What is the force of life?

The physical of you is created on the earth plane. The mental is born of the union of the spirit and body―

Until the spirit enters and controls the body, there is no life in it.

The baby's spirit is not contained inside its body in its prenatal condition, but is connected with it by the silver cord (exactly as any other person's body and soul are when the latter is operating independently, as it does often when the body sleeps or is under an anaesthetic) and remains outside in its mother's aura. 

When any woman is going to be a mother, the orange life-giving ray is attracted to her. 

It is in the earth atmosphere, always ready to be diverted. Directly this ray is connected with the mother's organism, a little atom or brilliant drop starts trickling down the ray. It is like a drop of quicksilver. 

As it starts, it divides into two, so whenever there is one new soul born, there is always its counterpart. 

The drop does not start from any one particular spot or place or part of God―it leaves something there, a trail, which remains linked up still in the God-element still connected to the little drop, like a very long, slender twig connecting a leaf to a branch, connected always, for severing it would mean annihilation.

This is a subtle point.

The place from which you start and to which you remain connected is your particular bit of God, so you need not think of yourself as lost in God, but as having your own little part in Him that belongs to you alone.

God works automatically always through the regular operation of His laws.

The drop, just as it starts, divides into two. One part goes to one mother and one to another. One is always male and the other female. As the drop travels slowly to earth, it gets larger and larger and begins to shape out and take more space. By the time it reaches the mother's aura, it is almost the size and shape of a tiny, weeny baby, and so remains with the mother until the time of birth.

As the child is born, the spirit goes into it.

The spirit because it is of God has a consciousness of its own, but not conscious personality―that has to be developed. It will be developed by the spirit operating through the body. Therefore, by unison of soul and body, we have mental growth and growth of personality. 

The world is full of this life-force, and they automatically act in suitable environments.

Claude's Book