Krishna Smriti #15

The vision of Krishna—or of Christ, or Buddha, or Mahavira—is possible in two ways. One is what we call mental projection; when in truth no one is there before you, but the tendency of your own mind takes shape; in truth your thought takes shape; in truth you yourself become the maker of the form that appears outside. By mental projection I mean that, behind that projection, that form, that figure, there is no one. The mind has this capacity, this power. Just as at night we dream, we can also dream with open eyes. So one possibility is this.

The second possibility is not the possibility of seeing Krishna’s form or figure, but of being drowned in Krishna-consciousness—of the expansion and realization of Krishna-consciousness. As I said yesterday: one Krishna is ocean-form, the other wave-form. The wave-form of Krishna can be used as a device for the ocean-form experience. His pictures, symbols, images can be used as a preliminary point for the oceanic vision. But when the oceanic vision happens, the image takes leave; it dissolves. Krishna’s figure is lost; it becomes emptiness. Krishna’s image can serve as a starting point for the vision of his vastness. But if one never comes to the vast, and only the image, only the form of Krishna is seen, then it is merely mental projection.

So for one who has the vision of Krishna-consciousness, the experience is not of a figure. The experience is not of form. It will only be a matter of naming: since the person loves Krishna, or traveled by way of Krishna’s form, he will call this the experience of Krishna-consciousness. If another has the very same experience—and it will be the same—via the figure of Buddha or of Jesus, then one who moves via Jesus will call it the experience of Christ, the one via Krishna will call it Krishna’s. But the experience is oceanic.

What Aurobindo speaks of is the experience of Krishna’s figure and Krishna’s personality. He says Krishna himself stands embodied before him. Such an experience is projection—mental projection. It has great sweetness; it has great relish. But it is the expansion of our own mind. It is our mind’s own desire, our mind’s play, our mind’s spread and knowing.

We may begin from the mind; the end must not be there. We will inevitably begin with the mind, but the end should be in no-mind. It is a very telling fact that wherever there is form, there is mind. Wherever there is figure, there is mind. Where there is neither form nor figure, there the mind is lost; there is no way for the mind to remain. Form, figure, qualities—the saguna—are the food of the mind. If the saguna drops, the mind also drops. And the Krishna-vision I speak of does not happen while the mind remains; it happens when the mind is gone.

So whoever has ever said, “Yes, I have known and recognized and seen Krishna as a person and met him,” is projecting the mind’s figure upon the screen of the vast consciousness. As at night on the cinema screen the projector behind throws images and things appear which are not there—there is only a bare screen—just so we can use our mind like a projector; we do. But this experience is not a spiritual experience; it is a psychic experience, a mental experience. Pleasure will come from it, because to see and know Krishna would be deeply satisfying. But it is only pleasure; it is not bliss. Nor is it the realization of truth.

Aurobindo was a pundit, a scholar, therefore if I say that his experience is projection, do not take it personally. The manner of the experience as he depicts it is of projection. If the ocean-form Krishna is realized—or the ocean-form Christ, it makes little difference—then that experience never gets lost. Once it happens, it has happened. After that there remains no other experience besides it. After that Krishna begins to be seen everywhere—in trees, in plants, in stones, in people. But a projection comes and goes; it sprouts for a moment and is gone.

Note also that the experience of projection—of seeing mental images—is not something a mere pundit is usually able to see. Aurobindo, however, had another dimension: poetry. He was not only a scholar; he was a great poet. He was in no way lesser than Rabindranath. If he did not receive the Nobel Prize, the reason was not that he wrote poetry of a lesser stature than Rabindranath; the sole reason was that his poetry is difficult, and it could not be understood. Savitri is among the greatest epics in the world—one among a mere handful. A pundit cannot see projection, but Aurobindo’s poet can. It is the capacity of the poet in him that would make it easy for him to see Krishna. His poet-heart is precisely what can project. Projection is easy for the poet-heart. If there had been only dry logic in his life, even this projection would not have been possible. He has expressed himself in highly intellectual words; I do not say this to imply he is only a man of information, for expression has to be in the terms of reason and intellect. But these words bring no news from the beyond; they bring no hint of transcendence.

We can use words in two ways. One, we use words such that their meaning stays within the confines of the words; the bigger the word, the bigger the meaning. Or, sometimes, we use words such that the meaning is larger and the word smaller. With Aurobindo the reverse is the case. His words are very big; the meaning is very small. He uses very big, long words. When meaning exceeds the word, it transcends and enters mystery. But when the word is much bigger than the meaning, at best you enter philosophy—or rather not even philosophy, philology—language-study rather than vision. When a word carries more meaning than itself, it becomes pregnant. None of Aurobindo’s words is pregnant; there is no womb in them. There is no indicative arrow pointing beyond. It is not that the word, every moment, gives information about what lies beyond it. Aurobindo’s whole use of words is such that the word gives the total information that is in it—indeed more than the meaning itself. And there are reasons for this.

