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= What is Individualisation? =
Individualisation, is the capacity to take up all experiences and organise them around the divine centre. (The Mother, 24 February, 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/24-february-1951#p38</ref>
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One can't merge one's ego in the Divine before becoming completely individualised. (The Mother, 28 July, 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/28-july-1954#p40</ref>
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In order to become a conscious, individualised being, one needs his ego; that is why it is there. It is only when one has realised his own individuality sufficiently, has become a conscious, independent being with its own reality, that he no longer needs the ego. And at that time one can make an effort to get rid of it. (The Mother, 22 September, 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/22-september-1954#p42</ref>
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'''''Before it's Formation'''''
“...the first state of your being is a state of an almost total mixture with all things from outside, and that there is almost no individualisation, that is, specialisation which makes you a different being. You are moved—a kind of form which is your physical being is moved—by all the common universal forces, vital forces or mental forces, which go through your form and put it in motion. (The Mother, 14 December, 1955) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/14-december-1955#p18</ref>
'''''It’s not the Cause of Individuality'''''
It is purposely, mind you, that I have not mentioned the ego as one of the causes of the sense of individuality. For the ego being a falsehood and an illusion, the sense of individuality would itself be false and illusory (as Buddha and Shankara affirm), whereas the origin of individualisation being in the Supreme Himself, the ego is only a passing deformation, necessary for the moment, which will disappear when its utility is over, when the Truth-Consciousness will be established. (The Mother, 3 March, 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/3-march-1951#p31</ref>
''''' Growth towards Integral Self-Knowledge '''''
=== The Role of Ego ===
The ego was created for the work of individualisation; when the work is achieved, it is not unusual for the ego to accept its own dissolution. (The Mother, 7 December, 1968) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/7-december-1968#p2</ref>
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...before speaking of merging one's ego in the Divine, one must first know a little what one is. The ego is there. Its necessity is that you become conscious, independent beings, individualised—I mean in the see of independent—that you may not be the public square where everything goes criss-cross! That you may exist in yourselves. That is why there is an ego. It is like that; that is why also there is a skin, like that... though truly, even physical forces pass through the skin. There is a vibration which goes a certain distance. But still, it's the skin that prevents us from blending into one another. (The Mother, 28 July, 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/28-july-1954#p56</ref>
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In order to become a conscious, individualised being, one needs his ego; that is why it is there. It is only when one has realised his own individuality sufficiently, has become a conscious, independent being with its own reality, that he no longer needs the ego. And at that time one can make an effort to get rid of it. (The Mother, 22 September, 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/22-september-1954#p42</ref>
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Certainly, if one were to lose one's ego too soon, from the vital and mental point of view one would again become an amorphous mass. The ego is surely the instrument for individualisation, that is, until one is an individualised being, constituted in himself, the ego is an absolutely necessary factor. If one had the power of abolishing the ego ahead of time, one would lose one's individuality. But once the individuality has been formed, the ego becomes not only useless but harmful. And only then comes the time when it must be abolished. But naturally, as it has taken so much trouble to build you, it does not give up its work so easily, and it asks for the reward of its efforts, that is, to enjoy the individuality. (The Mother, 12 January, 1955) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/12-january-1955#p25</ref>
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When we have passed beyond individualising, then we shall be real Persons. Ego was the helper; Ego is the bar. (The Mother, 28 November, 1956) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/28-november-1956#p7</ref>
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So, for everyone—except for those who are born free, and this is obviously very rare—for everyone this state of reason, of effort, desire, individualisation and solid physical balance in accordance with the ordinary mode of living is indispensable to begin with, until the time one becomes a conscious being, when one must give up all these things in order to become a spiritual being. (The Mother, 28 November, 1956) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/28-november-1956#p15</ref>
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...to begin with, a tremendous labour is required to individualise oneself, and afterwards one must demolish all that has been done in order to progress. (The Mother, 20 February, 1957) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/20-february-1957#p16</ref>
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=== Safety and Limitations of Ego ===
