projects himself through his imagination into what he calls “immortality” (meaning an indefinite duration of time) he doesn't project himself alone but rather, inevitably and always, what is projected along with himself is a whole agglomeration, a collectivity or totality of things which represent the life and the consciousness of his present existence. And then I made the following experiment on a number of people; I said to them, “Excuse me, but let’s say that through a special discipline or a special grace your life were to continue indefinitely. What you would most likely extend into this indefinite future are the circumstances of your life, this formation you have built around yourself that is made up of people, relationships, activities, a whole collection of more or less living or inert things.

But that CANNOT be extended as it is, for everything is constantly changing! And to be immortal, you have to follow this perpetual change; otherwise, what will naturally happen is what now happens – one day you will die because you can no longer follow the change. But if you can follow it, then all this will fall from you! Understand that what will survive in you is something you don't know very well, but it’s the only thing that can survive – and all the rest will keep falling off all the time … Do you still want to be immortal?” – Not one in ten said yes! … Once you are able to make them feel the thing concretely, they tell you, “Oh no! Oh no! Since everything else is changing, the body might as well change too! What difference would it make!” But what remains is THAT; THAT is what you must truly hold on to – but then you must BE THAT, not this whole agglomeration. What you now call “you” is not THAT, it’s a whole collection of things…

The cells are all the while like this, in a state of love for the Divine. What is most remarkable in the physical is that once it has learnt a thing it never forgets it. The cells, once they have learnt it, this self-giving, this offering to the Divine, this need of self-offering, have learnt it for good; it does not flicker any more. It is constant, twenty-four hours out of twenty-four, without stop and day after day, and there is no change. Even if there be something that is not all right (either a pain or something else), the first movement, yes, it is that, it is to offer itself, give itself – spontaneously. The higher consciousness does not intervene. It is spontaneous, it is the consciousness contained in the cells. It is the vital and the mental that are unstable in that way (gesture of zigzagging). Particularly, particularly it is the vital that is interested in all sorts of things. Naturally, the two are interdependent.

The ego must be abolished, the rule of the ego must be abolished. But generally people believe that it is not possible to abolish the physical ego; not only is it possible, it has been done. And the body continues, continues to walk about, it is not gone (there was a little difficult moment – but just a little).

Now the cells are wondering how it is at all possible to continue to exist without this movement of adoration. They are like that (gesture of intense aspiration), everywhere, everywhere. It is very interesting.

All these difficulties that one has with the inner development when one is dealing with the vital and the mental, the revivals of old things and all that, now here (in the body) are gone; it is not like that.