As I said in the morning: where Aurobindo received all his education, in those days Darwin dominated science, and Hegel dominated philosophy. Hegel has used very big words, with not so much meaning. He has used such complex, long words, such a heavily bracketed language—bracket upon bracket—that the first impact of reading Hegel is of great profundity. It feels as if very deep things are being said. For we often take what we do not understand to be deep. This is not necessarily true. What we do not understand is not necessarily deep—though it is true that what is deep is not easily understood. But then a reverse game begins. As Hegel scholarship progressed, Hegel’s statue became smaller, for the more he was understood, the more it was found that this man has very little to say, but he says it by very long routes.

Aurobindo’s manner of saying is Hegelian. Like Hegel he is a system-maker. He says very little, uses big words, long words, takes very long detours. Expression must, of course, be intellectual; but when it is expression of realization, at the same time it keeps pointing beyond itself—it brings the news that the man has known something beyond words. But if everything fits within words, such news does not come. And after reading all of Aurobindo, the taste left in the mouth is only of words. Not a trace of the taste of experience is left. Sometimes a person may not speak at all, and his very presence can leave the taste of realization in your mouth. Sometimes someone may speak a lot, and yet only the taste of words remains; no taste of experience can remain. Expression will be intellectual, but when it is expression of realization it simultaneously transcends intellect. It informs you every time that there was something worth saying which could not be said. Looking at Aurobindo it seems that he has been able to say even more than was sayable. This reminds me of Rabindranath; that may help you understand.

A few moments before his death, a friend said to Rabindranath: “You have sung what you had to sing. Now you can depart in peace, gratefully thanking God. What you had to do on earth, you have done.” Rabindranath opened his eyes and said: “How wrong you are! I am praying to God that only now had I set the instruments, hammered and readied the mridang and the sitar, and now the time to depart has come! I have hardly sung. What people have taken as my songs was only the tuning and the hammering. Now the instrument is ready—and the moment of my going has come. I have not yet been able to say what I had to say!”

But if someone were to say this to Aurobindo, he would not be able to say such a thing. Aurobindo has said completely what he had to say—grandly and systematically. Between Aurobindo and Rabindranath I would say that Rabindranath is far more a mystic than Aurobindo. His gestures point more toward mystery. Aurobindo’s gestures are very clear, non-mystical; they do not point toward the mysterious.

You asked one more thing: If Arjuna is only a mere instrument, and what is to happen will happen—what has already happened is what will happen—then what happens to Arjuna’s personality? Does he remain only a tool?

If you try to understand it this way, certain truths will become very clear. If a person is made into an instrument, his individuality is destroyed. But if a person becomes an instrument, his individuality blossoms; it does not get destroyed. If, by pressure, someone is turned into a tool, his soul dies. But if someone, by his own hand, surrenders and lets go and becomes a tool, then his soul flowers completely. His individuality does not get destroyed; it is fulfilled. The real difference is not anything more than this: if you forcibly put handcuffs on me, I become a slave. But if I pick up the handcuffs and give them to you, saying, “Put them on my hands,” then I become the master even of my slavery; I become the determiner of my slavery. I often tell the story of Diogenes; it will be good to tell it here.

Diogenes passes through a forest—a naked fakir, carefree. Some people were taking slaves to sell in the market. They saw Diogenes and thought: If only we catch him, he will fetch a great price; such a slave has never been sold in the market—magnificent! If among the other fakirs anyone had a body like Mahavira’s, it was Diogenes. I keep saying: Mahavira could stand naked because he was so beautiful there was nothing worth covering. Such a beautiful personality—and Diogenes had such a personality. They thought, “We are eight—how will we catch him? He alone is enough for all eight; he could finish us.” Still they decided to muster courage.

And remember, whoever goes to suppress another always, inside, feels himself weak; he is always frightened. Remember, whoever frightens others is inwardly frightened. Only those who are fearless can refrain from frightening others; otherwise there is no way. In fact, he frightens the other precisely so that the other may not frighten him.

Machiavelli has written: before anyone attacks you, you attack first—that is the best security. A frightened man!

All eight became afraid. With much conference and firm decision they suddenly attacked Diogenes. But they got into great difficulty. If Diogenes had responded to their attack, they would not have been in trouble, because their plan had included that. Diogenes stood among them with eyes closed, hands folded, and said, “What are your intentions? What game do you intend to play?” They were in difficulty—what to say! They said, “Forgive us, we want to make you a slave.” Diogenes said, “What was the need for so much jumping and leaping? Fools! If you had simply requested, I would have agreed. What is all this fuss, all this hiding? Stop it! Where are your chains?” They were confounded; they had never seen such a man who would say, “Where are your chains?” And he asked with such scolding, as if he were the master and they the slaves. They brought out the chains, handed them over fearfully. He extended his hands and said, “Lock them!” But they protested, “What are you doing? We came to make you a slave—you are becoming one!” Diogenes said, “I have understood the secret: there is only one way to be free in this world—and that is to consent to slavery with your whole heart. Now no one can make me a slave. Now you have no device left. Now you can do nothing.”

