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Read Summary of '''[[Parenting Prenatal Education Summary|ParentingPrenatal Education]]'''
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=What is Parenting The Relationship between Man and Woman?=
==Role To reduce the woman’s part to solely interior and domestic occupations, and the man’s part to exclusively exterior and social occupations, thus separating what should be united, would be to perpetuate the present sad state of Mother==things, from which both are equally suffering. It is in front of the highest duties and heaviest responsibilities that their respective qualities must unite in a close and confident solidarity.Is it not time that this hostile attitude of the two sexes facing one another as irreconcilable adversaries should cease? A severe, a painful lesson is being given to the nations. On the ruins piled up now, new constructions more beautiful and more harmonious can be erected. It is no longer the moment for frail competitions and self-interested claims; all human beings, men or women, must associate in a common effort to become conscious of the highest ideal which asks to be realised and to work ardently for its realisation. The question to be solved, the real question is then not only that of a better utilisation of their outer activities, but above all that of an inner spiritual growth. Without inner progress there is no possible outer progress.Thus the problem of feminism, as all the problems of the world, comes back to a spiritual problem. For the spiritual reality is at the basis of all others; the divine world, the Dhammata of Buddhism, is the eternal foundation on which are built all the other worlds. In regard to this Supreme Reality all are equal, men and women, in rights and in duties; the only distinction which can exist in this domain being based on the sincerity and ardour of aspiration, on the constancy of the will. And it is in the recognition of this fundamental spiritual equality that can be found the only serious and lasting solution for this problem of the relation of the sexes. It is in this light that it must be placed, it is at this height that must be sought the focus of action and new life, around which will be constructed the future temple of Humanity. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/02/woman-and-the-war#p9,p10,p11</ref>
I must tell you something about the source of a mother's love for her child. It is because this child is made of her very own substance, and for quite a long time, relatively long, the material link, the link of substance, between mother and child is extremely close—it is as though a bit of her flesh had been taken out and put apart at a distance—and it is only much later that the tie between the two is completely cut. There is a kind of tie, of subtle sensation, such that the mother feels exactly what the child feels, as she would feel it in herself. That then is the material basis of the mother's attachment for the child. It is a basis of material identity, nothing else but that. Feeling comes much later (it may come earlier, that depends on people), but I am speaking of the majority: feeling comes only long afterwards, and it is conditioned. There are all kinds of things... I could speak to you for hours on the subject. But still this must not be mixed up with love. It is a material identification which makes the mother feel intimately, feel quite concretely and tangibly what the child is feeling: if the child receives a shock, well, the mother feels it. This lasts at least for two months. <refcenter>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/14-april-1954#p23~</refcenter>
First of allAs soon as a human being is sufficiently enlightened to have a contact, however slight, with the effect all-pervading mystery of physical environment was recognised and studied long agothe universe, he becomes necessarily humble. It is Woman, by surrounding women with forms the very fact of her passivity, having more easily than man the intuition of art and beauty thatthe Supreme Power at work in the world, little by littleis more often, more naturally humble.But to base the ancient Greeks created the exceptionally harmonious race that they werefact of this humility on need is erroneous. Woman needs man not more than man needs woman; or rather, more exactly, man and woman have an equal need of one another.
Individual instances of Even in the same fact mere material domain, there are numerousas many men who depend materially upon women as there are women who depend upon men. It is not rare to see If humility were a woman whoresult of that dependency, while pregnantthen, had looked at constantly and admired a beautiful picture or statuein the first case, giving birth the men ought to a child after the perfect likeness of this picture or statue. I met several of these instances myself. Among them, I remember very clearly two little girls; they were twins be humble and perfectly beautiful. But the most astonishing was how little like their parents they were. They reminded me of a very famous picture painted by women to have the English artist Reynoldsauthority. One day I made this remark Besides, to the mother, who immediately exclaimed: "Indeed, say that women should be humble because it is it not so? You will be interested to know thus that while I was expecting these childrenthey please men, I had, hanging above my bed, a very good reproduction of Reynolds' pictureis also erroneous. Before going It would lead one to sleep and as soon as I woke, my last and first glance was think that woman has been put on earth only for that picture; and in my heart I hoped: may my children be like the faces in this picture. You see that I succeeded quite well!" In truth, she could be proud purpose of her success, and her example giving pleasure to man—which is of great utility for other womenabsurd.
But if we can obtain such results on All the physical plane where universe has been created to express the materials are the least plasticDivine Power, and human beings, men or women, how much more so on the psychological plane where the influence have for special mission to become conscious of thought and will to manifest that Eternal Divine Essence. Such is so powerfultheir object and none other. Why accept the obscure bonds of heredity And if they knew and atavism—which are nothing else than subconscious preferences for our own trend of character—when we canremembered that more often, by concentration men and will, call into being women would cease to think of petty quarrels about priority or authority; they would not see a type constructed according to greater mark of respect in the highest ideal we are able to conceive? With this effortfact of being served than of serving, maternity becomes truly precious and sacred; indeed with this, we enter the glorious work for all would consider themselves equally as servitors of the SpiritDivine, and womanhood rises above animality and its ordinary instincts, towards real humanity would make it their honour to serve ever more and its powersever better. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/02/towoman-theand-women-of-japanman#p1,p2,p3,p4,p5,p6</ref>
=Why Good Parenting?=<center>~</center>
==Self-Control==Sweet Mother, What is the eternal truth behind this sympathy or attraction of man for woman and of woman for man?
So if your parents or your teacher sometimes urge you to control your natureThe relationship between Purusha and Prakriti. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/5-january-1965#p2, it p3</ref> ==What is Love?== Love is not sexual intercourse.Love is not vital attraction and interchange.Love is not because they think that your faults, whether great or smallthe heart’s hunger for affection.Love is a mighty vibration coming straight from the One, and only the very pure and very strong are incorrigible; but, on the contrary, capable of receiving and manifesting it .To be pure is because they know that your quick to be open only to the Supreme’s influence and fiery spirit is like a young thoroughbred which must be held in checkto no other.<ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwm/0214/selflove-and-controlsexual-desire#p15p1,p2,p3,p4,p5</ref> <center>~</center>
==Transfer What should be the ideal of Deep-rooted Imprints from Parents to Children==a modern woman in ordinary life?
“The business In ordinary life, women can have all the ideas they like, it is not very important. From the spiritual point of both parent view, men and teacher is women are equal in their capacity to enable and to help realise the child to educate himself, to develop Divine. Each one must do so in his (or her) own intellectual, moral, aesthetic and practical capacities way and according to grow freely as an organic being, not to be kneaded and pressured into form like an inert plastic materialhis (or her) own possibilities.<ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwm/1210/teachersaphorism-303-304-305#p13p4,p5,p6</ref>
===The Children Role of Japan==Women=
We could quite well call Japan the paradise of children—in no other country have I seen them so free And from now, we must reassume our veritable position, take again our due place and so happy. After months assert our real importance—that of residence in Japan I have yet never seen a child beaten by a grown-up person. They are treated as if all the parents were conscious that the children are the promise spiritual former and the glory of the futureeducator. And a wonderful thing is thatIndeed, environed by so much attentionsome men, so much care,—indeed, such perhaps a devotion, they are the most reasonable, good and serious children I have ever met. When they are babies, tied up in an amusing fashion on little vainglorious of their mothers' backsso-called advantages, with their wide open black eyes they seem to consider life with gravity and to have already opinions on may despise the things they look at. You scarcely hear a child cry. When, for instance, he has hurt himself and the tears burst out apparent weakness of his eyes, the mother or the father has women (although even this exterior weakness is not quite certain) but to say a few words in a low voice: ‘Do what he may, and the sorrow seems superman will have to be swept away. What are those magic words which enable children to be so reasonable? Very simple indeed: "Are you not a Samurai?" And this question is sufficient for born of woman all the child to call to him all his energy and to overcome his weaknesssame,’ someone said very rightly.
