The Choosing of the Body by the Evolved Psychic Being Seeking Rebirth, Part 2

We tend to look at and evaluate everything from the standpoint of the external being. Thus, when there is a case of a stillborn fetus, or a child who dies within weeks of birth, we look for external causes. Was the child’s mother somehow to blame, or was there some circumstance that occurred that caused the death. We do not generally consider whether there was an occult determinant related to what Aristotle called the ‘formal cause’, the actual causative factor that brings about a result in the material world.

The psychic being, when it enters into the physical world in a new incarnation, does not simply overrule the embedded mechanisms of physical nature, vital nature or mental nature. As we see with the advent of each new phase of the evolution of consciousness, the new power, whether it be the vital power acting on the physical world, or the mental power acting on the physical and vital world, infuses its own unique power of action into the mix, but has to work within the existing framework. Change is thus incremental as the former expressions adapt to the new power that is manifesting. For an evolved soul, this is a situation that requires patience and understanding, while it learns how best to accomplish its aims within the framework of the life that it has embarked upon.

The Mother continues: “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.”

“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.”

reference: Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Psychic Being — Soul: Its Nature, Mission and Evolution, Section 4 The Afterlife and Rebirth, pp. 145-148