Then, as they led him bound, Diogenes said, “You are needlessly carrying the burden of these chains,” because they had to carry them. Diogenes said, “Take them off and throw them away. I am going along with you anyway. Just take care of one thing: don’t run away before time; I am not going to run.” So they took off the chains and put them aside, because such a man he seemed. The one who had himself offered his hands to be shackled—what was the point of binding him further? Wherever they passed, Diogenes walked with majesty, and those who had enslaved him walked very frightened—who knows, he might create some disturbance somewhere, on some road, in some village. And wherever anyone saw them, he looked at Diogenes, and Diogenes would say, “What are you looking at? These are my slaves. They cannot run away leaving me.” Everywhere he would say, “They cannot run away leaving me; they are bound to me.” And the poor fellows were aghast: somehow, let the market come!

They reached the market. They talked to the auctioneer, “Quickly put this man up for auction, because because of him we are in great trouble.” A crowd gathered, and to people he would say, “These are my slaves; they cannot run away leaving me. If there are masters here, they may run away!” Now how could they run away leaving him? He was precious; he would fetch a good price. He was placed on the platform, and the auctioneer cried out loudly, “A very magnificent slave has come to be sold—who will buy?” Diogenes shouted, “Silence, fool! If you don’t know how to call out, I shall call out!” The auctioneer was shaken, for no slave had ever scolded him so. And Diogenes cried out, “Today a master has come to be sold in this market—whoever wishes, let him buy!”

In the kind of instrumentality where we are made into machines—where there is compulsion, where we are like slaves—there the personality dies. But Krishna is not telling Arjuna, “Become mechanical.” Krishna tells Arjuna, “Understand. Do not fight pointlessly against the current of this existence. Understand this current; do not stand across it—flow with it. And then you will blossom completely.” If a man, by his own hand, surrenders to this existence, to this truth, to this cosmic journey, he is not mechanical; he alone is truly a self. Because there is no greater declaration of one’s own mastery in this world than surrender.

Understand this a little more clearly.
There is no greater declaration of one’s own mastery in this world than surrender. Because if I surrender, it means I am my own master and able to surrender. Thus Arjuna does not become mechanical; he becomes self-possessed. And for the first time his individuality flowers in complete effortlessness.

In this connection, understand two or three things.

First: I have indeed said that on Buddha Purnima, on some peak of these very Himalayas in whose ranges we are sitting, at a particular moment on that night, the vision of Buddha’s personality appears. Never have there been more than five hundred lamas on that mountain summit. Only when one among the five hundred is no longer there does a new lama get a place. But there is a fundamental difference between this and the Krishna-vision that came to Aurobindo. In Aurobindo’s vision, Aurobindo is the one striving. In this vision, Buddha is the one who acts; the lamas do not. The lamas are merely present.

This difference should be understood very clearly.

It is Buddha’s assurance that on the night of Buddha Purnima, on such-and-such mountain, at such-and-such moments, he will manifest. This oceanic form of Buddha will, at that hour of that night, rise again as a wave. But in this, the lamas are not doing anything; they have no part in it. That is one difference.

A second difference: Aurobindo’s vision happened in solitude. Between projection and this, there is a basic distinction. These five hundred witness together. Projection is always personal; you cannot make another person participate in it. If, when Aurobindo is seeing Krishna, you say, “Let us come into the room and have you make it happen for us too,” he will say, “That is not possible. It happens only to me; it cannot be seen in partnership with someone else.” But when something appears in front of five hundred people, you cannot call it a projection of an individual mind. And further, those five hundred tally: yes—at the exact moment, at the exact time—what was seen, what was heard; there are five hundred witnesses. In Aurobindo’s case, he is the sole witness. Earlier also I said: in that Krishna-vision there is Aurobindo’s continuous effort—complete striving to have the vision of Krishna. Here there is no striving. Here there is an hour and there is an assurance that is fulfilled: a wave that once rose in the ocean has given its promise—“At such-and-such hour, gather on this shore; I will rise again.”

Could that be collective auto-suggestion?

For several reasons, it cannot be. Because this group of five hundred is limited: not everyone gains entry. Only those are admitted who have become capable of knowing their own unconscious mind—that is the rule of eligibility. Until we have mastery over the unconscious, we can be collectively hypnotized. But the day I have come to know my own unconscious, on that day I cannot be hypnotized. Then there is no way, for nothing remains in me where a suggestion could be planted and some projection created before me. That is why only when one lama leaves is another chosen. And that selection is a very difficult selection; the choosing of a lama is exceedingly difficult and has very strange rules. Even a lama’s dying…

The present Dalai Lama is the very same soul as the previous Dalai Lama. When the previous Dalai Lama dies—whenever a Dalai Lama dies—he leaves a statement of how he will appear the next time, in what sort of body; you must search and find him. And an odd thing: he leaves a small sutra, a cryptic formula. That sutra is announced with drums through village after village across Tibet. The child who can answer that sutra… It is very difficult. When a Dalai Lama dies, he also indicates after how many years that sutra is to be circulated through the villages of Tibet. He indicates what marks will be upon the boy. And apart from this Dalai Lama, no one knows the answer. He writes down the answer; it is all sealed. And when some child gives that answer and all the signs match, then the sealed answer is opened. If the answer is the very same as what this child has given, that will be the testimony that he is worthy to be Dalai Lama; he should be seated in the Dalai Lama’s place. It is the same soul that wrote the answer now giving the answer.