To live without a fortress is extremely difficult—people have the feeling that they are not living, that they are not individualised, that they are floating about. It is extremely difficult to live in something infinitely vast, moving, constantly changing, perpetually in progress, not to be held by anything to which one can cling, saying "I am this; this is my way of thinking." It is very difficult, one must not try it too soon; there are those whose mind gets deranged by it. (The Mother, 12 March, 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/12-march-1951#p19</ref>
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… it is impossible for a divided and individualised consciousness with a divided, individualised and therefore limited power and will to be master of the All-Force; only the All-Will can be that and the individual only, if at all, by becoming again one with the All-Will and therefore with the All-Force. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/death-desire-and-incapacity#p5</ref>
== What is Psychic Being ? ==
The soul is something that comes from the Divine into the evolution and as the psychic being it evolves and assumes different personalities from life to life. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-self-or-atman#p14</ref>
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It (The Psychic) is always pure. But it is either more or less individualised and independent in its action. What is psychic in the being is always pure, by its very definition, for it is that part of the being which is in contact with the Divine and expresses the truth of the being. But this may be like a spark in the darkness of the being or it may be a being of light, conscious, fully formed and independent. There are all the gradations between the two. (The Mother, 16 December, 1953) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/16-december-1953#p15</ref>
'''''Aim of the Psychic Being'''''
The aim of the psychic being is to form an individual being, individualised, "personalised" around the divine centre. Normally, all the experiences of the external life (unless one does yoga and becomes conscious) pass without organising the inner being, while the psychic being organises these experiences serially. It wants to realise a particular attitude towards the Divine. Hence it looks for all favourable experiences in order to have the complete series of opportunities, so to say, which will allow it to realise this attitude towards the Divine. (The Mother, 24 February, 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/24-february-1951#p39</ref>
=== Evolution of the Psychic ===
This is what happens. Let us take a divine spark which, through attraction, through affinity and selection, gathers around it a beginning of psychic consciousness (this work is already very perceptible in animals—don't think you are exceptional beings, that you alone have a psychic being and the rest of creation hasn't. It begins in the mineral, it is a little more developed in the plant, and in the animal there is a first glimmer of the psychic presence). Then there comes a moment when this psychic being is sufficiently developed to have an independent consciousness and a personal will. And then after innumerable lives more or less individualised, it becomes conscious of itself, of its movements and of the environment it has chosen for its growth. Arriving at a certain state of perception, it decides—generally at the last minute of the life it has just finished upon earth—the conditions in which its next life will be passed. Here I must tell you a very important thing: the psychic being can progress and form itself only in the physical life and upon earth. As soon as it leaves a body, it enters into a rest which lasts for a more or less long time according to its own choice and its degree of development—a rest for assimilation, for a passive progress so to say, a rest for passive growth which will allow this same psychic being to pass on to new experiences and make a more active progress. But after having finished one life (which usually ends only when it has done what it wanted to do), it will have chosen the environment where it will be born, the approximate place where it will be born, the conditions and the kind of life in which it will be born, and a very precise programme of the experiences through which it will have to pass to be able to make the progress it wants to make. (The Mother, 24 February, 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/24-february-1951#p22</ref>
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The soul is the eternal essence at the centre of the psychic being. The soul is in fact like a divine spark which puts on many states of being of increasing density, down to the most material; it is inside the body, within the solar plexus, so to say. These states of being take form and develop, progress, become individualised and perfected in the course of many earthly lives and form the psychic being. When the psychic being is fully formed, it is aware of the consciousness of the soul and manifests it perfectly. (The Mother, 1 February, 1967) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/1-february-1967-1#p2</ref>
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The essence of the soul is divine, but the soul (the psychic being) grows through all the forms of evolution; it becomes more and more individualised and increasingly conscious of itself and its origin. (The Mother, 24 January, 1935) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/24-january-1935#p2</ref>
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The soul individualises itself and progressively transforms itself into a psychic being. (The Mother, 28 July, 1960) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/28-july-1960#p2</ref>
'''Kinds of Progress'''
