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This talk is based upon Mother's essay
“Physical Education”. Mother, does a person's
body-formation express his character? No. Even the character itself is not a simple affair, that is, the
character of a person is not the expression of his true being but the result of
many things. For example, atavism may be expressed, that is, what comes from
the father, the mother, from both together which may have a different result;
from what has gone before them – the past history, grandfathers,
great-grandfathers, etc., and then from the environment in which people have
lived when they were very young and had no independence at all. That has a
considerable effect on the character. And this character affects the physical
formation. So, just by seeing some body one cannot quite say what his true
nature is. One may describe his tendencies, know his difficulties, his
possibilities, but it is only with the growth of the consciousness and as the
development becomes voluntary and organised that the body can begins to express
the true character of the person. And when the body has
been deformed by illness? That may be an accident, you know.
Accidents are due to many things; in fact they are the result of a conflict of
the forces in Nature, a conflict between the forces of growth and progress and
the forces of destruction. When there is an accident, an accident that has
lasting results, it is always the result of a more or less partial victory of
the adverse forces, that is, of the forces of disintegration, disorganization.
That is to be seen. There are teachings, like that of theosophy for instance,
Page - 1 which take Karma in an altogether superficial and human see and
tell you: “Oh! You have met with this accident because in a former life you did
something bad, so that comes back upon you in the form of an accident.” This is
not true, not at all true. This is but human justice, it is neither the justice
of Nature nor the justice of the Divine. Naturally the formations of the body is very important in this see that if, for instance, one is constantly under the influence of a depression, of pessimism, discouragement, a lack of faith and of trust in life, all this enters, so to say, into one’s substance, and then some people, when there is the possibility of an accident, never miss it. Every time there is a chance of something happening to them, they catch it, be it an illness or an accident. You have a whole field of observation here it is always the same people who meet with accidents. Others do the same things, have as many chances of having an accident, but they are not touched. If you observe their character you will see that the former have a tendency to pessimism and more or less expect some thing unpleasant to happen to them – and it happen. Or else they are afraid. We know that fear always brings what one fears. If you fear an accident, this acts like a magnet drawing the accident towards you. In this see, it may be said that it is the result of character. And the same thing holds for illness. There are people who can move about among the sick and in places where there are epidemics and never catch a disease. There are others it is enough for them to spend an hour with a sick person, they catch the illness. That too depends on what they are within themselves.
And
for children, is it also the same thing? One cannot say. It is a moral
question. The problem should not be judged from a moral point of view, one
should not say that those who always enjoy good health and to whom nothing
happens are “good children” and those who meet with accidents and
Page - 2 suffer catastrophes are “bad”. That
is not correct. For, as I was saying, the logic of Nature is not human logic
and its see of justice (if it has any) is not a human see. For it there is very
little of what we call good and bad. It could rather be said that there is what
is constructive and what is destructive, what is progressive and what is
retrogressive. That indeed is very import ant. And then there are those who are
luminous, sunny, happy, smiling and those who are gloomy, dull, misanthropic,
dissatisfied, who live in grey shadows. It is the latter who catch all the
unpleasant things. Those who are radiant (they may be radiant without it being
a spiritual radiance, it may be just a radiation of good see, balance, an inner
confidence, the joy of living), those who carry in themselves the joy of
living, these are in harmony with Nature and, being in harmony with Nature,
generally avoid accidents, they are immune from diseases and their life
develops pleasantly as far as it is possible in the world as it is. And now? “There
is a prevalent belief that brilliant minds are found in weak bodies.” I haven’t
understood this. These were old ideas of the last century. They are no longer in
fashion now, but at the end of the last century it was always thought that the
more weak and sickly people were, the more brilliant was their mind, the more
intelligent they were! Some even explained that the development of their
intelligence was due to the fact that they could not draw any joy from their
body – for they were quite incapable of living fully, so all their attention
was turned to their mind and it was thus that their intelligence had developed.
There was even a time when it was the fashion to look a little sickly. Poets,
for instance, put on these airs... An
artist, he had to be a little sickly to give the impression that his mind was
all afire! But that is now over. It was finished even before you were born, I
believe. It was the romantic age, the end of the last century. Men like Musset, for
I read a story by a very well-known
French novelist (it was a novel), which was set in prehistoric times, in the
Stone Age, when man lived in caves, dressed in animal-ski and hunted in order
to eat and in self-defence. Now, it happened that by some sort of accident a
child was born lame or at least deformed or humpbacked or something like that.
And generally, in those days (so it is narrated, I don’t know), malformed
children were destroyed for they were an encumbrance. But for some reason or
other its mother had hidden it and it had lived. And then this boy who had no
means of hunting, for instance, or of doing all the work his companions were
doing, had begun to develop his mind and had become the first poet, because he
expressed in his words what the others did by their movements. Well, it is just
ideas like these which are at the root of this feeling that in order to have a
mind one must not have a body, and that the more ill one is, the more
intelligent he is! Isn’t that quite silly? It is true that there is a certain independence. I think I spoke to you last time about a French poet called Sully Prudhomme who was dying of a very serious disease – a very painful and grave disease, and it was at this time that he wrote his most beautiful poems and said the most beautiful things to his friends. His mind was quite independent of his body. But still, this is not an absolute rule.