So the Tibetan lamas’ tradition has its very strange sutras. When a place falls vacant, there are rules for finding the new, “empty” person. And through every kind of test they try to ascertain whether this person can be hypnotized. If he can be, he will not be eligible. Therefore there is no scope for collective hypnosis.

Then nothing whatsoever is done. Only these five hundred lamas, at a particular hour, at a particular moment, stand silently, in stillness—and the event happens. No suggestion is given, no talk takes place, no chant is performed. This is a very different matter. It is not the matter of Aurobindo’s Krishna-vision.

Second: as I have said, contact can be established with those souls whose bodies have fallen away but who have not yet become oceanic. Souls who have left the body but have not dissolved into the ocean—whose personality is still bodiless—contact can be made with them. There is no difficulty in that, not the least.

Krishna is not a disembodied soul; he has become oceanic. Gandhi is a disembodied soul. As a rule, contact can be established with all those who die ordinarily. There are its own rules, its own methods, its own techniques. It is not very difficult; it is quite simple. Many times such souls themselves try to establish contact with their kin. We get frightened by it; we are disturbed by it. Those whom we have loved deeply we would not be willing to love when seen bodiless. Those whom we cherished—if tomorrow they were to appear at our door without a body, we would shut the door and call the police, “Save us!” For we have recognized only the body; we have no deeper recognition.

Souls that are outside the body but are seeking new births—establishing contact with them is very simple. There is no question of projection in it, nor of their manifesting; only the instrument called the body is no longer with them; the rest of the instruments they still have. So if you have even a slight intention to establish contact with them, you can very easily do it. Here we are so many people sitting; it is not that only as many are sitting as are visible. As many as are seen are sitting, and those who are not seen are also present; and with them, contact can be established right now, immediately. You need only to be receptive. Close the room, and three people in the room simply sit with eyes closed, hands joined, and make just this prayer: “If there is any soul in this room, let it give its messages.” Tell it what sort of messages to give, and it will begin to give them. You may say, “Let the paperweight on this table jump to give answers,” and in two to four days you will find your paperweight jumping and answering. You may say, “Let the soul knock on the door and make a sound,” and there will be a sound at the door. Then you can take it further. It is not very difficult. Because souls are present all around, twenty-four hours. And there are also souls all around who are always willing—that if you say something, they are ever ready to do it; they are very eager that you in some way establish contact with them; they are hungry for communication; they want to say something, but they are not finding a way to say it. For between them and you the body was the only medium of communication; that has broken, and we know nothing of any other medium. There is no obstacle in this. This is a very straightforward, simple part of the science of spirits.

And as to what has been asked—Is it, as is said, that from one body the soul can go far away and return?

It can absolutely return. It can go as well. For our being in the body is our being in the body; beyond it, a journey is always possible. It has its paths and its methods. One can be outside the body; one can travel; one can go far; one can return. Many times it also happens accidentally, when you know nothing about it. In some deep moment of meditation you will suddenly at times be able to experience that it seems to you you are outside the body and are seeing your own body. Then there are all the extensions of that. But that is a different matter; on that, some other time, if we gather separately, the whole subject of the science of spirits can be discussed.

When a person dies, only the body dies; his chitta does not die. His mind does not die; it goes along with him. And for a little while—just as when we wake from a dream we remember it for a short time, but by noon it has faded, and by evening nothing remains—likewise, when we rise out of the dream, we remember the last part for a bit. We saw the dream in unconsciousness, not in awareness, yet as sleep begins to break a little awareness arises, and whatever part of the dream was imprinted in that slight awareness is remembered on waking. But as the day brightens, it all bids farewell; by evening we remember nothing of the dream.

So too, as soon as someone leaves the body, for a short time—and the duration will vary with each person’s memory—he remembers his own people, his dear ones. Many measures have been devised to help let go of one’s kin and loved ones. No sooner has a man died than we want to take his body straight to the cremation ground. We want to erase his identity immediately, for there is no longer any meaning in his remembering us. And the longer this body is kept, the longer he can remember us, because it is through this very body that all his memories are linked to us. This body is the connecting link. We carry it away. For a short while after a person dies, he doesn’t even realize he is dead, because within, nothing has died. For a little while he feels only that something has gone amiss: the body seems separate, I seem separate! Those who have gone into meditation do not suffer this confusion, because they have already passed through this experience before. At death most people fall into great bewilderment. The first confusion is: What is this about? Why are these people weeping and crying that I have died—because I am! Only it is felt that the body that was mine is lying apart, and I feel a little apart; nothing else seems to have died.

