Having recently posted lectures of Hazrat Inayat Khan on life after death and the Day of Judgment, it seems appropriate to offer a short series of his teachings on the related subject of communicating with spirits. It was a topic that was perhaps more current in the popular culture in his time, but the interest in ‘the other world’ is still present.
The believers in spirit phenomena often lose their balance and go to such lengths that the pursuit of spiritualism becomes a craze with them, for it is always interesting to tell and to listen to ghost stories. The teller has a tendency to exaggerate the story, to make it more interesting and arouse the astonishment of the hearer, and a simple listener has a tendency sometimes to take the rod for a snake.
There is a well-known case, which happened in India where ghosts were being discussed among friends. One of them said, ‘I don’t believe in such things. I am willing to go and sit half the night in the graveyard if you like.’ His friends said that they would not believe him unless he did so. He went the same night to sit in the graveyard. Half the night he passed trying to avoid all the threats that his imagination produced before him during that dark night in the graveyard. When the time was over, as he started to return to his friends, his long robe caught in some thorn bushes growing there. He thought a spirit had surely caught him. He fell down and was choked with fear, and in the morning he was found dead.
Often a landlord’s enemies spread rumors that the house is haunted, so that he may not be able to get a tenant. Sometimes pretended spiritualists, who have made this their life’s occupation, make it as interesting a play as they can, by arranging some knocks from here and there, by lifting the chairs and tables with an arrangement of wires, by producing effects of light and shade with phosphorus. They take advantage of the simple-minded. Some pretend to carry messages from the spirit world or to it, and deceive many earnest inquirers into these matters. Many carry out their questionable purposes by holding spirit meetings. All this drives material people, unbelievers in the spirit, still further away from the knowledge of the finer existence, while the so-called spiritualists are often so much engrossed in their hobby that they never realize their own spirit.
In ordinary life we experience two planes, the physical plane in which we experience through the eyes, the ears, and all the organs of the body; and the mental plane, the plane of thought and feeling. When we are asleep and all our organs are resting, we see ourselves just as we appear when awake in various surroundings. This shows us that we have another being besides this physical being and other eyes besides these eyes. Whilst we are dreaming, the dream is real to us. When we awaken, we think, ‘I was there and now I am here. If what I saw in the dream had been real, it should all still be here now that I am awake; but it is all gone.’ We distinguish the dream as a dream by its contrast with the waking condition.
Whilst we are dreaming, if someone comes and tells us that it is a dream, that it is not real, we do not believe him. Or if someone tells us it is a dream, we say, ‘No, it is quite real, I see the things about me.’ There is an expression we use of what is past, saying, ‘It is all a dream now.’
When a person after death still longs for the earthly joys, he is in a very bad state, because he has not the physical body with which to experience them. He is like a cricketer or a football player who has lost his arms. He longs to play, but he has no arms; or a singer whose throat has been operated upon. He will long to sing, but he cannot, because his voice has gone.
When the physical plane is taken from a person, then the dream remains as reality, because there is no contrast to prove it otherwise. This state of existence is called Mithal. He can not experience on the earth now because he has lost the physical means. All the impressions that he has gathered upon earth are his world. It is the nature of the mind to gather as many impressions as it can. From this store the pictures that he sees are formed. We do not dream of what we do not know, of what we have not seen. The butcher sees the meat all day, and at night he does not dream of the dairy but of meat.
To be continued…