A country where such are the children and so they are treated The superman shall be born of woman, this is a country still ascending big unquestionable truth; but it is not enough to be proud of this truth, we must clearly understand what it means, become aware of the steps of progress responsibility it creates, and of mastery.<ref>https://incarnatewordlearn to face earnestly the task which is put before us.This task is precisely our most important share in/cwm/02/thepresent world-children-of-japan#p2,p6</ref>wide work.
=How to Practice Good Parenting?=For that, we must first understand—at least in their broad lines—what are the means by which the present chaos and obscurity can be transformed into light and harmony.
===Parents As Good Example===Many means have been suggested: political, social, ethical, even religious. ... Indeed, none of these seem sufficient to face with any reliable success the magnitude of the task to be done. Only a new spiritual influx, creating in man a new consciousness, can overcome the enormous mass of difficulties barring the way of the workers. A new spiritual light, a manifestation upon earth of some divine force unknown until now, a Thought of God, new for us, descending into this world and taking a new form here.
…in order And here we come back to be able to educate a child, is to educate oneselfour starting point, to become conscious and master our duty of oneself so that one never sets a bad example to one's childtrue maternity. For it is above all through example that education becomes effective. To speak good words and this form meant to give wise advice to a child has very little effect if one does not oneself give him an example manifest the spiritual force capable of what one teaches. Sinceritytransforming the earth’s present conditions, honestythis new form, straightforwardness, courage, disinterestedness, unselfishness, patience, endurance, perseverance, peace, calm, self-control are all things that are taught infinitely better by example than by beautiful speeches. Parents, have a high ideal and always act in accordance with who is to construct it and you will see that little by little your child will reflect this ideal in himself and spontaneously manifest if not the qualities you would like to see expressed in his nature. Quite naturally a child has respect and admiration for his parents; unless they are quite unworthy, they will always appear to their child as demigods whom he will try to imitate as best he can.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/education#p5</ref>women?
…parents or those who look after you, took Thus we see that at this critical period of the trouble world’s life it is no longer sufficient to teach you how give birth to do a being in whom our highest personal ideal is manifested; we must strive to find out what you do, do it properly as it should be done, in is the right wayfuture type, then that would help you whose advent Nature is planning. It is no longer sufficient to form a man similar to avoid all—all these mistakes you make through the years…To live in the right way is a very difficult artgreatest men we have heard of or known, or even greater, more accomplished and unless one begins gifted than they; we must strive to learn it when quite young and to make an effortcome in touch mentally, one never knows it very well. Simply by the art constant aspiration of keeping one's body in good healthour thought and will, one's mind quiet and goodwill in one's heart—things with the supreme possibility which are indispensable in order to live decently—I don't say in comfort, I don't say remarkablyexceeding all human measures and features, I only say decently. <ref>https://incarnatewordwill give birth to the superman.in/cwm/06/2-june-1954#p5,p7</ref>
When the body Once again Nature feels its miseries, its limitations, one must establish this dream in it—of a strength which would have no limit, a beauty which would have no ugliness, and of marvellous capacities: one dreams of being able to rise into her great impulses towards the aircreation of something utterly new, of being wherever something unexpected. And it is necessary to be, of setting things right when they go wrong, of healing the sick; indeed, one has all sorts of dreams when one is very young….<ref>http://incarnatewordthis impulse that we must answer and obey.in/cwm/09/31-july-1957#p6</ref>
Another thing should be taught Let us try first to a child from his early years: to enjoy cleanliness and observe hygienic habits. But, in obtaining discover where this cleanliness and respect for the rules of hygiene from the child, one must take great care not to instil into him the fear impulse of illnessNature will lead us. Fear is the worst instrument of education and And the surest best way of attracting what is feared. Yet, while there should be no fear of illness, there should be no inclination for it either. There is a prevalent belief that brilliant minds are found in weak bodies. This is a delusion and has no basis. There was perhaps a time when a romantic and morbid taste for physical unbalance prevailed; but, fortunately, that tendency has disappeared. Nowadays a well-built, robust, muscular, strong and well-balanced body is appreciated at its true value. In any case, children should be taught to respect health and admire look back on the healthy man whose vigorous body knows how to repel attacks of illness. Often a child feigns illness to avoid some troublesome obligation, a work that does not interest him, or simply to soften his parents' hearts and get them lessons given to satisfy some caprice. The child must be taught as early as possible that this does not work and that he does not become more interesting us by being ill, but rather the contrary. The weak have a tendency to believe that their weakness makes them particularly interesting and to use this weakness and if necessary even illness as a means of attracting the attention and sympathy of the people around them. On no account should this pernicious tendency be encouraged. Children should therefore be taught that to be ill is a sign of weakness and inferiority, not of some virtue or sacrifice.children should be taught to respect health and admire the healthy man whose vigorous body knows how to repel attacks of illness…<ref>http://incarnatewordPast.in/cwm/12/physical-education#p9</ref>
But in any case a childWe see that each progress of Nature, whatever his activities, should have each manifestation of a sufficient number new capacity and principle upon earth is marked by the appearance of hours of sleep. The number will vary according to his agea new species. In the cradlesame way, the baby should sleep longer than he remains awake. The number progressive forms of hours the life of sleep will diminish as the child grows. But until maturity it should not be less than eight hoursraces, in a quietof peoples, well-ventilated place. The child should never be made to stay up late for no reason. The hours before midnight are the best for resting the nerves. Even during the waking hoursof individuals, relaxation is indispensable for all who want to maintain their nervous balance. To know how to relax the muscles and follow each other through the nerves is an art which should be taught to children when they are very young. There are many parents whohuman cycles, on the contraryceaselessly inspired, push their child to constant activity. When the child remains quietfecundated, they imagine that he is ill. There are even parents who have renewed by the bad habit efforts of making their child do household work at the expense guides of his rest and relaxationhumanity. Nothing is worse for a developing nervous systemAnd all these forms aim at the same goal, the mysterious, which cannot stand the strain glorious goal of too continuous an effort or of an activity that is imposed upon it and not freely chosen.<ref>http://incarnatewordNature.in/cwm/12/physical-education#p11</ref>
===Forbearance===It is to this call of Nature that we must answer, to this magnificent, to this grandiose work that we must devote ourselves. Let us try to make as clear as we can the steps of our advance on this difficult and as yet unexplored path.
