‘It is interesting to converse with snails, besides which it helps you to understand how God created the world. He emanated a very fine subtle matter, his own essence, which then solidified. Between yawns you are thinking: silly bedtime story! One day everyone including the most learned and erudite will stay awake to hear such stories.

The snail himself secretes the matter his house is made of
On the surface the snail and its shell are two separate things, but in fact they are one and the same, for the snail himself secretes the matter his house is made of. It is exactly the same, for the personality and the individuality, although the personality is dark and heavy and thick, hard as a shell, and the individuality is light and alive, quick and mobile… as different as night and day! Yet originally they were one.

The individuality must form a vehicle, an envelope for itself exactly as the snail forms its shell, by emanating a substance which hardens… into the personality! We carry our physical body as the snail carries its shell, and we live inside it. The trouble is that human beings have never been told that they must not identify with this shell, their body, but rather with the power that formed it, the Spirit, the individuality.

Human beings are pure Spirit, not matter
For that reason they remain weak and powerless, limited and mistaken. The body is not us, a person is not their body! It is available for our use as a car, a horse, an instrument, a house. Human beings are pure Spirit, not matter, but all-powerful, infinite, omniscient Spirit. If they will identify with the Spirit, they can become outwardly what they already are inwardly, enlightened, powerful, immortal… divine!’

To be continued…

Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
Complete Works Vol. 11, The Key to the Problems of Existence
Chapter 1, The Personality