In children the psychic is always in the front,
isn’t it? Not always. The psychic is more “in front” than later when they
grow up and the mind develops, but it can’t be said that in all
Page - 4 children the psychic may be felt. And one cannot judge from what we have here, for the condition of admission I make when children are brought to me is this: if I see the psychic on the surface I take them, but if they are already veiled by all sorts of deformed activities, I don’t take them. So, those whom we have here are an exception. It is the cream. It is a choice.
But why are there greedy children? Oh, good heave! Greedy, that’s not a crime! There are greedy
children. Perhaps they have a bad digestion and so always want to eat. They
don’t gain by what they eat. The whole outer being is full of difficulties of
all kinds, in everybody – in children also.
You could ask me with much more justification: “Why are there such cruel
children?” That indeed is one of the most dreadful things... But it is due to unconsciousness. It is
because they are not even aware that they are making others suffer. And
usually, if care is taken to make them understand – for in stance, through
experience – then they understand. Children who ill-treat animals (there are
many of these) – well, that is because they don’t even know that animals feel
as they do. When they are made to
understand that when they pinch animals or pull their hair or beat them it
gives them pain, and if necessary when they are shown on their own bodies how
it hurts, they don’t do it any more! There are some who are particularly
wicked. These are under a perfidious influence. And at times this shows itself
from their very infancy and they are like that all through their life, unless
they are converted, which is not easy. There is a sort of association
between the physical and the psychic and between the mental and the vital
being. A mental being is very often a very vital being. A psychic being is very
often a physical being. Children – just because this psychic consciousness is
in front in them – live also altogether in their body. But as soon as one
begins to develop the mind, the taste
How
can one know whether the psychic being is in front or not? Who? Oneself?... It is not
felt, no? You don’t feel it? I am not speaking of a small child, for it has no
means of control and observation, it lacks the capacity of observation. But
then, when one is no longer a baby, doesn’t one feel it? It doesn’t make a
difference?... (The child nods in assent) Ah!... There is not one of you who
will dare to tell me that it makes no difference when the psychic is there,
when one feels better within oneself, when one is full of light, hope,
goodwill, generosity, compassion for the world, and sees life as a field of
action, progress, realisation. Doesn’t it make a difference from the days when
one is bored, grumbling, when everything seems ugly, unpleasant, wicked, when
one loves nobody, wants to break everything, gets angry, feels ill at ease,
without strength, without energy, with out any joy? That makes a difference,
doesn’t it? It
may make a difference, but one doesn’t understand that the psychic is something
else.
But you who are here, after all
that you have heard and all that you have read and all that I have taught you,
you should be conversant with all the movements within you and be able to fix a
little label: this is this, that is this other. Do you know the days you are in
good health and the days when you are ill? Physically. Do you know it? Physically,
yes. Physically, quite sure? When you get up in the morning, can you
say whether today the balance is good or not? It
changes from day to day. That’s true, it changes all the time. Even during the same
day. But when you have just got up, when
just waking up and beginning your day, do you begins your day always in the
same way? No. Ah! There are days when everything seems to you harmonious, and
days when you are as with grinding wheels. Things grate within you, they don’t
turn round. Well, it is something like that. If you observe it physically, for
your body, afterwards you can observe it for your sensations, your feelings (a
kind of inner impression), and then you observe your brain, if the head is clear
or smoky. Yes?
So it is the same thing. In
what part of the being does the power of observation develop? I think the power of observation develops in all the parts of the
being. You may have a mental power of observation, a vital power of
observation, a physical power of observation. When you observe ideas, for
instance, the train of ideas, the logic of the ideas, it is not altogether the
same power of observation as when you look at a friend doing athletics and see
whether he is making his movements correctly or not. That is, the capacity of
attention is there in both cases, but it works in a different field. It can’t
be said that it is one part of the being observing the others; it is the
faculty of observation developing in each part of the being – that is, the
faculty of concentration and attention. For the capacity of observation must
not be confused with the capacity of discernment. Discernment is an intellectual
capacity. Something like a judgment
already enters into it, what we call “discrimination”: you can distinguish
between the origin of one thing and of another, and the reciprocal value of
these things. But that ought to be
founded on a correct observation. The power of observation comes first,
discernment follows. Is there a power of observation in the psychic?
More than that! There is the capacity for a direct vision of
things. It is like a mirror in which all things are reflected, what ever they
may be. But that is just what most children, when not deformed, have very
clearly, a great sensibility – for example, to the atmosphere of those who
approach them. There are children who, without any apparent reason, rush
towards one person and run away in horror from another. For you both of them
are
Some people can
concentrate very quickly while others can't. Perhaps they are born like that, for some reason or other, or
perhaps they have practiced it even without knowing that they were doing so.
Yes, there are children who, even when very young, are very attentive, and
others who are always distracted. But
that is how the inner constitution of different beings is. There are not two
who are the same. Some are born with a great power of attention and there are
others who don’t have it. Can it be increased? One can develop it, one can, and there are no limits to the
development. And it is even altogether indispensable to develop it. Page - 9 |
