Main Kahta Akhan Dekhi #4

On this, two or three points should be kept in mind. First, in that state there is neither stillness nor movement. This will be hard to grasp, because for us the only two possibilities are movement and stillness: if there is no movement, there must be stillness; if there is no stillness, there must be movement. We also take them to be opposites.

The first thing to understand is that movement and stillness are not opposites; they are gradations of the same phenomenon. What we call stillness is a movement too swift for our grip. What we call movement is a stillness that our mind fails to conceive. With very high velocity, movement appears still. Look at the fan above: when it spins fast, its three blades are no longer discernible. At extreme speed you cannot even infer how many blades there are, because before the gap between the blades can register, a blade has already filled it. A fan can run so fast that you could touch it and not sense its movement. Science says that everything that appears static is in motion—only the motion is beyond our grasp. So stillness and motion are not two different things; they are degrees of one.

In the realm where there is no body, neither exists—neither motion nor stillness. Where there is no body, there is no space and no time as we know them. It is exceedingly difficult for us to think of anything outside space and time, because we know nothing that lies beyond them.

So what will be there if both are absent? We have no words for it. When reports first came from religious experience about that state, this difficulty arose—how to say it? There are parallel examples in science too: whenever an experience arises that differs from our conceptual frames, language falters.

Some forty years ago, when science first encountered the electron, the question arose: is it a particle or a wave? Great difficulty followed, because a particle is conceived as localized and at rest, a wave as spread and moving. The electron was both at once. Sometimes it presented as particle, sometimes as wave. No language had a single term “particle-wave” to express it. When scientists said “both,” even they found it inconceivable. People told Einstein, “You assert two mutually contradictory propositions—this is mystifying.” Einstein replied, “Shall we honor logic or fact? The fact is: it is both. Logic insists it must be one.”

Similarly, religious experience says: in that interval—between leaving one body and taking another—there is neither stillness nor movement. Anyone who says this will sound beyond comprehension. Hence some religions settled for saying it is still; others, that it is moving. That is only to ease explanation. In truth, you cannot call it either, because the very milieu in which motion and rest occur is absent there. Both require a body. Without body, neither motion nor rest has meaning, for the same instrument that allows movement allows stillness.

Take this hand. I move it, or I hold it still. You may ask: when the hand is gone, will the soul within it be at rest or in motion? Both questions are futile. Without the hand, it can neither move nor be still. Rest and motion are properties of the body. Outside the body, they have no meaning.

The same applies to all dualities—to speaking and to silence. Without the body, one can neither speak nor be silent. We easily accept that speech needs the body; harder to grasp that silence does too. But silence is also a mode of speech—it is one state of speaking, a not-speaking within the dimension of speech.

Consider an example. A man is congenitally blind. We imagine he sees darkness. That’s our misconception. Darkness too requires eyes to be seen. Without eyes, even darkness is not perceived. We err because when we close our eyes we still have eyes, we are not blind. One who had sight and lost it can still imagine darkness—that is a leftover image, not truth, and the congenitally blind do not have even that. Darkness is as much an experience of the eye as light is. The same with ears: “not hearing” is also an experience only ears can register. Without ears there is no event called “not hearing.” It is like darkness.

So the very sense-organ that enables motion also enables rest. If either is absent, the other is too. In that state, the soul neither speaks nor keeps silence—both are impossible, because the instruments are absent. These are all instrument-dependent phenomena. All experiences of the world need instruments, means, senses.

Where the body is not, all body-related experiences evaporate. Then what remains? If, while living in the body, you have had any bodiless experience, that will remain. Otherwise nothing remains. If, while alive, there has been any experience for which the body was not the medium, that remains.

Deep experiences of meditation remain. Ordinary meditative experiences—say seeing light—do not remain. But if in meditation something happened where the body had no role whatsoever—where you could say, “Whether there was a body or not was irrelevant to me”—that will remain. Yet there is no language for such experience—even while the body is present, language fails. Such are the difficulties.

