Night Of An Immortal
:
The Blue Germ
I passed a most remarkable night. On reaching home I went to bed as
usual. My mind was busy, but what busied it was not the events of the
day.
I lay in the darkness in a state of absolute contentment. My eyes were
closed. My body was motionless, and felt warm and comfortable. I was
quite aware of the position of my limbs in space and I could hear the
sound of passing vehicles outside. I was not asleep and
yet at the same
time I was not awake. I knew I was not properly awake because, when I
tried to move, there seemed to be a resistance to the impulse, which
prevented it from reaching the muscles. As I have already said, I could
feel. The sensation of my body was there, though probably diminished,
but the power of movement was checked, though only slightly. And all
the time I lay in that state, my mind was perfectly lucid and
continually active. I thought about many things and the power of thought
was very great, in that I could keep my attention fixed hour after hour
on the same train of thought, go backwards and forwards along it, change
and modify its gradations, just as if I were dealing with some material
and plastic formation. Since that time I have become acquainted with a
doctrine that teaches that thoughts are in the nature of things--that a
definite thought is a formation in some tenuous medium of matter, just
as a cathedral is a structure in gross matter. This is certainly the
kind of impression I gained then.
It was now in the light of contrast that I could reflect on the rusty
and clumsy way in which I had previously done my thinking, and I
remembered with a faint amusement that there had been a time when I
considered that I had a very clear and logical mind. Logical! What did
we, as mere mortals full of personal desire, know of logic? The
reflection seemed infinitely humorous. My thoughts had about them a new
quality of stability. They formed themselves into clear images, which
had a remarkable permanence. Their power and influence was greatly
increased. If, for example, I thought out a bungalow situated on the
cliff, I built up, piece by piece in my mind, the complete picture; and
once built up it remained there so that I could see it as a whole, and
almost, so to speak, walk round it and view it from different angles. I
could lay aside this thought-creation just as I might lay aside a model
in clay, and later on bring it back into my mind, as fresh and clear as
ever. The enjoyment of thinking under such conditions is impossible to
describe. It was like the joy of a man, blind from childhood, suddenly
receiving his sight.
As ordinary mortals, we are all familiar with the apparently real scenes
that occur in dreams. In our dreams we see buildings and walk round
them. We see flights of steps and climb them. We apparently touch and
taste food. We meet friends and strangers and converse with them. At
times we seem to gaze over landscapes covered with woods and meadows.
It seemed to me that the magic of dreams had in some way become attached
to thought. For as Immortals we did not dream as mortals do. In place
of dreaming, we created immense thought-forms, working as it were on a
new plane of matter whose resources were inexhaustible.
That night I built my ideal bungalow and when I had finished it I
constructed my ideal garden. And then I made a sea and a coast-line, and
when it was finished it was so real to me that I actually seemed to go
into its rooms, sit on the verandah, breathe in its sea-airs and listen
to the surf below its cliff. I remember that one of its rooms did not
please me entirely, and that I seemed to pull it down--in thought--and
reconstruct it according to my wish. This took time, for brick by brick
I thought the new room into existence. One law that governed that state
was easy to grasp, for whatever you did not think out clearly assumed a
blurred unsatisfactory form. It became clear to me as early as that
first night of immortality that the more familiar a man was with matter
on the earth and its ways and possibilities, the more easily could he
make his constructions on that plan of thought.
The whole of that night I lay in this state of creative joy and I know
that my body remained motionless. It seemed that only a film divided me
from the use of my limbs, but that film was definite. At eight o'clock
on that morning, I became aware of a vague feeling of strain. It was a
very slight sensation, but its effect was to make the thoughts that
occupied my consciousness to become less definite. I had to make an
effort to keep them distinct. The strain slowly became greater. It had
begun with a sense of distance, but it seemed to get nearer, and I
experienced a feeling that I can only compare to as that which a man has
when he is losing his balance and about to fall.
The strain ended suddenly. I found myself moving my limbs. I opened my
eyes and looked round. The graphic, visible quality of my thoughts had
now vanished. I was awake.
I have given the above account of the night of an Immortal, because it
has seemed to me right that some record should be left of the effect of
the germ on the mind. I would explain the inherent power of thought as
being due to the freedom from the ordinary desires of mortals, which
waste and dissipate the energies of the mind ... but of that I cannot be
certain.