If from her childhood a girl has been accustomed First of all we must be careful, in our attempt to conceive the future man or superman, not to pay adopt an actual type of man, perfecting or aggrandising him. To avoid as much attention to as possible this mistake we should study the teachings of life’s evolution. We have already seen that the slightest uneasiness and to make appearance of a big fuss about new species always announces the smallest inconveniencemanifestation on earth of a new principle, then she loses all capacity a new plane of endurance and anything becomes consciousness, a new force or power. But, at the same time, while the occasion for being pulled down. Especially if new species acquires this formerly unmanifested power or consciousness, it may lose one or many of the parents themselves get too easily anxious about perfections which were the reactions characteristics of their childrenthe immediately preceding species. It is wiser For instance, to teach speak only of the last step of Nature’s development, what are the greatest differences between man and his immediate predecessor, the ape? In the monkey we see vitality and physical ability reaching the utmost perfection, a child perfection that the new species had to be a bit sturdy and enduring than abandon. For man, there has been no more of that marvellous climbing up trees, somersaults over abysses, jumps from summit to show much care for these small inconveniences and accidents that cannot always be avoided summit, but in exchange he acquired intelligence, the power of reasoning, combining, constructing. Indeed with man it is the lifeof mind, of intellect which appeared on earth. An attitude Man is essentially a mental being; and if his possibilities do not stop there, if he feels in himself other worlds, other faculties, other planes of quiet forbearance is consciousness beyond his mental life, they are only as promises for the future, in the same way as the best one can adopt for oneself and teach to mental possibilities are latent in the childrenmonkey.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/to-women-about-their-body#p33</ref>
===Sincerity===It is true that some men, very few, have lived in that world beyond, which we may call the spiritual; some have been, indeed, the living incarnations of that world on earth, but they are the exceptions, the forerunners showing the way to the race, leading it towards its future realisation, not the average man. But that which was the privilege of a few beings scattered through time and space, shall become the central characteristic of the new type which is to appear.
...why do I insist on the fact that children should be told from a very early age that it is absolutely necessary to be sincere?Children are very often taught how to outsmart othersAt present, how to dissimulate so as to appear good in others' eyes. Some parents try to control children man governs his life through fear, and that is reason; all the activities of the worst possible method mind are of education, common use for it is an incentive to lying, deceit, hypocrisy and all the rest. But if you repeatedly explain to children something him; his means of this kind: If you knowledge are not absolutely sincere, not only with others but also with yourself, if at any time you try to cover up your imperfections observation and failings, you will never make any progress, you will always remain what you are throughout all your life, without ever making any progress. So, even if you only want to grow out of this primitive unconscious state into a progressive consciousness, the most important thing, the one absolutely important thing is sincerity. If you have done something which you ought not to have done, you must admit it to yourselfdeduction; if a less-than-admirable movement has occurred in yourself, you must look it in the face is by and through reasoning that he takes his decision and tell yourself, "It was not good," or "It was disgusting," or even "It was wicked." <ref>http://incarnatewordchooses his way—or believes he does—in life.in/cwm/15/6-january-1951#p24</ref>
==Bad Parenting==The new race shall be governed by intuition, that is to say, direct perception of the divine law within. Some human beings actually know and experience intuition—as, undoubtedly, certain big gorillas of the forests have glimpses of reasoning.
===Distancing with Psychic Being===In mankind, the very few who have cultivated their inner self, who have concentrated their energies on the discovery of the true law of their being, possess more or less the faculty of intuition. When the mind is perfectly silent, pure like a well-polished mirror, immobile as a pond on a breezeless day, then, from above, as the light of the stars drops in the motionless waters, so the light of the supermind, of the Truth within, shines in the quieted mind and gives birth to intuition. Those who are accustomed to listen to this voice out of the Silence, take it more and more as the instigating motive of their actions; and where others, the average men, wander along the intricate paths of reasoning, they go straight their way, guided through the windings of life by intuition, this superior instinct, as by a strong and unfailing hand.
But if you take a boy of fourteenThis faculty which is exceptional, for examplealmost abnormal now, who is at school, who has ordinary parents will certainly be quite common and has been ill-treated, his mind is very much in natural for the forefront; there is something hard in himnew race, the psychic being has gone behindman of tomorrow. Such boys do not respond But probably the constant exercise of it will be detrimental to the vibrationreasoning faculties. One would say they are made As man possesses no more the extreme physical ability of the monkey, so also will the superman lose the extreme mental ability of wood or plasterman, this ability to deceive himself and others. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/8-january-1951#p23,p25</ref>
''Some children are wickedThus, man’s road to supermanhood will be open when he declares boldly that all he has yet developed, including the intellect of which he is so rightly and yet so vainly proud, is now no longer sufficient for him, and that to uncase, discover, set free this greater power within, shall be henceforward his great preoccupation. Then will his philosophy, art, science, ethics, social existence, vital pursuits be no longer an exercise of mind and life for themselves, in a circle, but a means for the discovery of a greater Truth behind mind and life and the bringing of its power into our human existence. Is it And this discovery is that of our real, because their parents did not aspire for them?''our highest self and nature. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/02/to-the-women-of-japan#p11,p12,p13,p14,p15,p16,p17,p18,p19,p20,p21,p22,p23,p24,p25,p26,p27,p28</ref>
It =What is perhaps a subconscious wickedness in the parents. It is said that people throw out their wickedness from themselves by giving it birth in their children. One has always a shadow in oneself. There are people who project this outside—that does not always free them from it, but still perhaps it comforts them! But it is the child who "profits" by it, you seeTrue Maternity? It is quite evident that the state of consciousness in which the parents are at that moment is of capital importance. If they have very low and vulgar ideas, the children will reflect them quite certainly. And all these children who are ill-formed, ill-bred, incomplete (specially from the point of view of intelligence: with holes, things missing), children who are only half-conscious and half-formed—this is always due to the state of consciousness in which the parents were when they conceived the child. Even as the state of consciousness of the last moments of life is of capital importance for the future of the one who is departing, so too the state of consciousness in which the parents are at the moment of conception gives a sort of stamp to the child, which it will reflect throughout its life. So, these are apparently such little things—the mood of the moment, the moment's aspiration or degradation, anything whatsoever, everything that takes place at a particular moment—it seems to be so small a thing, and it has so great a consequence: it brings into the world a child who is incomplete or wicked or finally a failure. And people are not aware of that.=
Later, when Maternity is considered as the child behaves nastily, they scold itprincipal role of woman. But they should begin this is true only so long as we understand what is meant by scolding themselvesthe word maternity. For to bring children into the world as rabbits do their young—instinctively, ignorantly, machine-like, that certainly cannot be called maternity! True maternity begins with the conscious creation of a being, telling themselves: "In what with the willed shaping of a soul coming to develop and utilise a horrible state new body. The true domain of consciousness I must have been when I brought that child into women is the worldspiritual." For We forget it is truly thatbut too often.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/30-december-1953#p11,p13</ref>
In modern "civilised" life, parents To bear a child and teachersconstruct his body almost subconsciously is not enough. The work really commences when, by their practical the power of thought and rational "good advice", lose no time in covering up this spontaneity which they call unconsciousnesswill, we conceive and substituting for it create a very small, very narrow, limited mental ego, withdrawn into itself, crammed with notions of misbehaviour and sin and punishment or of personal interest, calculation and profit; all character capable of which has the inevitable result of increasing vital desires through repression, fear or self-justification.manifesting an ideal…