Through this body run all our associations of memory; therefore we take the corpse to the cremation ground at once and burn or bury it. As soon as the body dissolves, the web of memories connecting that person to us is immediately severed. And just as a man who rises from sleep soon forgets his dream, so one who has risen from what we call “life”—that is, one who has died—soon forgets everything. How long it takes to forget is what our traditional periods are based on. Those with very weak memory forget within three days. Those with a somewhat stronger memory forget within thirteen days. These are general estimates—three days or thirteen days—but generally it is so. But a person with the most intense memory forgets within a year. That is why certain rites are maintained for up to a year—to keep a slight connection, because for up to a year it may remain. But ordinarily it does not; within three days everything is broken. For some it breaks even sooner. It will depend from person to person. Very few souls remain disembodied for as long as a year; most very quickly take a new birth.

One who dies in awareness does not die at all, to begin with. One who is fully conscious at the moment of death never dies, because he knows only the body has been dropped. And one who is that awake has no kith or kin, no dear ones, no strangers. One who is that awake is not burdened by memory. About such a one there is nothing more to say. And one who dies consciously will take the next birth consciously. Just as I said that for a few days after death we retain some remembrance of where we came from, so for a few days after birth the child remembers where he has come from. Some slight memories of that intermediate state—the life as a disembodied spirit—remain. But they gradually disappear, and they fade before speech becomes available. Occasionally, in very rare children with exceptionally strong memory, those impressions persist even after they begin to speak. That is rare—possible only because of an extraordinary capacity for memory.

A question has been asked in this connection: apart from mystical experience, is there any philosophical proof for rebirth?

Philosophical proofs are only logical; they rest on reason. And the problem with reason is that arguments of equal weight can be made both for and against. To speak plainly, those who know call logic a prostitute: it can take a stand with anyone. Logic has no private intention of its own.

So those who have tried to prove by argument and philosophy that rebirth is, have been countered with arguments of equal weight proving that it is not. Logic is sophistry. It is like a lawyer: it has no accounting of its own. Whosoever hires it, it pleads for him with full strength. Therefore nothing is ever concluded by logic. It often appears as if conclusions have been reached, but they never truly are—because they can be refuted by opposite arguments with equal force. In fact, if logic can go so far in one direction, it can go just as far in the opposite. Hence philosophy will never settle whether rebirth is or is not. It will talk—talk for thousands of years—but nothing will be proven.

There is another quirk with logic: what you set out to prove is what you have already assumed. What you try to establish you have already accepted beforehand; argument comes afterward. It is your presupposition.

A friend of mine is a senior professor and conducts research on reincarnation at a university. Someone brought him to meet me. As soon as we met he said, “I want to prove scientifically that reincarnation exists.” I said, then it won’t be scientific, because you have already fixed what you want to prove. To be scientific means you say, “I want to find out whether reincarnation exists or not.” You say, “I want to prove that reincarnation exists.” Then the proving is already present in your mind. That reincarnation is—this is already settled for you; now only the collection of arguments remains. Arguments can always be collected. Another man wants to prove that reincarnation does not exist: that too is already settled; now arguments can be gathered. And this world is so astonishing and so complex that arguments are available for every side. There is no difficulty in that.

Philosophy will never prove whether reincarnation is or is not. So move your question a little. Ask instead whether science can say anything about reincarnation.

Philosophy will never be able to. It has been speaking for five thousand years and nothing is resolved. Those who believe it is, go on believing; those who believe it is not, go on disbelieving. The one who says “is” can never convince the one who says “is not,” and the one who says “is not” can never convince the one who says “is.” It is a great joke that the one who is not already convinced is never convinced at all. This is logic’s impotence: you can only convince the one who was already convinced. Which makes it meaningless. You can convince a Hindu that reincarnation exists, because he is already convinced. Try convincing a Muslim—then you will know. You can convince a Christian that reincarnation does not exist; try convincing a Hindu—then you will know. Logic works only for the one already agreeable to a doctrine; it can do nothing else.

No, put the question differently: can anything be said in a scientific way about whether reincarnation is or is not?

Yes. Science does not proceed with a partisan stance. Philosophy and logic do. The scientific mind is impartial; both alternatives are open; nothing is closed. It says, “This may be so, that may be so; let us inquire.” Since science began to inquire—not long ago, only about fifty years ago—psychic societies in Europe and America came into being and began some work. It has only been about fifty years that a few intelligent people with the scientific kind of mind—not the mystic’s, for the mystic has long been saying ‘it is’ but cannot give proof—have undertaken this.