This does not mean that such a soul has attained liberation. The descriptions can sound similar, so what is the difference between moksha and the disembodied interval between two bodies? The difference lies in potentiality, in the seed—not in actuality. In the disembodied gap between two lives, all your impressions, all samskaras from all births, remain in seed form. With a body they at once become active again. If a man loses his legs, his memories of running do not vanish. He cannot run, but he also cannot “stop running”—for stopping presupposes the capacity to run. Give him legs again, and the whole stream of running-samskaras will become active.

Or a man drives a car, then the car is taken away. He can neither press the accelerator nor apply the brake—both belong to the car experience. He is outside the car, but the entire competence remains in seed. Years later, put his foot on a pedal and he can drive.

In moksha, samskaras are absent. In the interval between bodies, only the senses are absent. In liberation, all experiences and all experience-born impressions, all karma—everything has dissolved; the shedding has happened. The similarity between the two is that in both there is no body. The dissimilarity is that in moksha there is neither body nor the web of body-related experiences; in the interval, all the subtle waves of body-related experiences remain as seeds, ready to sprout. And whatever experiences occur there will be those that do not require a body—like I said, meditative ones.

But deep meditation is rare—perhaps one in a million. What of the rest? They too will have experiences—dream experiences. In dreams the body’s senses do not function. It is conceivable that if we could keep a man dreaming and, while his sleep continued, separate his body part by part, there need be no disturbance in his dream. The practical difficulty is that he would wake up. If only we could keep him asleep while dismembering him, his dream would continue unbroken—because no bodily part is essential to the dream. In dreams, the body is inactive; it plays no role. Your experiences there remain. In fact, all your experiences in that interval take the form of dreams.

Ask: in a dream are you still or moving? It is hard to say. Waking, you find you lay still in bed; yet within the dream there was great movement. Strictly speaking, even movement in dreams is not real. If you understand precisely, in dreams you are not a participant but only a witness. You can see yourself dying in a dream; you can see your own corpse. Even when you see yourself walking, what you see walking is only the dream; you remain the seer. Properly understood, in dream you are only the witness.

Hence religion devised a maxim: one who comes to see the world as dream-like attains the supreme realization. Philosophies calling the world maya or dream arose for this reason: if we can see the world as a dream, we become the witness. In dreams there is never a participant; there is always a witness. You may see characters, but you are the one who sees—you remain the seer, the spectator.

So the experiences in that interval are seed-like, body-free, dream-like. Those whose experiences have bred sorrow will see hellish dreams, nightmares. Those who have gathered joy will see heavenly dreams, pleasant visions. But all of this is dream-like.

At times, further events occur. Sometimes these disembodied souls—neither at rest nor moving—enter into bodies. Strictly speaking, the language “they enter” is flawed; it is more accurate to say that at times a body allows them entry.

Their realm is not really separate from ours. It is right near us, alongside. We share the same world. Every inch of space is filled with souls. What appears empty is full.

If any body comes into a deeply receptive state, entry can happen. There are two ways bodies become receptive: either in intense fear, or in deep prayer. The more fearful a person, the more his own soul shrinks within, leaving much of the body empty. Into those empty spaces, nearby souls can flow like water into a pit. Then the experiences that occur will be just as they are for embodied souls. In a deep moment of prayer too, a soul can enter, because in prayer one’s own soul also shrinks.

But in fear, only those souls enter who are seeing painful dreams—what we call “evil spirits.” A fearful person is in an ugly, impure state; a noble soul cannot enter there. The fearful person is like a pit into which only descending souls can come.

A person filled with prayer is like a peak; only ascending souls can enter. And prayer fills one with such inner fragrance and beauty that only the noblest souls are drawn. They too are nearby. Thus what is called invocation, calling, prayer—through it too, entry happens, but of the most refined souls. In both these states, the experiences are just as they would be in a body.