There are in the psychic being two very different kinds of progress: one consisting in its formation, building and organisation. For the psychic starts by being only a kind of tiny divine spark within the being and out of this spark will emerge progressively an independent conscious being having its own action and will. The psychic being at its origin is only a spark of the divine consciousness and it is through successive lives that it builds up a conscious individuality. It is a progress similar to that of a growing child. It is a thing in the making. For a long time, in most human beings the psychic is a being in the making. It is not a fully individualised, fully conscious being and master of itself and it needs all its rebirths, one after another, in order to build itself and become fully conscious. (The Mother, 5 August, 1953) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/5-august-1953#p2</ref>
'''Growth happens only on Earth'''
It is only upon earth that the psychic being gets its experiences to individualise itself. Hence there is an almost absolute interdependence between the psychic world and the earth. (The Mother, 10 March, 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/1-march-1951#p25</ref>
=== Individualisation and the Purusha ===
=== The Psychic Presence in the Vital World ===
As soon as there is organic life, the vital element comes in, and it is this vital element which gives to flowers the sense of beauty. It is not perhaps individualised in the sense we understand it, but it is a sense of the species and the species always tries to realise it. I have noticed a first rudiment of the psychic presence and vibration in vegetable life, and truly this blossoming one calls a flower is the first manifestation of the psychic presence. The psychic is individualised only in man, but it was there before him; but it is not the same kind of individualisation as in man, it is more fluid: it manifests as force, as consciousness rather than as individuality. Take the rose, for example; its great perfection of form, colour, scent expresses an aspiration and a psychic giving. Look at a rose opening in the morning at the first touch of the sun, it is a magnificent self-giving in aspiration. (The Mother, 1 March, 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/1-march-1951#p34</ref>
=== The Psychic in the Realm of Matter ===
If there were no psychic in Matter, it would not be able to have any direct contact with the Divine. And it is happily due to this psychic presence in Matter that the contact between Matter and the Divine can be direct and all human beings can be told, "You carry the Divine within you, and you have only to enter within yourself and you will find Him." It is something very particular to the human being or rather to the inhabitants of the earth. In the human being the psychic becomes more conscious, more formed, more conscious and more independent also. It is individualised in human beings. But it is a speciality of the earth. It is a direct infusion, special and redeeming, in the most inconscient and obscure Matter, so that it might once again awake through stages to the divine Consciousness, the divine Presence and finally to the Divine Himself. It is the presence of the psychic which makes man an exceptional being.. (The Mother, 9 June, 1954)<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/9-june-1954#p28</ref>
=== Full Individualisation ===
But this sort of progress has an end. There comes a time when the being is fully developed, fully individualised, fully master of itself and its destiny. When this being or one of these psychic beings has reached that stage and takes birth in a human being, that makes a very great difference: the human being, so to say, is born free. He is not tied to circumstances, to surroundings, to his origin and atavism, like ordinary people. He comes into the world with the purpose of doing something, with a work to carry out, a mission to fulfill. From this point of view his progress in growth has come to an end, that is, it is not indispensable for him to take birth again in a body. Till then rebirth is a necessity, for it is through rebirth that he grows; it is in the physical life and in a physical body that he gradually develops and becomes a fully conscious being. But once he is fully formed, he is free, in this sense that he can take birth or not, at will. So there, one kind of progress stops. (The Mother, 5 August, 1953) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/5-august-1953#p3</ref>
For the complete individual is the cosmic individual, since only when we have taken the universe into ourselves, — and transcended it, — can our individuality be complete. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-gnostic-being#p9</ref>
=== Psychic Being and the Eternal Truth ===
It organises itself around it and enters into contact with it. The psychic is moved by the Truth. The Truth is something eternally self-existent and dependent on nothing in time or space, whereas the psychic being is a being that grows, takes form, progresses, individualises itself more and more. In this way it becomes more and more capable of manifesting this Truth, the eternal Truth that is one and permanent. The psychic being is a progressive being, which means that the relation between the psychic being and the Truth is a progressive one. It is not possible to become aware of one's psychic being without becoming aware at the same time of the inner Truth. All those who have had this experience—not a mental experience but an integral experience of contact with the psychic being, not a contact with the idea they have constructed of it, but a truly concrete contact—all say the same thing: from the very minute this contact takes place, one is absolutely conscious of the eternal Truth within oneself and one sees that it is the purpose of life and the guide of the world. One can't have one without the other; in fact, it is this that makes you realise that you are in contact with your psychic being. It may not be a conscious contact, but something that governs your life. (The Mother, 18 January, 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/18-january-1951#p18</ref>
= Why Individualisation? =