The mystic says, “I know; you can know too; but I cannot make you know.” He says, “It is like my headache; I know I have it. When you have a headache you too will know. But you cannot know my headache. However much I grimace, beat my chest and cry, you can still say, ‘Who knows whether you are acting or really in pain!’”—this can always be said.

In the last fifty years a few people in Europe—Oliver Lodge, Broad, Rhine—have begun to explore certain directions. These are scientific-minded people with no prior creed. The work they initiated is gradually becoming more credible. Its findings are deep; and their weight grows in the direction that rebirth happens, and grows weaker in the direction that it does not. For example, contact with spirits has been established—through careful methods, with many arrangements, and with all sorts of scientific precautions to ensure there is no fraud. Many cases have indeed turned out to be fraudulent. But that is not the point. Even if one single case is not fraudulent, it is significant.

So, scientifically established contacts with spirits have been made, and on the basis of those contacts information has begun to come that the soul changes bodies. Some members of psychic societies who worked on this all their lives made a pledge at the time of death that after dying they would try their utmost to send information. Two or three such people succeeded. After death they delivered specific messages they had promised to send before dying. From these, some evidence has been gathered.

Further, new dimensions of human personality—such as telepathy, clairvoyance, clairaudience, distant-seeing, and distant-communication—have been investigated extensively. A man sitting a thousand miles away can receive a message I send from here without any external device. That means communication is possible in a disembodied manner, not only through the body.

You might say: it could be only mind, not soul!

Let us speak of that too. Even if it is “mind,” something other than the body is now in play. And once the notion enters the scientific imagination that there is something different from the body, the soul is not far. The issue, after all, is this: is there something within that is other than the body? If it is established that within the body there is something distinct from it—call it mind—the journey has begun. Science’s journey will begin just so: at first, mind; slowly, slowly we can lead science toward the soul and have it point in that direction. But mind is.

There is a man named Ted whose very unusual phenomena have been studied in psychic societies. If he is sitting in New York—he has never seen me, never seen a photograph of me, never heard of me—and you ask him to think about me, he will close his eyes and concentrate on me. After half an hour, when he opens his eyes, a camera can extract my image from his eye. Thousands of such images have been captured, and when compared with my actual photograph, it is astonishing: they are almost the same—only a faintness of detail, little more. Not as sharp, but essentially the same.

What does this mean?

It means his eye, in some manner, has been able to see me. Not only see me, but just as when you are in front of me an image forms on your eye, so too the image of an unknown, unmet person hundreds or thousands of miles away has formed in his eye. Thousands of experiments have been done, thousands of images of thousands of people captured from that man’s eye.

As for telepathy, many experiments have been conducted. And now that space travel has begun—man has gone to the moon; tomorrow to Mars—there will be long journeys where travelers will be gone for years and return after years. Even to Mars, a round trip will take about a year. On such long journeys, if the instruments misfire even a little, we may never have any connection with those travelers again; we won’t know where they went or what happened—whether they survived or not. Communication by radio might fail altogether.

Hence both Russia and America, where deep research in space travel is underway, have become keenly interested in telepathy. If someday a space traveler’s instruments fail and he cannot send us news by radio, he should be able to send it by telepathy. An alternative is needed; machines are unreliable. Even here we keep a backup battery set—machines can fail anytime. With ordinary devices, failure is not dangerous; but if a space traveler’s instruments fail and we cannot communicate with him, once the link is broken we will never know where he went, whether he even still exists. It will become the tale of Ashwatthama—we will never know; he will never die for us. We will never be able to know anything about him again. So there must be some means of sending news besides instruments.

Therefore both Russia and America are deeply interested in telepathy, and both have conducted significant experiments. In Russia there is a man named Fayadev who has successfully sent messages thousands of miles. Sitting in one place he sends a message to a particular person, and that person experiences the message arising within.

Thus science is slowly advancing toward the understanding that man is not only a body; there is something bodiless within him. And once that is settled, the door to reincarnation will open. What could not be done by philosophy, what mystics could not make everyone understand, science may be able to do. It is possible. It is happening.

Such experiments have been tried in many places, but they have not been conclusive. The idea behind them is natural—because science, when it thinks, thinks in the language of matter: if a man dies and there is something in him beyond the body, and that something departs, then the weight ought to decrease. But it may be that what departs is weightless. Why must it have weight at all? Or its weight may be so minute that we have no instrument to measure it.

Take sunlight: does it have weight? It does. Put darkness on one pan of a scale and light on the other—if sunrays have weight, the lighted pan should dip. It doesn’t. You might conclude sunrays have no weight. And yet they do. If you could collect all the sunrays falling on one square mile, they would give about a tola of weight. But that is a very difficult thing to achieve! So how much weight a soul might have—there is still a long way to go before we could know that.