So the so-called “invocation of deities” has its science. Those deities do not come from some distant sky, nor do ghosts come from some netherworld. They are all here. In truth, existence is multi-dimensional at one and the same place. Take this room: we are sitting here; air is present. If someone burns incense, fragrance fills the room; if someone sings, sound waves fill it too. No particle of incense collides with any sound wave. The room can be filled with music and with light, yet light waves do not collide with sound waves, nor does one push the other out to make space. The same space is filled by sound along one dimension, by light along another, by air along a third. In this way thousands of dimensions can fill this same room without hindering one another. Space is multi-dimensional.

Place a table here and you cannot place another table in the same spot—because both occupy the same dimension. But existence in other dimensions is unhindered by this table.

All these souls are right beside us, and entry can happen at any time. When they enter, their experiences become just as they are in embodiment.

Secondly, once they enter a person, they can use speech; then dialogue is possible. Hence, to this day no ghost or deity has ever communicated directly without a medium. But that does not mean there have been no dialogues—there have been, through mediums. The information we have about heavens and hells, about deities and spirits, is not from fantasists but from those very beings—through someone’s instrumentality.

From very ancient times the arrangement was like this: take the Vedas. No rishi claims authorship. This is not out of modesty; it is factual. These utterances were not originally spoken by them; another soul spoke through them. And the experience is very clear: when another soul enters and speaks, you know full well you are sitting aside, not speaking—someone else is. You too are a listener, not the speaker. From outside it may be hard to tell, but even outwardly those who are perceptive can notice: the tone changes, the cadence changes, even the language can change. For the person himself, it is crystal clear.

If a ghostly soul enters, the person may be so terrified as to faint. If a divine soul enters, he will be more alert than ever; he will see the situation with great clarity. Those in whom ghostly souls enter can only say so after the spirit departs—in the moment they are too frightened. Those in whom a divine soul enters can say it right then: “Someone else is speaking; this is not me.” Two voices use the same instrument, as two speakers use the same microphone: one falls silent, the other begins.

When the body’s senses are thus employed, dialogue happens. Therefore, what is available in the world about gods and spirits is communicated—spoken—through mediums. There is no other way to know.

Complete sciences were developed around this. When science is complete, things can be used knowingly. Without it, phenomena occur only sporadically. Gradually conditions were mapped: if a divine soul entered someone accidentally, people studied under what circumstances that happened, and then created those conditions deliberately.

For example, Muslims burn loban (frankincense); Hindus burn incense or ghee lamps—to create an atmosphere of fragrance conducive to the entry of certain noble souls. Special mantras are intoned. A mantra becomes an invocation. It need not have meaning; often it does not. Meaningful mantras get distorted over time; meaningless mantras do not. Meanings shift with eras; pure sound does not. The deepest mantras are meaning-less—only sound, with a precise discipline of utterance: the same strike, intensity, rise and fall. With the right articulation, that soul can immediately enter—or, if the specific soul is not available, a similar one can.

Across religions such mantras exist. Take the Jains’ Namokar mantra. It has five parts, each a deeper invocation addressed to a different order of souls. Contrary to common practice, one should not always recite the entire mantra; one should emphasize the specific part that relates to the desired connection. Each section calls a distinct category.

“Namo Arihantanam”—salutation to the Arihants. Arihant is specifically a Jain term, meaning one who has destroyed all enemies—ari meaning enemy, hant meaning slayer; that is, one who has completely ended the senses’ tyranny. This is a highly specific call, connecting only to Jain-divine souls of that class—not to Christ, nor to the Buddha. It is a technical term for a technical invocation. The last part, “Namo Loye Savva Sahunam”—salutation to all sages—is general; it seeks connection with any saintly soul, Jain or otherwise.

Thus, in every religion there are such mantras, and they became power-formulas, seed-syllables—like names. Call “Ram!” and the one named Ram turns his head. So with mantras for spirits as well, each with its own lore. Individual mediums will come and go, souls will change, but compatible souls will always be available for connection. In such conditions, dialogue is possible.