And yet do not say that we have no power for the sake of completeness it should be added that because man is realising such a mental being, he must necessarily in the course thing. Innumerable instances of his evolution leave behind this unconscious and spontaneous purity, which is very similar effective power could be brought out as proofs.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/02/to -the purity -women-of the animal-japan#p1,p2, and after passing through an unavoidable period p3</ref>The education of mental perversion a human being should begin at birth and impuritycontinue throughout his life.Indeed, if we want this education to have its maximum result, rise beyond it should begin even before birth; in this case it is the mind into the higher and luminous purity mother herself who proceeds with this education by means of the divine consciousness.[Based on Aphorism 0 I saw a child wallowing in the dirt twofold action: first, upon herself for her own improvement, and secondly, upon the same child cleaned by his mother and resplendent, but each time I trembled before his utter puritywhom she is forming physically.] <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwm/1012/aphorism-30education#p5p1,p2</ref>=How to Prepare for an Ideal Child?=
Parents nearly always tell their children, "You must not lie''Yes, it is very bad to tell a lie." But 's the unfortunate thing is that they lie in your presence and then you wonder why they want you to do something which they donparents who should be educated!''t do themselves.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/6-january-1951#p23</ref>
=Parenting ...Of course, we know from experience you can give the form that you imagine; in the broad lines, you can give the character you imagine; all that is quite correct. So to begin with, it’s the mother who should be educated, not the child. Then, through a very strict control of your own reactions, you can prevent certain wrong impulses from mixing into the child’s making. But all that isn’t new, it’s been known for a long time since it’s what I practiced when I was expecting a child. So I know it.But once again, it’s the mother who must be educated, before she has a child, that’s what matters…<ref>https://incarnateword.in/agenda/08/april-19-1967#p11,p15</ref>For it goes without saying that there is a stupendous difference between conceiving a child deliberately, with a conscious aspiration, a call to the invisible world and Rebirth=a spiritual ardour, and conceiving a child by accident and without intending to have it, and sometimes even without wanting it at all. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/24-october-1956#p17</ref>
==Understanding RebirthBy Creating a Harmonious Environment==
===Psychic Conception===For it is certain that the nature of the child to be born depends very much upon the mother who forms it, upon her aspiration and will as well as upon the material surroundings in which she lives. To see that her thoughts are always beautiful and pure, her feelings always noble and fine, her material surroundings as harmonious as possible and full of a great simplicity—this is the part of education which should apply to the mother herself. And if she has in addition a conscious and definite will to form the child according to the highest ideal she can conceive, then the very best conditions will be realised so that the child can come into the world with his utmost potentialities. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/education#p2</ref>
I am going to give you quite a concrete example. Let us take a psychic being that has decided, for some reason or other, to enter the body of a being destined to become king, because there is a whole series of experiences it can have only under those conditions. After having passed through these experiences of a king, it finds that there is a whole domain in which it cannot make a progress due to these very conditions of life where it is. So when it has finished its term upon earth and decides to go away, it decides that in its next life it will take birth in an ordinary environment and in ordinary conditions, neither high nor low, but such that the body which it will take up will be free to do what it likes. For I do not tell you anything new when I say that the life of a king is the life of a slave; a king is obliged to submit to a whole protocol and to all kinds of ceremonies to keep his prestige (it is perhaps very pleasant for vain people, but for a psychic being it is not pleasant, for this deprives it of the possibility of a large number of experiences). So having taken this decision, it carries in itself all the memories which a royal life can give it and it takes rest for the period it considers necessary. (Here, I must say that I am speaking of a psychic being exclusively occupied with itself, not one consecrated to a work, because in that case it is the work which decides the future lives and their conditions; I am speaking of a psychic being at work completing its development.) Hence it decides that at a certain moment it will take a body. Having already had a number of experiences, it knows that in a certain country, a certain part of the consciousness has developed; in another, another part, and so on; so it chooses the place which offers it easy possibilities of development: the country, the conditions of living, the approximate nature of the parents, and also the condition of the body itself, its physical structure and the qualities it needs for its experiences. It takes rest, then at the required moment, wakes up and projects its consciousness upon earth centralising it in the chosen domain and the chosen conditions—or almost so; there is a small margin you know, for in the psychic consciousness one is too far away from the material physical consciousness to be able to see with a clear vision; it is an approximation. It does not make a mistake about the country or the environment and it sees quite clearly the inner vibrations of the people chosen, but there may happen to be a slight indecision. But if, just at this moment, there is a couple upon earth or rather a woman who has a psychic aspiration herself and, for some reason or other, without knowing why or how, would like to have an exceptional child, answering certain exceptional conditions; if at this moment there is this aspiration upon earth, it creates a vibration, a psychic light which the psychic being sees immediately and, without hesitation it rushes towards it. Then, from that moment (which is the moment of conception), it watches over the formation of the child, so that this formation may be as favourable as possible to the plan it has; consequently its influence is there over the child even before it appears in the physical world.<refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/24-february-1951#p22~</refcenter>
As to rebirthAt any rate, it must be confessed that no rule holds good for all cases. Some people are reborn almost immediately—it most often happens with parents that the father and mother should first know the possibility (at least the possibility) of a child being more than a part of them gets assimilated into their children if the latter are very much attached to themmere animal man. Some people, howeverThen, conception should take centuries and even thousands place entirely outside of years desire. That's another very difficult condition to be reincarnatedfulfilled. They wait for And the mother, throughout the necessary conditions to mature which will provide them with gestation, should be in an atmosphere absolutely protected from all degrading influences: an ideally beautiful place, a suitable ''milieu''. If one wonderful climate where everything is yogically conscious he can actually prepare the body harmonious, and a wholly spontaneous, free and harmonious and beautiful life sheltered from all vulgarities of his next birthlife. Before the body is born he shapes and moulds it, so that it is he who is And the true maker of it while mother herself should have the parents ideal of the new child are only the adventitious. It should be done not as a mechanical but as a conscious, willed thing in an absolutely "creative" atmosphere, purely physical agentswe might say. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwmagenda/0308/vital-conversion-rebirth-andapril-personal19-survival1967#p3p21,p22,p23</ref>
If all goes well, if there is no accident (accidents can always happen), if all goes well at the moment the child is about to be born, the psychic force (perhaps not in its totality, but a part of the psychic consciousness) rushes into the being and from its very first cry gives it a push towards the experiences it wants the child to acquire. The result is that even if the parents are not conscious, even if the child in its external consciousness is not quite conscious (a little child does not have the necessary brain for that, it forms slowly, little by little), in spite of that, it will be possible for the psychic influence to direct all the events, all the circumstances of the life of this child till the moment it becomes capable of coming into conscious contact with its psychic being (physically it is generally between the age of four and seven, sometimes sooner, sometimes almost immediately, but in such a case we deal with children who are not "children", who have "supernatural" qualities, as they say—they are not "supernatural", but simply the expression of the presence of the psychic being). <refcenter>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/24-february-1951#p23~</refcenter>