In those experiments they sealed a dying person in a glass casket from all sides, leaving no pore, no door. He died. If something had left him, the weight should have decreased a little. Secondly, for that which left to get out, the glass should have broken, since there was no opening. But neither happened. The glass did not break—because glass is not a barrier to many things. The sun gets through, the rays pass through. Bone and iron are not barriers either; X-rays pass through. So why put the soul to the hassle of having to break something to get out! An X-ray goes through your bones and chest, brings out an image, and nothing breaks, no hole appears. If even the very gross X-ray can pass through glass without breaking it, through bone without breaking it, through iron bars and an iron wall without breaking them—what difficulty would the soul have! Logically no difficulty is apparent. And much in existence is weightless. In truth, what we call weight is, when understood more deeply, not weight at all but gravitation. We will have to understand this a bit technically.

Suppose your weight here is forty kilos; on the moon it will not be forty. You will be exactly the same, but on the moon your weight will be eight times less. Therefore, if you can jump six feet here, on the moon you could jump eight times higher—because the moon’s gravitational pull is eight times less than Earth’s. All weight is the weight of the earth’s pull. It may be that the earth does not pull the soul. It is not necessary that gravitation should attract the soul. Then there would be no weight. If someday we create a place that is non-gravitational, no one would have any weight there.

For those who travel to the moon, the most costly and dangerous experience is weightlessness. As soon as the earth’s sphere is left behind—the earth pulls up to two hundred miles; up to two hundred miles is the earth’s gravitational field; beyond two hundred miles that sphere ends—after that, a person becomes completely weightless. Therefore, for an astronaut, if the belt fastened around the waist comes loose even a little, he will float like a balloon inside the craft. His head will go up and touch the ceiling, and coming down will be very difficult—because without gravitation it is very hard to come down; one has to be pulled.

So, if gravitation applies to the soul, then such experiments—whether in Paris or elsewhere—are appropriate; otherwise not. My own understanding is that the laws that operate on matter do so because of matter’s density. If we understand the soul rightly, it is the very culmination of rarefaction. Therefore no laws operate on it; it goes beyond law. Until we search for it with new laws—so long as we continue to investigate the soul on the basis of the laws of matter—science’s answer regarding the soul will remain a denial. It will say, “It is not.” But those psychical societies I mentioned, the experiments of Rhine and Myers, of Oliver Lodge and Broad—these people are abandoning the prestigious material methods of measurement and are searching for the unknown measures of the soul. From them hope arises that gradually some principles will be distilled, and science will be able to bear witness to that which the mystics have always testified to, though they have not been able to furnish proof.

There are reasons. First, the relationship between Ramakrishna and Vivekananda is that of master and disciple. The relationship between Krishna and Arjuna is not a guru–disciple relationship. Second, Krishna’s entire effort is not to send a message to the world through Arjuna; it is to give a message to Arjuna himself. Ramakrishna’s effort is not to give a message to Vivekananda, but to carry a message to the world through Vivekananda. Krishna didn’t even know that what he was saying would become the Gita. It became so by accident. Krishna must have spoken naturally, standing on the battlefield. He could not have known that these words would become so precious that people would ponder them for centuries. They were spoken solely for Arjuna—just for his understanding. It was not that Arjuna would go and announce it to the world. The news was to transform Arjuna; it was exclusively for him. It was a deeply intimate conversation. A simple, personal dialogue between two individuals. And my own experience is that whatever is truly significant in this world is always an intimate dialogue. Always. That is why the one who writes never reaches the depth the one who speaks can reach. Whatever is supreme in the world has been spoken.

Just this morning we were saying—Aurobindo did not speak; he wrote. Krishna, Christ, Buddha, Mahavira, Ramana, Krishnamurti—all spoke. Speaking is a personal medium; writing is impersonal. When we write—letters apart—we do not write for anyone in particular. Who the receiver is, is unknown, abstract. But speaking is very personal, private—we speak to someone.

So Krishna is speaking directly to Arjuna. The world is not in the picture here. It is a conversation between two friends. With Ramakrishna the situation is different, and for definite reasons. As I said in the morning, if you remember that, you will understand. Ramakrishna had realization, but he had virtually no voice. All his life he suffered this pain: “If only I could find someone who could give voice to what I know.” What he knew, he could not articulate. Ramakrishna was utterly uneducated, unschooled—perhaps passed or failed the second Bengali class; that was his schooling. He had known much, but how to say it? He had no words, no facility, no apparatus for it. So he needed someone who had words, facility, articulation. Vivekananda had logic, voice, expression. Ramakrishna had experience but no logic, no voice, no expression. Even the statements of Ramakrishna that are available to us today are heavily edited and polished. Because Ramakrishna was a rustic man; in speaking he would even swear. He would use curse words—he was a villager! He spoke as a simple villager speaks. All those “abusive” words had to be cut. I don’t think that was right; the report should be authentic. It should be as he said it. All right, he used swear words—what of it? What is so wrong with a swear word? It should be there. But we get scared: a saint and swearing—and a Paramhansa! Remove that. So Ramakrishna has had to be presented with much pruning.