Consider Muhammad. He consistently said: I am only a prophet, a messenger. He never felt that what he delivered was “his.” A voice descended—what Muslims call ilhām, revelation. Someone entered within and began to speak. Muhammad himself feared people would not believe him: “I have never spoken like this; there is no background for others to accept me.” He came home frightened, hesitant even to tell anyone, lest only disbelief greet him. He first told his wife, and even to her he said, “Believe it if you can; if not, let it be. If you believe, I will tell others; otherwise I will not.” Because what had come came from above; it was not his voice—only the words were his, the speaker was another. His wife believed; then he told a few close ones. The same happened with Moses—revelation descended.

This descent of utterance is a greater soul employing someone as an instrument. Not everyone can be used—one must be pure enough to become a vehicle. It is no small event; that level of purity is needed. Then dialogue happens—through someone else’s body.

There was a recent attempt with Krishnamurti which failed. The Buddha had foretold one more advent as Maitreya. Much time passed—twenty-five centuries—with no suitable womb available. It seemed Maitreya wished to incarnate, but no worthy womb could be found. So another plan arose: if a womb is not possible, then develop a person as a vehicle and let the message descend through him.

A vast enterprise began. The entire Theosophical movement was built essentially to find and prepare such a person as a vehicle. With Muhammad or Moses, the soul that wished to convey the message did not need to fashion a vehicle; it found one ready. Those were simpler times: egos were lighter, there was humility to step aside and allow another to use one’s body. Today this is nearly impossible: individuality is dense, ego heavy; no one yields even an inch. So they sought to prepare a person.

The Theosophists chose three or four children. Krishnamurti was selected, his brother Nityananda too; also Krishna Menon and George Arundale. Nityananda died due to the intense efforts to make him a medium for Maitreya; his death so shocked Krishnamurti that it hindered his becoming a medium.

At age nine, Krishnamurti was taken in by Annie Besant and Leadbeater. But the world is a grand drama, a play of great forces. As the possibility of Maitreya descending through Krishnamurti grew, the soul of Devadatta—the cousin who opposed the Buddha all his life—overpowered Krishnamurti’s father. A lawsuit ensued up to the Privy Council. Krishnamurti’s father claimed his child had been seized and demanded his return. Annie Besant fought with all her might, but legally she could not win; the children were minors and the father had rights. Even the children’s wishes would not have mattered. Krishnamurti had to be taken out of India. The case was lost in lower courts and the supreme court; the Privy Council finally gave a decision—breaking precedent—to leave Krishnamurti with Annie Besant. It was an extra-legal decision; but there was no appeal beyond it. That decision too became possible through Maitreya’s force; otherwise it could not have happened. They reserved that intervention for the last court, since lower courts could be overruled.

On the visible plane there was a legal struggle; on the higher plane, a struggle of forces. More effort was poured into Krishnamurti than perhaps on any person by others. Individuals have labored on themselves even more, but seldom have others done so much for one. Yet, despite everything, at the last moment the matter went awry.

The day came in Holland, with six thousand gathered from all over the world, for the announcement that Krishnamurti would set aside his personality and accept Maitreya’s. All preparations were complete. Only one step remained: he would say publicly, “I am no longer Krishnamurti,” deny the Krishnamurti-persona, sit empty, and let Maitreya enter and speak. At the final moment, nothing happened. Devadatta’s force struck again, and Krishnamurti refused: “I am no teacher, no world guru; I have nothing to do with any soul. I am myself, and I have said what I have to say.” A great experiment failed. In one sense it was the first of its kind; failure was likely.

On that plane, souls cannot converse unless they take hold of someone’s body. Nor do they progress in-between. Hence human birth is indispensable. If someone dies today and remains disembodied a hundred years, he undergoes no development in that time. Wherever he ended in his last life, from exactly there he will begin in the next, no matter how long the interval. It is not a time of growth—like sleep. You rise in the morning exactly where you lay down at night. That is why many religions became wary of sleep and tried to reduce it—because no development occurs in sleep.