…the mother, throughout the gestation, should be in an atmosphere absolutely protected from all degrading influences: an ideally beautiful place, a wonderful climate where everything is harmonious, and a wholly spontaneous, free and harmonious and beautiful life sheltered from all vulgarities of life. And the mother herself should have the ideal of the new child. It should be done not as a mechanical but as a conscious, willed thing in an absolutely “creative” atmosphere, we might say.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/agenda/08/april-19-1967#p23</ref> <center>~</center> In many countries of old―and even now in certain countries―the woman who was going to have a child was placed in special conditions of beauty, harmony, peace and well-being, in very harmonious physical conditions, so that the child could be formed in the best possible conditions. This is obviously what ought to be done, for it is within the reach of human possibilities. Human beings are developed enough for this not to be something quite exceptional. And yet it is quite exceptional, for very few people think of it, while there are ''innumerable'' people who have children without even wanting to...It is possible to call a soul, but one must be at least a little conscious oneself, and must want to do what one does in the best conditions. This is very rare, but it is possible. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/27-june-1956#p11,p12,p13</ref> <center>~</center> First of all, the effect of physical environment was recognized and studied long ago. It is by surrounding women with forms of art and beauty that, little by little, the ancient Greeks created the exceptionally harmonious race that they were.  Individual instances of the same fact are numerous. It is not rare to see a woman who, while pregnant, had looked at constantly and admired a beautiful picture or statue, giving birth to a child after the perfect likeness of this picture or statue. I met several of these instances myself. Among them, I remember very clearly two little girls; they were twins and perfectly beautiful. But the most astonishing was how little like their parents they were. They reminded me of a very famous picture painted by the English artist Reynolds. One day I made this remark to the mother, who immediately exclaimed: ‘Indeed, is it not so? You will be interested to know that while I was expecting these children, I had, hanging above my bed, a very good reproduction of Reynolds’ picture. Before going to sleep and as soon as I woke, my last and first glance was for that picture; and in my heart I hoped: may my children be like the faces in this picture. You see that I succeeded quite well!’ In truth, she could be proud of her success, and her example is of great utility for other women.  But if we can obtain such results on the physical plane where the materials are the least plastic, how much more so on the psychological plane where the influence of thought and will is so powerful. Why accept the obscure bonds of heredity and atavism—which are nothing else than subconscious preferences for our own trend of character—when we can, by concentration and will, call into being a type constructed according to the highest ideal we are able to conceive? With this effort, maternity becomes truly precious and sacred; indeed with this, we enter the glorious work of the Spirit, and womanhood rises above animality and its ordinary instincts, towards real humanity and its powers. In this effort, in this attempt, then, lies our true duty. And if this duty was always of the greatest importance, it certainly has taken a capital one in the present turn of the earth’s evolution. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/02/to-the-women-of-japan#p4,p5,p6,p7</ref> ==By Aspiration ==Choice  ''Sweet Mother, is it possible for the mother and father to give birth to… to ask for the soul they want?'' To ask? For that they must have an occult knowledge which they don’t usually have. But anyway, what is possible is that instead of doing the thing like an animal driven by instinct or desire and most of the time, without even wanting it, they do it at will, with an aspiration, putting themselves in a state of aspiration and almost of Parents prayer, so that the being they are going to form may be one fit to embody a soul which they can ''call'' down to incarnate in that form. I knew people―not many, this does not often happen, but still I knew some―who chose special circumstances, prepared themselves through special concentration and meditation and aspiration and sought to bring down, into the body they were going to form, an exceptional being.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/27-june-1956#p9,p10</ref> <center>~</center> …woman who has a psychic aspiration herself and, for some reason or other, without knowing why or how, would like to have an exceptional child, answering certain exceptional conditions; if at this moment there is this aspiration upon Birthearth, it creates a vibration, a psychic light which the psychic being sees immediately and, without hesitation it rushes towards it. Then, from that moment (which is the moment of conception), it watches over the formation of the child, so that this formation may be as favourable as possible to the plan it has; consequently its influence is there over the child even before it appears in the physical world.If all goes well, if there is no accident (accidents can always happen), if all goes well at the moment the child is about to be born, the psychic force (perhaps not in its totality, but a part of the psychic consciousness) rushes into the being and from its very first cry gives it a push towards the experiences it wants the child to acquire. The result is that even if the parents are not conscious, even if the child in its external consciousness is not quite conscious (a little child does not have the necessary brain for that, it forms slowly, little by little), in spite of that, it will be possible for the psychic influence to direct all the events, all the circumstances of the life of this child till the moment it becomes capable of coming into conscious contact with its psychic being (physically it is generally between the age of four and seven, sometimes sooner, sometimes almost immediately, but in such a case we deal with children who are not ‘children’, who have ‘supernatural’ qualities, as they say—they are not ‘supernatural’, but simply the expression of the presence of the psychic being). But there are people who have not had the chance or rather the good fortune if one may call it that, of meeting someone, physically, who could instruct them. And yet they have the feeling that every step of their existence, every circumstance of their life is arranged by someone conscious, so that they may make the maximum progress.<ref> https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/24-february-1951#p22,p23</ref> ===The Parent’s State of Consciousness during Conception=== Some children are wicked. Is it because their parents did not aspire for them?It is perhaps a subconscious wickedness in the parents. It is said that people throw out their wickedness from themselves by giving it birth in their children. One has always a shadow in oneself. There are people who project this outside—that does not always free them from it, but still perhaps it comforts them! But it is the child who “profits” by it, you see? It is quite evident that the state of consciousness in which the parents are at that moment is of capital importance. If they have very low and vulgar ideas, the children will reflect them quite certainly. And all these children who are ill-formed, ill-bred, incomplete (specially from the point of view of intelligence: with holes, things missing), children who are only half-conscious and half-formed—this is always due to the state of consciousness in which the parents were when they conceived the child. Even as the state of consciousness of the last moments of life is of capital importance for the future of the one who is departing, so too the state of consciousness in which the parents are at the moment of conception gives a sort of stamp to the child, which it will reflect throughout its life. So, these are apparently such little things—the mood of the moment, the moment’s aspiration or degradation, anything whatsoever, everything that takes place at a particular moment—it seems to be so small a thing, and it has so great a consequence: it brings into the world a child who is incomplete or wicked or finally a failure. And people are not aware of that.Later, when the child behaves nastily, they scold it. But they should begin by scolding themselves, telling themselves: “In what a horrible state of consciousness I must have been when I brought that child into the world.” For it is truly that. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/30-december-1953#p11,p12,p13</ref> <center>~</center> ''Is the vital distorted from the very birth?'' If your birth has not been accidental, you could very well think there was no distortion, but what you are at your birth is most of the time almost absolutely what your mother and father have made you, and also, through them, what your grandparents have made you. There are certain vital traditions in families and, besides, there is the state of consciousness in which you were formed, conceived—the moment at which you were conceived—and that, not once in a million times does that state conform to true aspiration; and it is only a true aspiration which could make your vital pure of all mixture, make the vital element attracted for the formation of the being a pure element, free from all contagion; I mean that if a psychic being enters there, it can gather elements favourable to its growth. In the world as it is, things are so mixed up, have been so mixed up in every way, that it is almost impossible to have elements of the vital sufficiently pure not to suffer the contagion of all other contaminated beings.I think I have already spoken about that, I have said what kind of aspiration ought to be there in the parents before the birth; but as I said, this does not happen even once in a hundred thousand instances. The willed conception of a child is extremely rare; mostly it is an accident. Among innumerable parents it is quite a small minority that even simply bothers about what a child could be; they do not even know that what the child will be depends on what they are. It is a very small élite which knows this. Most of the time things go as they can; anything at all happens and people don’t even realise what is happening. So, in these conditions how do you expect to be born with a vital being sufficiently pure to be of help to you? One is born with a slough to clean before one begins to live. And once you have made a good start on the way to the inner