[Long silence]
Do you have anything to say?
Ah! It is true that much of the activity I have left to this Consciousness. This is true. I let this Consciousness work actively, because… I found that truly it knows. Otherwise, the feeling of nearness with you is much stronger than before—very much stronger. I have almost the feeling that I am moving within you, which I did not have before. But perhaps, before, my consciousness used to put a pressure upon yours; now it must not be doing that any more, because… it is as though I was doing it from within.
Yes, it is that.
242I do not think the action gives the feeling of a personal action—since long it has been so (that is to say, since the beginning of the year at least). When people write to me saying that they felt I had done this or that for them, I am always taken by surprise. If they said, “The Force has done that” or “The Consciousness has done that”, that would appear to me more natural.
What speaks, what observes is a centre of consciousness that is there [gesture up above], but naturally not localised: for communicating through the mouth and the senses, it is there [same gesture]. But that has not the character of a personality. … Well, when I am asked the question, “How do you see that?” it takes me a moment to understand the question. I do not feel that it is a person who sees.
Some experiences make me think that this sense of personal limitation is not necessary for physical existence; it is a thing that has to be learnt, but it is not necessary. It was always felt that a defined body was necessary to form separate individualities—it is not necessary. One can live physically without that, the 243body can live without that.… Spontaneously, that is to say, left to its old habits and ways of being, it is difficult; it produces an inner organisation that looks very much like disorder—it is difficult. Well, the problems come up all the while, for everything—everything—there is not a single activity of the body which does not face the question raised by this.fnThis absence of personal limits. The process is no longer the old one, it is no more what it was; but as it is, it has not become a habit, a spontaneous habit; that is to say, it is not natural, it requires the consciousness to be always on the watch—for everything, even for swallowing food. And that makes life a little difficult—particularly, yes, particularly when I am seeing people. I see a huge number of people (forty, fifty people every day) and each one brings something which necessitates that this Consciousness that works out all this has to adapt itself to the things coming from outside.… And I see, many people fall ill (or think they are ill or seem to get ill or are really so), but it becomes concrete in the body through their way of being, which is the old way; for this new physical consciousness, it can be avoided, but, oh! it means such a difficulty. One must maintain, through a sort of conscious concentration, a condition, a way of being which is not natural according to the old nature, but which is evidently the new way of being. But in that way, illness can be avoided. But it is almost a Herculean task.It is difficult.
You understand, all the impossibilities, all the “that cannot be, that cannot be done”, all that has been swept away; but it is swept away in principle, and it is busy trying to become a fact, a concrete fact.
This is quite recent, that is, after the beginning of this year. And then, there is all the old habit—one might say, ninety years of habit. But the body knows, it knows that it is only a habit.