Likewise, between two bodies, you are reborn where you died. Your inner status does not change. It is like stopping a clock and restarting it later—it begins where it stopped. All development is suspended in-between.

Therefore, no one attains liberation from the deva-realm. The sole reason is that in the deva-realm there is no karma-realm, no field of action. You cannot do anything there; nothing happens—only endless dreams. One must return to being human.

As far as acquaintance is concerned, even two spirits, if they wish to become acquainted, can do so only by entering two persons. They cannot meet directly. It is almost like twenty people sleeping together in this room: we are here all night, yet in sleep we cannot become acquainted. Our acquaintance belongs only to wakefulness. When we wake up it can continue, but in sleep we cannot be acquainted; there is no relationship at all. Yes, it can happen that one person wakes up—then he can see everyone.

This means that if one soul enters someone’s body, that soul can see all these souls—yet those souls will not see it. And if a soul enters a body, it can know something about other souls that are bodiless; but those souls will not be able to know anything about it.

In truth, the knowing—the acquaintance—we speak of is possible only through the mind, and that instrument leaves with the body. Still, some possibilities remain. If, while alive, someone has cultivated mind-free telepathy or clairvoyance—if he has discovered ways of knowing without the brain—then even in the ghost or deva realms he will be able to know. But such people are very few. The souls who have given some “news” about that realm are of this kind.

It is almost as if twenty people drink liquor and all pass out, except one who has practiced so much that, however much he drinks, he does not lose consciousness. He remains aware even after drinking. The one who can remain aware in intoxication can speak about the experience of alcohol in a way the unconscious can never speak—never—because they were unconscious before they could know anything.

Throughout history there have been small groups that prepared a few people so that, after death, they might give some information about that realm. For example, there was a small society in London of which some eminent people—like Sir Oliver Lodge—were members. They made every effort; when Oliver Lodge died, they tried their utmost that he might send a message after death.

Yet even after twenty years of effort, no message could be received. It seems Oliver Lodge tried hard—other souls reported that he was trying—but the tuning never matched. For twenty years he repeatedly knocked at the doors of those he had promised, “I will send a message. The first thing I will do after dying is to let you know.” He had been fully prepared to do so. It would happen like this: as if a man sleeping is suddenly startled—his companion sits up in a fright, feeling Oliver Lodge is close by. And then the matter would end there.

The tuning would not settle. Oliver Lodge went prepared, but there was no one on this side sufficiently prepared to catch what he was saying. He kept trying for twenty years. Who knows how many times someone walking alone on the road suddenly felt a hand on the shoulder. Friends who knew the touch of Oliver Lodge’s hand would be startled and exclaim, “Lodge!”—and then the moment would be gone. So many times—over twenty years—his companions became anxious and distressed: “What is happening?” Yet not a single clear message could be delivered, though he knocked at many doors.

A double preparation is required. If, while alive, one has deep experience of telepathy, the capacity to speak without words, to see without eyes, then in that realm too such a person will know much. Knowing does not depend only on “being there.”

Consider a garden. You go into it, a botanist goes into it, a poet goes into it, a shopkeeper goes into it, and a small child goes into it. They all go into the same garden—and yet they do not go into the same garden. The child runs after butterflies. The shopkeeper sits and thinks of his shop; he sees neither flowers nor garden. The poet gets lost among the blossoms and his verses. The botanist knows something that his training speaks through—twenty, thirty, fifty years of study—so in each root, each leaf, each flower he begins to see much that none of the others can see.

So, in that realm, those who die as they lived here—knowing nothing beyond the body—have no acquaintance, no relationships. They remain in a coma, a deep trance, awaiting a new birth. But those who go with some preparation…

There are sciences for such preparation. If someone dies scientifically—dies with awareness—fully prepared, carrying provisions for the journey and the sutras for what to do after death, then he can accomplish much. Vast possibilities of experience exist there. But ordinarily, no. Ordinarily a person dies; whether he is reborn at once or years later, he brings nothing from the interval and does nothing in between. And there is no possibility of direct communication. No possibility at all.