QA136 QUESTION: A lot of research has been done in the field of body chemistry and body preservation in the last few years. And I read some articles which have really set me to thinking quite a lot about the spiritual significance of certain discoveries. They’re approaching a point where science will be able to control the body chemistry in such a way that they can produce people in solution form. In other words, they’ve come to the point where, not only will it be possible to create life as we’ve already done, like, let’s say, creating embryos that we’ve kept alive for as much as fifty-nine days, but to do it without even recourse to any sexual stimulus, which they’ve already done in plant form. Now, what I want to know is this.
What happens, for example, to the formation of a soul in the case of a mass-produced human species, where everyone would be exactly the same, in which thoughts and knowledge could be inculcated through a bodily process instead of through a mental process. Is there actual soul involvement there?
ANSWER: Well, let me put it this way. Life cannot exist if there is no consciousness behind it. Call it soul or call it spirit, call it consciousness, call it mind, it makes no difference. But consciousness, a spirit being, must be behind that body, or to put it perhaps more accurately by saying, the body is a product of that particular mind.
Now, it is conceivable that certain conditions can be scientifically brought about that, in some way, duplicate the conditions that bring or attract a life organism into that bodily system. But that does not mean that the thus-resulting creature is mindless, spiritless, consciousless.
It is like if you can take any group of now-existing, normally biologically begotten human beings and conditioned them long enough, brainwashed them long enough, they might alienate themselves so far from their inner sense of being that they might largely become automatons.
Whether or not this can or will be or would be done, if ever such findings are made, that in a nonorganic way, human life is attracted to this organism, this need no more be or no less be, than in any other form of human life. In other words, it is thinkable that science creates conditions due to which it attracts certain spirits, but they, these spirits, could then be given the opportunity to free themselves, just as much as any other spirit.
Or they could be brainwashed and automatized just as much as any other. The question is not that the entity that is thus called into being is less likely to have a spirit. That could not be, for no real life could exist without a consciousness behind it. Where there is consciousness, the liberation of the individuality is always given. Whether or not these people will do it or would do it in such a case is immaterial. Does that answer your question?
QUESTION: So when life is not produced in a human way but is produced in a scientific way, where the ingredients of the life organism is absolutely identical, is there a different soul for each of these beings?
ANSWER: Of course. Just like identical twins. They may be very similar in many respects and yet they are two entities, no matter how many similarities they may have. But they’re still two separate entities.
QUESTION: But in this case, they wouldn’t be separate entities. They would be exactly the same.
ANSWER: There is no such thing.
QUESTION: There’s no such thing because we inherit traits from parents, but where there are no parents?
ANSWER: That has no bearing. It is not from the parents one actually inherits. One actually inherits from one’s own spirit.
QUESTION: [Another person] May I say one thing to clarify that. The spirit is an entirely different thing than the body.
ANSWER: No. It is not.
QUESTION: Before the spirit gets in the body, that building up the body and putting in the spirit…
ANSWER: No, it is not that way. Because the body is a result of the spirit. It is not a completely different thing. Whether that body is created through the normal process or would be at one time – if ever it is possible to really create this, that cannot be said – but if it is, it would still be created in a similar mechanism so that the relationship between the body and the spirit still remains the same. There could not be a difference in that respect.
It would only be the way it is built, but it does not change the relationship between the body and the spirit. The body is always a result of the spirit. It is not a separate entity. It is the expression of the consciousness. The body structure, the bone structure, everything is indicative – and in one way or another, no matter what the genes of the parent are but how these genes arrange themselves – everything is always an expression of the consciousness behind.
QUESTION: This proves what my friend here has said a moment ago. If then we have, let’s not say identical, but let’s say similar bodies, you would have two similar spirits.
ANSWER: Yes. Two similar spirits. And as each spirit lives and dwells in that body, their expressions will form their bodies so that perhaps they would start very similar, and later on they may remain similar or they may become different, as their consciousness develops or does not develop.
QUESTION: Part of the experiments that have been done have been done in the field of neurophysiology. They have found that by changing the chemical structure in animal life, they can alter what the animal is capable of remembering. In other words, scientists claim they can bring human life to a point in the foreseeable future whereby taking a pill of some sort could change the body structure, a person can learn three languages or learn a system of mathematics, instead of by doing it in a different process. Now, what I want to know is this: if an organic life is created, for example, with two identical organisms which are, in such a way, contrived chemically that they can learn nothing new, do they share an identical soul?
ANSWER: Even now you can, through pills or through drugs or through medication, influence the mind and the spirit. In that sense, that is the same idea. It is the same principle. Do you understand that?
QUESTION: Vaguely.
QUESTION: [Another person] I’d like to know, what is the interest of someone in the possibility of a body that has no soul or whether it has an identical soul? I’m wondering, why does it fascinate him?
ANSWER: Well, I think it is a very understandable fascination, because the idea behind would be, is it possible to create life. If life exists in a merely mechanical way, where is then the spirit? Isn’t that your idea [Addressed to the person who originally asked the question]?
QUESTION: Well, that was part of it. The second part of it is, if two bodies can be shared by the same soul, I was wondering if in a love relationship, would it be possible for a person to find a soul mate in the practical as well as the ideal sense of the word? That’s why I asked, would those two organisms, those two mechanically created forms of life, share the same soul – could the soul be divided that way?
ANSWER: No. No. No. No. This goes into such far away and really, at the moment, not relevant questions. No, it would be too complicated to even envisage the possibilities that may at one time exist. But all I can say at the moment that is important for you to know is that no matter how science progresses, the consciousness cannot be artificially reproduced, only its vehicle. And that may, at one time, be a possibility – but never the spirit.
QUESTION: Could you clarify – you said that a pill can influence the mind.
ANSWER: Of course you can influence the mind! You have that all the time when you take drugs, even when you drink alcohol. That influences your mind, doesn’t it?
QUESTION: Yes, but I mean the soul?
ANSWER: Well, the manifestation of the soul. There always remains something deep, deep inside in the real self that is completely unaffected by anything that outwardly happens. This deep spiritual center is beyond even cause and effect.
It is not affected, because it is beyond cause and effect. But we are not talking about this deep spiritual center. We’re talking about the outer layers that are, of course, affected by the body, as the body is affected by the mind. It is a mutual interaction.
Now, if the mind decides to imbibe certain pills or certain drugs or certain medications, it will be affected by that. That is nothing new I’m saying here.
