Chapter 50Rebirth

Now you are no longer able to bend over this body and take care of it, you can no longer express through your acts your deep affection, and it is this which is painful. But you must overcome this sorrow and look within, look above, for it is only the material body that will be dissolved. All that you loved in her is in no way affected by the dissolution of the material envelope; and if, in the calm of a deep love, you concentrate your thought and your energy on her, you will see that she will remain close to you and that you can have a conscious contact with her, a contact more and more concrete.

* Life is immortal. It is only the body that dissolves.

10 March 1969

* Why do we call Death a god? Is he not an Asura like the Lord of Falsehood?

It is in the consciousness of man that he became a god and that is why it is so difficult to transform him.

29 October 1972

* Sri Aurobindo says that some time after death the vital and mental sheaths dissolve, leaving the soul free to retire to the psychic world before it takes up new sheaths. What becomes of the Karma and of the impressions — Samskaras — on the old sheaths? Do they also dissolve without producing any result, good or bad, which they should according to the theory of Karma? Also, what becomes of the vital and mental beings after the dissolution of the vital and mental sheaths?

The outer form only dissolves, unless that too is made conscious and is organised round the divine centre. But the true mental, the true vital and even the true subtle physical persist: it is that which keeps all the impressions received in earthly life and builds the chain of Karma.

* If we go a little way within ourselves, we shall discover that there is in each of us a consciousness that has been living throughout the ages and manifesting in a multitude of forms.

24 January 1935

* In rebirth it is not the external being, that which is formed by parents, environment and circumstances — the mental, the vital and the physical — that is born again: it is only the psychic being that passes from body to body. Logically, then, neither the mental nor the vital being can remember past lives or recognise itself in the character or mode of life of this or that person. The psychic being alone can remember; and it is by becoming conscious of our psychic being that we can have at the same time exact impressions about our past lives. Besides, it is much more important for us to fix our attention upon what we want to become than upon what we have been.

2 April 1935

* My dear child, The sudden departure of X is a painful loss for all here. He was perfect in consecration and honest in his work, a man on whom one could count, which is a truly exceptional quality. He has departed into a solar light and is enjoying the conscious rest which he truly deserved.

5 July 1965

* In my dreams I see X very happy. One day I saw him leaning over my table and he said to me, “I had no opportunity to tell you anything while I was leaving, because Sri Aurobindo’s call made me hurry away immediately.” Is there any truth in this dream, Mother?

This dream is surely true because X went straight to join Sri Aurobindo.

Sweet Mother, I would like to know the answers to these questions, which often come to me since his departure.

Is a soul which is conscious of You reborn immediately after its departure? Or does it have to wait long?

Every fully conscious and developed psychic being is free to choose what its next life will be and when that life will take place.

Does this soul come to the Ashram after its birth to accomplish Your divine mission?

That is its usual choice when it reincarnates immediately.

Is this soul capable of choosing its birth and enjoying the happiness of the Ashram life?

If it is fully developed, it is capable of doing so.

What is the relation between the Supramental Light and the solar light?

The solar light is the symbol of the supramental light. Blessings.

2 July 1966

* Sweet Mother,

In the Bulletin You have said: “Psychic memories possess a very special character, they have a wonderful intensity.... They are unforgettable moments of life when the consciousness is intense, luminous, strong, active, powerful, and sometimes turning-points in life that have changed the direction of one’s life. But you will never be able to say what dress you put on or the gentleman with whom you spoke or about your neighbours and the kind of field where you were.”1 And about these memories of small details You said: “That is absolute childishness.”2

But then how is it that in newspapers one quite often reads stories of small children who remember their past lives and that the details have been verified? And it is the study of such events that leads parapsychologists to assert the existence of reincarnation. So are they not on a completely wrong track? And how can reincarnation be demonstrated scientifically in any other way?

The memories you refer to, which are mentioned in newspapers, are memories of the vital being that, exceptionally, has gone out of one body in order to enter another. It is something that can happen, but it is not frequent. The memory that I refer to is that of the psychic being, and one is conscious of it only when one is in conscious relation with one’s psychic being. There is no contradiction between the two things.

29 November 1967

* Is it necessary to know what I was in my previous life?

1 Bulletin, November 1967, p. 41. 2 Ibid., p. 37.