The body had the habit of performing its functions automatically, as a natural thing; that is to say, for it there was no question of their importance or usefulness. It had not, for example, this mental or vital view of things, of what is “important” or what is “interesting” and what is not. That did not exist.
And then, now that the cells are becoming conscious, they stand back, as it were, they look at themselves, they are beginning to look at themselves in action, and they are very much questioning to what purpose all that is. And then, an aspiration: “How? How should it be truly? What is our function, our utility, our basis? Yes, what is our basis and our standard of life?” One might say, translating once more in mental terms: “How will one be when one is divine? What difference will there be? What is the divine way of being?” And there, what speaks is all this sort of physical basis, which is entirely made up of thousands of small things, absolutely indifferent in themselves, which have no reason for existing except as a whole, as a totality, as a support for another action; but in themselves they seem to have no meaning. And then, once more it is the same thing: a kind of receptivity, of silent opening allowing the thing to enter; and a very subtle perception of a way of being that would be luminous, harmonious.
Ref: Notes on the Way