Ramakrishna had no instrument for conveying a message. He was almost mute. When Vivekananda came to him, Ramakrishna’s hope arose: this man will be able to say to the world what has happened within me. Therefore Vivekananda had to become an instrument.

Let me tell you an incident to make it clear.

Vivekananda had a great longing for samadhi. Ramakrishna explained samadhi to him and led him into it. Ramakrishna was majestic, of such presence that his very being could become samadhi for someone; even his touch could do much—so alive was his personality. The day Vivekananda first experienced samadhi, what did he do?

There was a man in the ashram named Kalu. He lived near the Dakshineswar temple. A very simple, guileless man. As long as such simple people live around temples, temples are safe; the day clever people arrive, everything is spoiled. Kalu was very simple. He spent the whole day in worship because his room was crammed with gods and goddesses—not one or two, but a whole age’s worth. Whoever he found, he brought home. There was no space left in his room for himself; he slept outside. Whoever gets entangled with God will one day have to sleep outside—God takes up all the space inside. He was in such a fix: he had hundreds of gods, gods of all kinds. Wherever he found a deity, he brought it. If he began worship in the morning, evening would fall—he had to worship them all.

Vivekananda told him many times, “Kalu, you are foolish. Throw them all away! God is invisible, present everywhere.” Kalu would say, “Maybe so; first let me finish with my own loft!” He was a simple soul. Vivekananda gave him many arguments. But you can’t give arguments to a simple man. He would laugh and say, “You speak well, but now that I’ve brought them home, I must at least welcome and serve them.” Many times Vivekananda said, “Throw them out—what are these stones and idols you’ve piled up? Little Shankars, big Shankars, who knows what-all! What have you done? You waste your whole day—putting tilak on someone, ringing the bell—your time is being squandered.” Kalu would say, “Others’ time is being squandered somewhere else; mine is being squandered here—what great difference does it make? And what harm is there, after all!”

The day Vivekananda first entered samadhi, suddenly a surge of energy arose within, and the first thought that came to him was: “If, in this moment of energy, I tell Kalu to throw away his gods, he won’t be able to resist.” It happened telepathically. He only thought it, and that simple man Kalu received the message. He tied up all his gods in a bundle and set off toward the Ganges to throw them in. Vivekananda had only thought it; he was shut in his room. But when energy arises—remember this: when energy arises, do not, even by mistake, use it. Otherwise great harm happens. Let it arise; its very arising is its use. Do not use it for anything. Vivekananda immediately used it, and the one whom he could not persuade by argument he disturbed by the back door. He had no idea—he merely thought, “If right now I tell Kalu, ‘Get up and throw them all away,’ there is such energy in me that Kalu won’t be able to resist.” He only thought it. Over there Kalu, in the midst of his worship, tied his bundle, slung all the gods over his shoulder, and headed out. Ramakrishna saw him and said, “Madman, take them back inside.” Kalu said, “All useless.” Ramakrishna said, “Kalu, this is not you speaking. Someone else is speaking. Come inside. I’ll deal with the devil who is speaking.”

He ran, broke open the door, shook Vivekananda and said, “Enough. This was your last samadhi. You will not need samadhi for now. And the key to it I will keep with me. I’ll return the key three days before I die.”

Vivekananda cried and pleaded, “What are you doing? Give me samadhi.”

Ramakrishna said, “I still have much work to take from you. If you go into samadhi now, you will be gone completely—and the work that is needed will not happen. You still have to carry what I have known to the whole world. Do not be infatuated and do not be selfish. You have to become a great tree, a banyan, under whose shade thousands can rest. Therefore I will keep your key with me.”

The key was kept. Only three days before he died was it returned to Vivekananda. Three days before his death, samadhi again became available to him.

But what I want to point out is this: the samadhi for which a key can be kept cannot be more than psychic. A samadhi that depends on someone else’s yes or no cannot be beyond mind; it cannot be trans-mental. And a samadhi in which the thought arises to make Kalu throw away his idols cannot be profoundly spiritual; there is no reason for such a thought to arise there.

So the samadhi that happened to Vivekananda is mental—far above the body, but far below the soul. And because of Ramakrishna’s predicament, it was necessary to stop Vivekananda from going deeper. Otherwise, who would carry the message? Today we know Ramakrishna only because of Vivekananda. But Vivekananda had to make a great sacrifice. For this vast world such a sacrifice is meaningful. Ramakrishna had to stop Vivekananda at the psychic level so he would not go beyond; otherwise he could not have been persuaded. And Ramakrishna’s dilemma was this: what came together in Buddha—knowing and saying—did not come together in Ramakrishna. He was alone: he had knowing, but not the telling. He could not say it. So he had to take support on another’s shoulders. Ramakrishna traveled seated on Vivekananda’s shoulders.

Therefore I consider that Vivekananda became—was made—an instrument. But Krishna is not making Arjuna into an instrument. There is no question of instrument at all; he is simply saying what is, revealing it.

Now let us sit for meditation.