transformation and you go down to the subconscient root of the being—that exactly which comes from parents, from atavism—well, you do see what it is! And all, almost all difficulties are there, there are very few things added to existence after the first years of life. This happens at any odd moment; if you keep bad company or read bad books, the poison may enter you; but there are all the imprints deep-rooted in the subconscient, the dirty habits you have and against which you struggle. For instance, there are people who can’t open their mouth without telling a lie, and they don’t always do this deliberately (that is the worst of it), or people who can’t come in touch with others without quarrelling, all sorts of stupidities—they are there in the subconscient, deeply rooted. Now, when you have a goodwill, externally you do your best to avoid all that, to correct it if possible; you work, you fight; then become aware that this thing always keeps coming up, it comes up from some part which escapes your control. But if you enter this subconscient, if you let your consciousness infiltrate it, and look carefully, gradually you will discover all the sources, all the origins of all your difficulties; then you will begin to understand what your fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers were, and if at a certain moment you are unable to control yourself, you will understand, “I am like that because they were like that.If you have within you a psychic being sufficiently awake to watch over you, to prepare your path, it can draw towards you things which help you, draw people, books, circumstances, all sorts of little coincidences which come to you as though brought by some benevolent will and give you an indication, a help, a support to take decisions and turn you in the right direction. But once you have taken this decision, once you have decided to find the truth of your being, once you start sincerely on the road, then everything seems to conspire to help you to advance, and if you observe carefully you see gradually the source of your difficulties: “Ah! Wait a minute, this defect was in my father; oh! this habit was my mother’s; oh! my grandmother was like this, my grandfather was like that.” Or it could well be the nurse who took care of you when you were small, or brothers and sisters who played with you, the little friends you met, and you will find that all this was there, in this person or that or the other. But if you continue to be sincere, you find you can cross all this quite calmly, and after a time you cut all the moorings with which you were born, break the chains and go freely on the path.If you really want to transform your character, it is that you must do. It has always been said that it is impossible to change one’s nature; in all books of philosophy, even of yoga, you are told the same story: “You cannot change your character, you are born like that, you are like that.” This is absolutely false, I guarantee it is false; but there is something very difficult to do to change your character, because it is not your character which must be changed, it is the character of your antecedents. In them you will not change it (because they have no such intention), but it is in you that it must be changed. It is what they have given you, all the little gifts made to you at your birth—nice gifts—it is this which must be changed. But if you succeed in getting hold of the thread of these things, the true thread, since you have worked upon this with perseverance and sincerity, one fine morning you will be free; all this will fall off from you and you will be able to get a start in life without any burden. Then you will be a new man, living a new life, almost with a new nature. And if you look back you will say, “It is not possible, I was never like that!” <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/29-march-1951#p14,p15,p16,p17,p18</ref> <center>~</center> ...the body is formed in a very unsatisfactory way for almost everyone―exceptions are so rare that one can hardly speak of them.I told you that due to this obscure birth one arrives with a whole physical baggage of things which generally have to be got rid of, if one truly wants to progress, and someone has quoted my own sentence which runs like this:“You are brought here by force, the environment is imposed on you by force, the laws of atavism of the milieu by force…”And now the person who wrote to me has asked me who does all that.Of course I could have been more explicit, but I thought I had been clear enough.The body is formed by a man and a woman who become the father and mother, and it is they who don’t even have the ''means'' of asking the being they are going to bring into the world whether it would like to come or whether this is in accordance with its destiny. And it is on this body they have formed that they impose by force, by force of necessity, an atavism, an environment, later an education, which will almost always be obstacles to its future growth.Therefore, I said here and I am repeating―it I thought I had been clear enough―that it was about the physical parents and the physical body I was speaking, nothing else. And that the soul which incarnates, whether it be in course of development or fully developed, has to struggle against the circumstances imposed on it by this animal birth, struggle in order to find its true path and again discover its own self fully. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/27-june-1956#p2,p3,p4,p5,p6,p7</ref> <center>~</center> But anyway―anyway―even in the best cases, even when the soul has come consciously, even when it has consciously participated in the formation of the physical body, still so long as the body is formed in the usual animal way, it will have to struggle and correct all those things which come from this human animality.Inevitably, parents have a particular formation, they are particularly healthy or unhealthy; even taking things at their best, they have a heap of atavisms, habits, formations in the subconscious and even in the unconscious, which come from their own birth, the environment they have lived in, their own life; and even if they are remarkable people, they have a large number of things which are quite opposed to the true psychic life―even the best of them, even the most conscious. And besides, there is all that is going to happen. Even if one takes a great deal of trouble over the education of one’s children, they will come in contact with all sorts of people who will have an influence over them, especially when they are very young, and these influences enter the subconscious, one has to struggle against them later on. I say: even in the best cases, because of the way in which the body is formed at present, you have to face innumerable difficulties which come more or less from the subconscious, but rise to the surface and against which you have to struggle before you can become completely free and develop normally. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/27-june-1956#p23,p24</ref> ==By Having a Strong Body== …women who are trained to strong exercises and have a muscular body go through the ordeal of child-formation and child-birth much more easily and painlessly.I heard the authentic story of one of these African women who are accustomed to walk for miles carrying heavy loads. She was pregnant and the time of delivery came during one of the day’s marches. She sat on the side of the track, under a tree, gave birth to the child, waited for half an hour, then she rose and adding the new-born babe to the former luggage, went on her way quietly, as if nothing had happened. This is a splendid example of what a woman can do when she is in full possession of her health and strength.Doctors will say that such a thing cannot occur in a civilised world with all the so-called progress that humanity has achieved; but we cannot deny that, from the physical point of view, this is a more happy condition than all the sensitiveness, the sufferings and the complications created by the modern civilisations.Moreover, usually doctors are more interested in the abnormal cases, and they judge mostly from that point of view. But for us, it is different; it is from the normal that we can rise to the supernormal, not from the abnormal which is always a sign of perversion and inferiority. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/to-women-about-their-body#p45,p46,p47,p48</ref> ===Atmosphere during Delivery==The most important thing is to be quiet, in a peaceful atmosphere so that the Force can work without disturbance. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/community-affairs#p125</ref> =Birth and the Psychic BeingIn 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.