First one must become a conscious, well-knit, individualised being, who exists in himself, by himself, independently of all his surroundings, who can hear anything, read anything, see anything without changing. He receives from outside only what he wants to receive; he automatically refuses all that is not in conformity with his plan and nothing can leave an imprint on him unless he agrees to receive the imprint. Then one begins to become an individuality! When one is an individuality, one can make an offering of it. (The Mother, 28 July, 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/28-july-1954#p44</ref>
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So long as one does not exist, one can give nothing. And for the separative ego to disappear, as you say, one must be able to give oneself entirely, totally without reservation. And to be able to give oneself, one must first exist. And to exist one must be individualised. (The Mother, 28 July, 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/28-july-1954#p46</ref>
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And then, later, one offers all this to the Divine. Years of work are needed. You must not only...(silence)... become conscious of yourself, conscious in all details, but you must organise what you call "yourself" around the psychic centre, the divine centre of your being, so that it would make a single, coherent, fully conscious being. And as this divine centre is itself already consecrated (Mother makes a gesture of offering) entirely to the Divine, if everything is organised harmoniously around it, everything is consecrated to the Divine. And so, when the Divine thinks it proper, when the time has come, when the work of individualisation is complete, then the Divine gives you permission to let your ego merge in Him, to live henceforward only for the Divine. (The Mother, 28 July, 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/28-july-1954#p57</ref>
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In creating the universe as it was, the Will was an individual projection—individual, you understand, a scattering: instead of being a unity containing all, it was a unity made of innumerable small unities which are individualisations, that is, things that feel themselves separated. And the very fact of being separated from all others is what gives you the feeling that you are an individual. Otherwise you would have the feeling that you were a fluid mass. For example, instead of being conscious of your external form and of everything in your being which makes of you a separate individuality, if you were conscious of the vital forces which move everywhere or of the inconscient that is at the base of all, you would have the feeling of a mass moving with all kinds of contradictory movements but which could not be separated from each other; you would not have the feeling of being an individual at all: you would have the feeling of something like a vibration in the midst of a whole. Well, the original Will was to form individual beings capable of becoming conscious once again of their divine origin. Because of the process of individualisation one must feel separate if one is to be an individual. The moment you are separated, you are cut off from the original consciousness, at least apparently, and you fall into the inconscient. For the only thing which is the Life of life is the Origin, if you cut yourself off from that, consciousness naturally is changed into unconsciousness. And then it is due to this very unconsciousness that you are no longer aware of the truth of your being.... It is a process. You cannot argue whether it is inevitable or evitable; the fact is it is like that. (The Mother, 27 May, 1953) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/27-may-1953#p17</ref>
'''Raison d'être (Reason to be)'''
And that is the great mystery of creation, for it is the same consciousness, the Consciousness is one. But the very moment this Consciousness manifests itself, exteriorises itself, deploys itself, it divides itself into innumerable fragments for the need of expansion, and each one of these fragmentations has been the beginning, the origin of an individual being. The origin of every individual form is the law of this form or the truth of this form. If there were no law, no truth of each form, there would be no possibility of individualisation. It would be something extending indefinitely; there would be perhaps points of concentration, assemblages, but no individual consciousness. Each form then represents one element in the changing of the One into the many. This multiplicity implies an innumerable quantity of laws, elements of consciousness, truths which spread out into the universe and finally become separate individualities. So the individual being seems constantly to go farther and farther away from its origin by the very necessity of individualisation. But once this individualisation, that is, this awareness of the inner truth is complete, it becomes possible, by an inner identification, to re-establish in the multiplicity the original unity; that is the raison d'être of the universe as we perceive it. The universe has been made so that this phenomenon may take place. The Supreme has manifested Himself to Himself so as to become aware of Himself. (The Mother, 3 March, 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/3-march-1951#p29</ref>
= How can one Individualise? =
== The Need for Education ==
It's indispensable for you to have a frame in which you can learn how to form yourself. If you did your work of individualisation, of total formations, by yourself, all alone in a corner, nothing at all would be asked of you. But you don't do it, you wouldn't do it, there's not a single child who would do it, he wouldn't even know how to do it, where to begin. If a child were not taught how to live, he could not live, he wouldn't know how to do anything, anything. I don't want to speak about disgusting details, but even the most elementary things he would not do properly if he were not taught how to do them. Therefore, one must, step by step... That is to say, if everyone had to go through the whole experience needed for the formations of an individuality, he would be long dead before having begun to live! This is the contribution—accumulated through centuries—of those who have had the experience and tell you, "Well, if you want to go quickly, to know in a few years what has been learnt through centuries, do this!" Read, learn, study and then, in the material field, you will be taught to do this in this way, that in that way, this again in this way (gestures). Once you know a little, you can find your own method, if you have the genius for it! But first one must stand on one's own feet and know how to walk. It is very difficult to learn it all alone. It's like that for everyone. One must form oneself. Therefore, one needs education. (The Mother, 28 July, 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/28-july-1954#p59</ref>
