Page 8 - All India Magazine Sep-2021

Divine spark
Of course one cannot say that every man has got a psy-
chic being, just as one cannot refuse to grant it to every ani-
mal. Many animals that have lived near man have some
beginnings of it, while so often one comes across people
who do not seem to be anything else than brutes. Here,
too, there has been a good deal of levelling. But on the
whole, the psychic in the true sense starts at the human
stage: that is also why the Catholic religion declares that
only man has a soul. In man alone there is the possibility
of the psychic being growing to its full stature even so far
as to be able in the end to join and unite with a descending
being, a godhead from above.

CWM 3: 151

Most people say there is “consciousness” when they
begin to think—when one doesn’t think one is not con-
scious. But plants are perfectly conscious and yet they do
not think. They have very precise sensations which are
the expression of a consciousness, but they do not think.
Animals begin to think and their reactions are much more
complex. But both plants and animals are conscious. One
can be conscious of a sensation without having the least
thought.
CWM 4: 240-241

Genus of the species
In animals there is sometimes a very intense psychic
truth. Naturally, I believe that the psychic being is a lit-
tle more formed, a little more conscious in a child than
in an animal. But I have experimented with animals, just
to know; well, I assure you that in human beings I have

8 All India Magazine, September 2021