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/rebirth#p5,p6</ref> <center>~</center> ''When the psychic is about to enter into the world, does it choose in advance the form it is going to take?'' It is an interesting question. That depends. As I have just told you, there are psychic beings who are in the making, progressing; these generally, right at the outset, cannot choose much, but when they have arrived at a certain degree of growth and of consciousness (generally while they are still in a physical body and have had a certain amount of experience), they decide at that time what their next field of experience will be like. I can give you some rather external examples. For instance, a psychic being needed to have the experience of mastery, of power in order to know the reactions and how it is possible to turn all these movements towards the Divine: to learn what a life of power may teach you. It took birth in a king or a queen. These enjoyed some power and during that time they had their experiences; they reached the end of the field of experience. Now, they know what they wanted to know, they are about to go, they are going to leave their body that’s now become useless, and they are going to prepare for the next experience. Well, at that time, when the psychic being is still in the body and has noted what it has learnt, it decides for the next occasion. And sometimes it is a movement of action and reaction: because it has studied one entire field, it needs to study the opposite field. And very often it chooses a very different life from the one it had. So before leaving, it says: “Next time, it is in this domain that I shall take birth….” Suppose, for example, the psychic has reached a stage of growth when it would like to have the chance of working on the physical body to make it capable of coming consciously into contact with the Divine and of transforming it. Now, it is about to leave the body in which it had authority, power, activity, the body it has used for its growth; it says: “Next time I shall take birth in a neutral environment, neither low nor high, where it will not be necessary (how to put it?) to have a highly external life, where one will have neither great power nor great misery—altogether neutral, as you know, the life in between.” It chooses that. It returns to its own psychic world for the necessary rest, for assimilation of the experience gained, for preparation of the future experience. It naturally remembers its choice and, before coming down once more, when it has finished its assimilation, when it is time to return, to come down upon earth, it cannot, from that domain, see material things as we see them, you know: they appear to it in another form. But still the differences can be foreseen: the differences of environment, differences of activity in the environment are clearly seen, quite perceptible. It can have a vision that is total or global. It can choose. At times it chooses the country; when it wants a certain kind of education, civilisation, influence, it can choose its country beforehand. Sometimes it can’t, sometimes it chooses only its environment and the kind of life it will lead. And then from up there, before it comes down, it looks for the kind of vibrations it wants; it sees them very clearly. It is as though it was aiming at the place where it is going to drop. But it is an approximation because of the fact that another condition is necessary: not only its choice but also a receptivity from below and an aspiration. There must be someone in the environment it has chosen, generally the mother (sometimes both the parents, but the most indispensable is the mother), she must have an aspiration or a receptivity, something sufficiently passive and open or a conscious aspiration towards something higher. And that kindles for the psychic being a little light. In the mass representing for it the environment in which it wants to be born, if under the influence of its own projected will a small light is kindled, then it knows that it is there it must go.It is necessary, it is this that makes the difference in months or days, perhaps, not so much perhaps in years; however, this creates an uncertainty, and that is why it cannot foretell the exact date: “On that date, that day, at that hour I shall take birth.” It needs to find someone receptive. When it sees that, it rushes down. But what happens is something like an image: it is not exactly that, but something very similar. It throws itself down into an unconsciousness, because the physical world, even human consciousness whatever it may be, is very unconscious in comparison with the psychic consciousness. So it rushes into an unconsciousness. It is as though it fell on its head. That stuns it. And so generally, apart from some very very rare exceptions, for a long time it does not know. It does not know any longer where it is nor what it is doing nor why it is there, nothing at all. It finds a great difficulty in expressing itself, especially through a baby that has no brain, naturally; it is only the embryo of a brain which is hardly formed and it does not have the elements for manifesting itself. So it is very rare for a child to manifest immediately the exceptional being it contains…. That happens. We have heard about such things. It happens, but generally some time is needed. Only slowly it awakens from its stupor and becomes aware that it is there for some reason and by choice. And usually this coincides with the intensive mental education which shuts you completely from the psychic consciousness. So a mass of circumstances, happenings of all kinds, emotions, all sorts of things are necessary to open the inner doors so that one might begin to remember that after all one has come from another world and one has come for a particular reason.Otherwise, if all went normally, it could very quickly have a connection, very quickly. If it had the luck to find someone possessing a little knowledge, and instead of falling into a world of ignorance, it fell upon a little bit of knowledge, everything would be done quite quickly. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/5-august-1953#p1,p44,p45,p46,p47,p48</ref> <center>~</center> ''The formation of the body depends entirely on a man and a woman, but is the soul which manifests in the child, in the body which is being formed, compelled to manifest in this body?'' You mean whether it can choose between different bodies? ''Yes''. Well, it is very exceptional, after all, in the great mass of humanity, that a conscious soul incarnates voluntarily. It is something very unusual. I have already told you that when a soul is conscious, fully formed, and wants to incarnate, usually from its psychic plane it looks for a corresponding psychic light at a certain place upon earth. Besides, during its previous incarnation, before going away, before leaving the earth-atmosphere, usually as a result of the experience it had in the life that is coming to an end, the soul chooses more or less―not in all details but broadly―the conditions of its future life. But these are exceptional cases. Possibly we could speak of it for ourselves here, but for the majority, the vast majority of men, even those who are educated, it is out of the question. And what comes then is a psychic being in formation, more or less formed, and there are all the stages of formation from the spark which becomes a little light to the fully formed being, and this extends over thousands of years. This ascent of the soul to become a conscious being having its own will, capable of determining the choice of its own life, takes thousands of years.So, you are thinking of a soul which would say, “No, I refuse this body, I am going to look for another”?… I don’t say it is impossible―everything is possible. It does happen, in fact, that children are still-born, which means that there was no soul to incarnate in them. But it may be for other reasons also; it may be for reasons of malformation only; one can’t say. I don’t say it is impossible, but generally, when a conscious and free soul chooses to take a body on earth again, even before its birth it works on this body. So it has no reason not to accept even the inconveniences which may result from the ignorance of the parents; for it has chosen the place for a reason which was not one of ignorance: it saw a light there―it might have been simply the light of a possibility, but there was a light and that is why it has come there. So, it is all very well to say, “Ah! no, I don’t like it”, but where would it go to choose another it likes?… That may happen, I don’t say it is impossible, but it cannot happen very often. For, when from the psychic plane the soul looks at the earth and chooses the place for its next birth, it chooses it with sufficient discernment not to be altogether grossly mistaken.It has also happened that souls have incarnated and then left. There are many reasons why they go away. Children who die very young, after a few days or a few weeks―this may be for a similar reason. Most often it is said that the soul needed just a little experience to complete its formation, that it had it during these few weeks and then left. Everything is possible. And as many stories would be needed to tell the story of souls as are needed to tell the story of men. That is to say, they are innumerable and the instances are as different as possible from one another.So, to decide arbitrarily: “It is like that, not like this; this is what happens and not that”, this is childishness. ''Everything''can happen. There are instances which occur more frequently than others, one can generalise, but one can never say, “This is not possible and it is always like this or always like that.” That is not how things happen. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/27-june-1956#p16,p17,p18,p20,p21,p22</ref> <center>~</center> ''Can it happen that the psychic being does not fall at the place where it wanted to take birth?'' If a psychic being sees from its psychic world a light on the earth, it may rush down there without knowing exactly where it is. Everything is possible. But if the psychic being is very conscious, sufficiently conscious, it will seek the light of aspiration in a precise place, because of the culture, the education it will find there. This happens much more frequently than one believes, especially in somewhat educated circles. An intelligent woman with some artistic or philosophical culture, a beginning of conscious individuality, may aspire that the child she is going to have may be the best possible according to her idea or according to what she has read. Hence it is not so very complicated to find a place. The number of psychic beings born constantly being considerable, if each time exceptional conditions have to be found it would be difficult. Surely, there are instances where the psychic beings seems to have fallen headlong and been stunned, but this is bad luck; in such a case it generally requires a long time to wakeup. It is bad luck in the sense that it probably lacked a certain power of discrimination, or perhaps it had to face certain forces which thwarted its decision and won a partial victory over it. There are a thousand possibilities, you know. One cannot say that everything goes according to the same plan—every psychic being is different. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/1-march-1951#p37,p38</ref> <center>~</center>
''When great souls want to be born upon earth, do they choose their parents?''