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An individualised mind is something extremely rare, which comes only after a long education; (The Mother, 20 February, 1957) ... <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/20-february-1957#p6</ref>
== The Individualisation of the Parts of the Being ==
You know, when you sleep, the inner beings are not concentrated upon the body, they go out and become more or less independent—a limited independence, but independence all the same—and they go to dwell in their own domains. The mind more so, for it is hardly held within the body, it is only concentrated but not contained in the body. The vital also goes beyond the body, but it is more concentrated upon the body. The mind however is such a supple substance that it is sufficient to think about a person in order to be with that person, at least partially, mentally. If you think strongly of a place, a part of your mind is there; distance, so to say, does not exist. Of course, to have a mind centralised around the body requires good training. Few people have a mind with a well-defined form: it is like clouds which roll, come and go. Even to have a vital with a form similar to that of your physical body, an analogous form, it must be very much individualised, very much centralised. The mind still more; it must be completely individualised, centralised, organised around the psychic centre in order to have a definite form. (The Mother, 10 March, 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/10-march-1951#p17</ref>
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But the vital does not go to rest nor does the mental being. Generally they are dissolved. It is only if one has followed a yoga throughout his whole life, if one has taken great care to individualise, to centralise the vital and the mental around the psychic being that they remain—that happens once in ten million cases, it is very exceptional. (The Mother, 10 March, 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/10-march-1951#p23</ref>
=== The Importance of the Body in Individualisation ===
If your body were not made in the rigid form it is—for it is terribly rigid, isn't it?—well, if all that were not so fixed, if you had no skin, here, like this, solid, if externally you were the reflection of what you are in the vital and mental fields, it would be worse than being a jelly-fish! Everything would fuse into everything else, like this... Oh, what a mess it would be! That is why it was at first necessary to give a very rigid form. Afterwards we complain about it. We say, "The physical is fixed, it is a nuisance; it lacks plasticity, it lacks suppleness, it hasn't that fluidity which can enable us to merge into the Divine." But this was absolutely necessary, for without this... if you simply went out of your body (most of you can't do it because the vital being is hardly more individualised than the physical), if you came out of your body and went into the vital world, you would see that all things there intermingle, they are mixed, they divide; all kinds of vibrations, currents of forces come and go, struggle, try to destroy one another, take possession of each other, absorb each other, throw each other out... and so it goes on! But it is very difficult to find a real personality in all this. These are forces, movements, desires, vibrations. (The Mother, 28 July, 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/28-july-1954#p47</ref>
=== Individualisation of the Vital Being ===
From the vital point of view, take the case of a great musician who has worked all his life to make his external being a good instrument for music; he has organised this vital power in his body for playing music; well then, his hands, for instance, are so individualised in their ability to play, that they can persist subtly even after death, with their form, a form analogous to the old physical form. They float in the vital world and are attracted by people who have similar capacities; they try to become identified with them. A person who is sensitive enough, receptive enough, can become identified with these hands and execute wonderful things, profit by all the individualisation of the past life of these hands. (The Mother, 10 March, 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/10-march-1951#p24</ref>
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== Individualisation and Inconscience ==
The inconscient is not individualised and when you go down into the inconscient in yourself, it is the inconscient of matter. One can't say that each individual has his own inconscient, for that would already be a beginning of individualisation... (The Mother, 6 January, 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/6-january-1951#p14</ref>
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The light, the consciousness that comes down into this inconscient in order to transform it must necessarily be a consciousness that is close enough to be able to touch it. It is not possible to conceive of a light—the supramental light, for example—that would have the power to individualise the inconscient. But, through a conscious, individualised being, this light can be brought down into the inconscient and gradually make it conscious. (The Mother, 6 January, 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/6-january-1951#p15</ref>
