On Death - Auroville (16 December 1999) - Track 2

The Divine has many possibilities. He is omnipotent, he can have many kinds of objects, all possible objects are possible for the Divine. In a childish way we might say that he can play many kinds of games – all possible games are possible for the Divine. In this time in which we are living, the Divine has chosen to play this game. First, to conceal his Consciousness so completely as to become Inconscient – there is a production of inconscience – and then to play the game of unveiling it. But in the process of unveiling, since it's a game, there is a rule, like in cricket, in chess, or in football – there are rules to the game. Here, the rule of the game is that this Inconscience has to be developed gradually, not at once. The Divine can immediately, by one stroke of a ray of Light, make the Inconscience become Conscious. That is possible. But the rule of the game is that it allows the Inconscience to develop gradually; you might almost say, leisurely. There is no hurry in this process.
The second rule of the game is that this Inconscience becomes gradually conscious by a double process. There is, first, an invitation sent by the Divine Consciousness asking the Inconscience, "May I come? Can I awaken you?" It does not impose himself, it's like a good teacher. A good teacher sends out an invitation: "Would you like to study?" There is no imposing on you. "If you want to study, I am here with you. But you have to decide whether you want to study or not." The Inconscience is given a choice to say yes, or no. Usually the Inconscience does not want to respond to this invitation, because it is unconscious. It is asleep, and as you know in sleep one does not like to be awakened. We have all had this experience: When you are sleeping and somebody says, "Now wake up," we want to avoid getting up as much as possible: "Five minutes more," we say, "five minutes more..." Similarly, the Inconscience has the same response. The Divine Consciousness is very careful not to impose itself. So it waits until the Inconscience comes to a point where it says, "All right, I will receive a little." It consents to it. It happens to consent at one time. Why? Because it is free, and it is quite possible for it to say yes also one time, the moment it says 'yes', the Divine knows how much of a dose to give. It won't give too much, because the Inconscience will be shaken, and the Divine doesn't want to shake up, it gives the exact dose of Consciousness that can be received.
The Divine gives this kind of invitation both directly and through many intermediaries. All instruments of the Divine which are conscious in one way or the other, they can all collaborate. Principally there are two intermediaries. One is gods, the second is our souls. These are the two intermediaries, the gods and our souls. The gods are also invited – there are many-many gods. Gods are nothing but children of the Divine, but conscious children of the Divine. They have not fallen into sleep.
As far as we are concerned, we have fallen into sleep, but not totally. There is something in us that is still awake, but it is very deep. As we are living on the surface, we are hardly aware of that which we truly are, which is awake. So our message also reaches this outer being very slowly. Whatever is unconscious hardly receives any message from our soul because the distance is very great. In astronomy, as we now know, the distances between stars are so great that for a ray of light to travel from one star to another sometimes takes millions and millions of light years – not only years, but light years. Such are the distances in the universe. So if that is the case, then the distance between the Divine Consciousness and the Inconscience is very great; similarly, the distance between our real soul which is awake and our outer self which we are is also very great. That is why a lot of time is required for us to communicate the will of the Divine to the Inconscience, but this is the real game: The Inconscience has to agree first of all to receive the Light; on the other side there is a constant invitation coming from above: "May I come? May I come? I want to come. I would like to come. I want to awaken you..." All the time it is coming. As a result, there is a constant dialogue, as it were. Our life is nothing but a constant dialogue, and the main refrain is this: "May I come?" And the answer is sometimes no, sometimes all right, sometimes 'yes-yes' – this is all the dialogue. Our entire life can be summarized in these three words, "May I come?" and the answer, "No," "Maybe," "All right," "Yes-yes!" Our whole life can be summarized in this: There is nothing more than that in life.
But because of this process, and because of the rules of the game, it can take a long time. Neither the Inconscience nor the Divine is worried about the time. They both have all the time in the world; they have leisure, because it is a big game that is going on. Only we human beings are in a hurry, because sometimes, when our consciousness becomes partially conscious and is partially asleep, then the sense of hurry arises. It has taken millions of years, billions of years you might say, for the whole game to come to the point where we are now. So let us come to where we are.
Billions of years have already passed, now we are where we are  and the same dialogue continues. Except that we are partially conscious. This partial consciousness is called, in technical language, "Ignorance." So there is a distinction that is made between Inconscience and Ignorance. Inconscience is a complete negation of consciousness; there is complete darkness. Ignorance is like the night – the night is also dark, but there are stars, aren't there? There are twinkling lights all the time. Our consciousness is like the darkness of night, there is some twinkling going on. It is not totally dark. We are not unconscious, we are ignorant.

So some development has taken place. From complete Inconscience we have reached the point of some consciousness, a partial consciousness.
The game, at the level of the ignorance, becomes very, very interesting. We are Ignorant, partially conscious and partially unconscious, and that is why the whole human life is a very interesting drama. That is why dramatists, when they write, become like gods themselves. It is said that an author and a dramatist particularly, enjoys the company of God. If you write a drama you will see. You write a drama, or a story even, a novel or short story, fiction and you become almost like God: You create characters, then you imagine some plot, you make people meet, there is some friction, some friendship, some quarrels, some misunderstanding, and then some overcoming of difficulties – some kind of a drama will take place.
At a certain point of this drama, our consciousness becomes so desperate, we become so full of the need to receive the light, that we say, "Light! Light! Light! Come, I want Light!"' And then you will see that the Light comes very rapidly. And when the Light comes, what happens – You begin to remember your contract.