Ah! that depends on their state of consciousness, it depends on the state of their psychic formation. If the psychic being is completely formed, if it has reached the perfection of its being and is free to reincarnate or not, it has also the capacity of choosing. But I believe I have explained that to you already. They don't have a physical sight like ours so long as they are not in a body. So, evidently, they look for a body which is adapted and fit to express them, but they must give its share to the material inconscience, if it may be put thus, and to the necessity to adapt themselves to the most material laws of the body. So, from the point of view of the psychic, the choice of the place where one is born is important, it is more than an insignificant detail. But there are so many things that can't be foreseen. For instance, one chooses an environment, a country, a certain type of family, one tries to see the nature of the likely parents, one asks for certain already well-developed qualities in them and a sufficient self-mastery. But all this is not enough if one does not carry in oneself a sufficient dynamism to overcome the obstacles. So, all things considered, this is not enormously important. Anyhow, even at the best, even if the parents have collaborated consciously, there is an enormous mass of the subconscient and the yet lower inconscient which from time to time rises again to the surface, gets stirred up, damages the work, makes calmness and silence indispensable. Always, always a preparation is needed, even if one has chosen—a long preparation. Not to speak of the phenomenon of being half-stunned at the moment of birth, the descent into the body, which often lasts for a very long time before one can escape from it completely.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/30-december-1953#p10</ref>
At times Ah! that depends on their state of consciousness, it [depends on the state of their psychic formation. If the psychic being] chooses is completely formed, if it has reached the country; when perfection of its being and is free to reincarnate or not, it wants has also the capacity of choosing… They don’t have a physical sight like ours so long as they are not in a body. So, evidently, they look for a certain kind body which is adapted and fit to express them, but they must give its share to the material inconscience, if it may be put thus, and to the necessity to adapt themselves to the most material laws of educationthe body. So, civilisationfrom the point of view of the psychic, influencethe choice of the place where one is born is important, it can choose its country beforehandis more than an insignificant detail. But there are so many things that can’t be foreseen. Sometimes it can'tFor instance, sometimes it one chooses only its an environment , a country, a certain type of family, one tries to see the nature of the likely parents, one asks for certain already well-developed qualities in them and a sufficient self-mastery. But all this is not enough if one does not carry in oneself a sufficient dynamism to overcome the obstacles. So, all things considered, this is not enormously important. Anyhow, even at the best, even if the kind parents have collaborated consciously, there is an enormous mass of life it will lead. And then the subconscient and the yet lower inconscient which from time to time rises again to the surface, gets stirred up there, damages the work, makes calmness and silence indispensable. Always, always a preparation is needed, even if one has chosen—a long preparation. Not to speak of the phenomenon of being half-stunned at the moment of birth, the descent into the body, which often lasts for a very long time before one can escape from it comes downcompletely. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/30-december-1953#p9, p10</ref> <center>~</center> ...it looks for [choice to choose its place of birth in next life]depends absolutely on the condition in which they died and their last wish, and on the kind resolution of vibrations it wants; it sees them very clearlythe psychic. It is as though not a mechanical or imposed thing, it was aiming is different for each one....for the destiny which follows after death, the last state of consciousness is usually the most important. That is, if at the place where moment of death one has the intense aspiration to return to continue his work, then the conditions are arranged for it to be done. But, you see, there are all the possibilities for what happens after death. There are people who return in the psychic. You see, I have told you that the outer being is going very rarely preserved; so we speak only of the psychic consciousness which, indeed, always persists. And then there are people for whom the psychic returns to the psychic domain to assimilate the experience they have had and to dropprepare their future life. But This may take centuries, it depends on the people.The more evolved the psychic is an approximation because of , the fact that another condition nearer it is necessary: not to its complete maturity, the greater the time between the births. There are beings who reincarnate only its choice but also after a receptivity from below and an aspirationthousand years, two thousand years. There must be someone in The closer one is to the beginning of the environment it has chosenformation, generally the mother (closer are the reincarnations; and sometimes both even, altogether at the parentslower level, but when man is quite near the most indispensable animal, it goes like this (''gesture''), that is, it is not unusual for people to reincarnate in the mother)children of their children, like that, something like that, she must have an aspiration or just in the next generation. But this is always on a receptivityvery primitive level of evolution, something sufficiently passive and open or a the psychic being is not very conscious aspiration towards something higher, it is in the state of formation. And that kindles for as it becomes more developed, the psychic being reincarnations, as I said, are at a little lightgreater distance from one another. In When the mass representing psychic being is fully developed, when it no longer needs to return to earth for its development, when it is absolutely free, it has the environment choice between no longer coming back to earth if it finds that its work lies elsewhere or if it prefers to remain in which the purely psychic consciousness, without reincarnating; or else it can come when it wants, as it wants, where it wants to , perfectly consciously. And there are those who have united with forces of a universal order and with entities of the Overmind or elsewhere, who remain all the time in the earth atmosphere and take on bodies successively for the work. This means that the moment the psychic being is completely formed and absolutely free—it when it is completely formed it becomes absolutely free—it can do anything it likes, it depends on what it chooses; therefore one can’t say, “It will be like this, it will be bornlike that”; it does exactly what it wants and it can even announce (that has happened), if under at the moment of the influence death of the body, what its own projected next reincarnation will a small light be and what it will do, and already choose what it is going to do. But before this state, which is not very frequent—it depends absolutely on the degree of development of the psychic and the hope formulated by the integral consciousness of the being—there is kindledstill the mental, then it knows vital and physical consciousness, united with the psychic consciousness; so at that moment, the moment of death, the moment of leaving the body, it is there it must goformulates a hope or an aspiration or a will, and usually this decides the future life.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/0507/516-augustmarch-19531955#p46p21,p22,p23,p24</ref> =More=
At the risk of removing many illusions in your consciousness, I must tell you something about the source of a mother’s love for her child...but generallyIt is because this child is made of her very own substance, when a conscious and free soul chooses to take for quite a body on earth againlong time, relatively long, even before its birth it works on this body. So it has no reason not to accept even the inconveniences which may result from material link, the ignorance link of substance, between mother and child is ''extremely'' close—it is as though a bit of her flesh had been taken out and put apart at a distance—and it is only much later that the parents; for it has chosen tie between the place for two is completely cut. There is a reason which was not one kind of tie, of ignorance: subtle sensation, such that the mother feels exactly what the child feels, as she would feel it saw a light there―it might have been simply in herself. That then is the light material basis of the mother’s attachment for the child. It is a possibilitybasis of material identity, nothing else but there was a light and ''that is why'' . Feeling comes much later (it has may come there. Soearlier, that depends on people), but I am speaking of the majority: feeling comes only long afterwards, and it is conditioned. There are all very well kinds of things… I could speak to sayyou for hours on the subject. But still this must not be mixed up with love. It is a material identification which makes the mother feel intimately, "Ah! nofeel quite concretely and tangibly what the child is feeling: if the child receives a shock, I don't like it"well, but where would the mother feels it go to choose another it likes?.This lasts at least for two months.This is the basis. That may happenThe rest comes from people’s nature, I don't say it is impossibletheir state of development, but it cannot happen very often. Fortheir consciousness, when from the psychic plane the soul looks at the earth education and chooses the place capacity for its next birth, it chooses it with sufficient discernment not to be altogether grossly mistakenfeeling.<ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwm/0806/2714-juneapril-19561954#p20p23,p24</ref>
...the cases are quite different; it depends more on psychological conditions than on material ones, but it also depends on material conditions. It depends on the state of development of the soul which wants to reincarnate―we take the word "soul" here in the sense of the psychic being, what we call the psychic being―it depends on its state of development, on the milieu in which it is going to incarnate, on the mission it has to fulfil―that makes many different conditions.... It depends very largely on the state of consciousness of the parents. For it goes without saying that there is a stupendous difference between conceiving a child deliberately, with a conscious aspiration, a call to the invisible world and a spiritual ardour, and conceiving a child by accident and without intending to have it, and sometimes even without wanting it at all. I don't say that in the latter case there cannot also be an incarnation, but it usually takes place later, not at the conception.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/24-october-1956#p17</ref>
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.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/rebirth#p5</ref>
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