= Individualisation and the Supermind =
The individualisation of states of being which have so far never been conscious in man, that is to say, there are superposed states of consciousness, and there are new regions which have never yet been manifested on earth, and which Sri Aurobindo called supramental. It is that, this was the same idea. That is, one must go into the depths or the heights of creation which have never been manifested upon earth, and become conscious of that, and manifest it on earth. Sri Aurobindo called it the Supermind. I simply say these are states of being which were never yet conscious in man (that is, that man has so far never been aware of them). One must get identified with them, then bring them into the outer consciousness, and manifest them in action. (The Mother, 11 November, 1953) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/11-november-1953#p24</ref>
== The Ascent Towards Supermind ==
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To be individualised in a collectivity, one must be absolutely conscious of oneself. And of which self?—the Self which is above all intermixture, that is, what I call the Truth of your being. And as long as you are not conscious of the Truth of your being, you are moved by all kinds of things, without taking any note of it at all. Collective thought, collective suggestions are a formidable influence which act constantly on individual thought. And what is extraordinary is that one does not notice it. One believes that one thinks "like that", but in truth it is the collectivity which thinks "like that". The mass is always inferior to the individual. Take individuals with similar qualities, of similar categories, well, when they are alone these individuals are at least two degrees better than people of the same category in a crowd. There is a mixture of obscurities, a mixture of unconsciousness, and inevitably you slip into this unconsciousness. To escape this there is but one means: to become conscious of oneself, more and more conscious and more and more attentive. (The Mother, 13 January, 1951) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/13-january-1951#p26</ref>
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There are many souls upon earth, human beings... Obviously, those who have a certain culture, a certain development, a certain individualisation gather together usually: instinctively they get together, form groups. And so one can find in space and time a number—not considerable but still sufficiently large—of cultured beings who are united, but one must not believe that this gives the exact proportion of the culture and development of human beings. It is only like a sort of foam that has been brought up and is on the surface. But even among these latter, even among these beings who are already a selection, there is hardly one in a thousand who is a truly individual being, conscious of himself, united with his psychic being, governed by his inner law and, consequently, almost if not totally free from external influences; for, being conscious, when these influences come, he sees them: those that seem to him to harmonise with his inner development and normal growth he accepts; those which are opposed he refuses. And so, instead of being a chaos—or in any case a frightful mixture—they are organised beings, individual, conscious of themselves, walking through life knowing where they want to go and how they want to. (The Mother, 14 April, 1954) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/14-april-1954#p25</ref>
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But solidarity does not stop there. There is a vital solidarity and a mental solidarity which you cannot prevent. There is, after all (though men are much more individualised than animals), there is a spirit of the species. There are collective suggestions which don't need to be expressed in words. There are atmospheres one cannot escape. It is certain (for I know this by experience), it is certain that there is a degree of individual perfection and transformation which cannot be realised without the whole of humanity having made a particular progress. And this happens by successive steps. There are things in Matter which cannot be transformed unless the whole of Matter has undergone transformation to a certain degree. One cannot isolate oneself completely. It is not possible. One can do the work, one can choose: there are people who have chosen to go into solitude and try to realise in themselves the ideal they saw—usually they reached a certain point, then stopped there, they could go no further. It has been thus historically. I was saying the other day: "There are perhaps people upon earth whom I don't know who have realised extraordinary things" but precisely because they have isolated themselves from the earth, the earth does not know them. This is just to say that nothing is impossible. It seems doubtful, is all that I can say. But it is impossible, even if one isolates oneself physically, to do so vitally and mentally. There is the vast terrestrial atmosphere in which one is born, and there is a sort of spirit or genius of the human race; well, this genius must have reached a certain degree of perfection for anyone to be able to go farther. It is not that one has to wait till all have done it, no; but it is as though all had to reach a certain level for one to be able to take one's spring and go farther.... Surely the individual will always be ahead of the mass, there's no doubt about that, but there will always be a proportion and a relation. (The Mother, 7 October, 1953) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/7-october-1953#p47</ref>
== Individualisation of Animals ==
Except for very rare cases, the animals are not individualised and when they die they return to the spirit of the species. (The Mother, 6 August, 1966) <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/17/6-august-1966#p3</ref>
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