March 7, 1967
I’ve received a certain number of questions from the older pupils (not the young children, the older pupils) on “death,” the conditions of death, why there are so many accidents at present, and so on. I have already answered two pupils. Of course, the answer is on a mental level, but with an attempt to go beyond.
There is that sort of mental logic which wants … yes, which wants things to be deduced from one another according to that logic, and so they have reached … impossible questions.
(the text of the questions:)
Are the time and manner of death always chosen by the soul? In large human destructions through bombings, floods, earthquakes, have all the souls chosen to die together at that time?
The vast majority of human beings have a collective destiny. For them the question does not arise. One who has an individualized psychic being can survive even in the midst of collective catastrophes, if such is the choice of his soul.
How is the soul conscious of being and existing
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after death, once it is separated from its physical
vital and mental beings?
The soul is a spark of the Supreme Divine, I do not see how the Lord needs a body in order to be conscious of being.
It’s nothing very new, but it’s a broadening of the consciousness. And all these questions have in fact been coming into the atmosphere lately, giving at first the impression that man knows nothing about death – he doesn’t know what it is, doesn’t know what happens, he has built all kinds of hypotheses but has no certainties. And by pressing on – by insisting and pressing on – I have reached the conclusion … that there is really no such thing as death.
There is only an appearance, and an appearance based on a limited outlook. But there is no radical change in the vibration of consciousness. This came as an answer to a sort of anguish – there was in the cells a sort of anguish at not knowing what death really is; a sort of anguish, like that. And the response was very clear and persistent: it was that the consciousness alone can know, because … because the importance attached to the difference of state is a merely superficial difference based on an ignorance of the phenomenon in itself. One who could retain a means of communication would be able to say that as far as he himself is concerned, it doesn’t make much difference.
But this is something being worked out at the moment. There still remain gray areas and some details of experience are missing. So it would be better to wait, it seems to me, until the knowledge is more complete, because rather than give an approximation with assumptions, it would be better to tell the complete fact with the total experience. So we’ll put it off till later.
But you say there is no difference – when one is on the other
side, does one go on having or is one able to have the perception
of the physical world?
Yes, yes! Exactly. Exactly.
The perception of beings, of … [Satprem meant seagulls over
the sea, trees, the pretty sunshine on the earth].
Yes, exactly.
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Only, instead of having a perception … You leave a sort of illusory state and a perception which is one of appearances, but you do have a perception. That is, at certain times I had the perception, I was able to see the difference, but of course, the experience wasn’t total (it wasn’t total in the sense that it was cut short by people), so it’s better to wait awhile before we talk about it.
But the perception is there.
Not absolutely identical, but with an effectiveness which is sometimes greater in itself. But it’s not really perceived by the other side. I don’t know how to explain. I’ve had the example (not an example: it was lived with the full perception) of a being who lived with me for years, who remained in perfectly conscious contact after he had left his body (and left it quite materially), and who didn’t merge but closely associated himself with another living being and in this association went on living the life of his OWN CONSCIOUSNESS. I can give neither the names nor the facts about all this, but it’s as concrete as can be. [[Mother is referring to the diplomat’s son she already spoke of, who merged with Pavitra. (See Agenda VII of February 23, 1966.) ]] And it’s going on.
All this has been seen – I’ve been seeing it for a long time, but just this morning it came back as an illustration of the new knowledge. Extraordinarily concrete [the "association"] in its effects, changing the capacities and movements of the other’s consciousness. And consciously – an absolutely conscious life. And it’s the same consciousness that was conscious during the phase when there was no body left at all and the presence was visible only in the night vision.
There are other cases.
This one is very close and intimate, which is why I have been able to follow it in all its details.
But it’s clear, precise and EVIDENT only with this new vision, because (how can I explain?…) I knew this – I knew it before, I was aware of it – but I saw it again with the new consciousness, the new way of seeing, and then the understanding was total, the perception was total, absolutely concrete, with elements that were completely missing – convincing elements that were completely missing in the first perception, which was a vital-mental knowledge. While this is a knowledge of the consciousness of the cells.
But all this would only be interesting with all the facts (which I can’t give). So I’d like to have a more complete and “impersonal” experience, I might say, I mean not illustrated by facts but an
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overall vision of the process. Then I will be able to talk about it.
It will come.
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