Life After Death and Rebirth

Question 1:

There is another question: IF ARJUNA IS JUST AN INSTRUMENT IN THE HANDS OF EXISTENCE, WHAT ABOUT HIS INDIVIDUALITY?

Visions of Krishna, or of Buddha, Mahavira or Christ are seen in two different ways. One is what we call a mental projection - what you see is nothing but your dreams, your desires, your imaginations taking a visual form, a shape in front of your eyes. There is nothing real in front of you; it is all imagination. The mind is quite capable of it; it can project an image of your dreams and desires, and you can think it is real. As you dream in sleep, so you can dream in the wak-ing state. This is how a Hindu sees visions of Krishna or Rama, a Christian sees visions of Christ or Mary. It is just mental, imaginary, hallucinatory. The other way is real, but it does not bring you face to face with Krishna or his image; it makes you encounter and experience what may be called the Krishna-consciousness.

In an experience like this there is no image whatsoever of Krishna or Christ, there is only a state of heightened awareness, a contact-high.

As I said yesterday, there are two forms of Krishna: one is his oceanic form and the other is his wave form. While his oceanic form represents the universal consciousness or superconsciousness, his wave form represents Krishna the man who happened some five thousand years ago.

Now an image, an icon of his wave form - Krishna the man - can be used to come in contact with his oceanic form, with Krishna-consciousness. But when you will really come in contact with Krishna- consciousness, this image, this symbol of Krishna will disappear and only the superconsciousness will remain with you. While it is true that his statue can be used for connecting with Krishna's superconsciousness, if someone sees only visions of Krishna and does not experience his consciousness, then it is merely a case of mental projection and nothing else.

The experience of Krishna-consciousness does not happen by way of visions and images. It is pure consciousness without any shape or form. We associate Krishna's name with it because a person loves Krishna and comes to this consciousness with the help of his image. Another person can come to it with the help of Buddha's image, and he can call it Buddha-consciousness. It can he called Christ-consciousness if someone attains it through the image of Christ. Names don't matter; the real thing is the oceanic consciousness, which is without name and form.

Arvind's experience of Krishna-visions is concerned with Krishna's image, his physical form. He says that Krishna appeared before him in physical form. This is simply a case of mental projection.

Of course such an experience is pleasant and gratifying, but it is nonetheless a projection of our mind. It is an extension of desire; it is exactly dreamstuff. It is our mind's creation.

We can begin with the mind, but we have to go beyond the mind. The journey begins with the mind, and ends with the no-mind, cessation of the mind. It is significant to know that the mind is the world of words, forms and images; words, forms and images constitute the mind. And where forms and images disappear the mind disappears on its own. There is no way for the mind to exist without words, forms and images. The mind cannot exist in emptiness, in void; it lives on the determined, the concrete. The moment the concrete world comes to an end, the mind itself comes to an end.

Krishna-consciousness is attained only when the mind ceases to be; it is a state of no-mind.

Whoever says he has encountered Krishna in his physical form is a victim of mental projection; he is projecting his own mental images on the vast screen of universal consciousness and viewing the objective reality. It is like a movie projector projects fast moving pictures on all empty screen; there is really nothing on the screen except shadows. Such visions are not a spiritual experience, they are wholly psychic. They are, however, very gratifying; a Krishna devotee is bound to be overjoyed to see visions of one he has been desiring to see all his life. But remember, it is only a kind of happiness, not bliss. Nor can you call it an experience of truth.

I don't mean to cay that Arvind's experience is not real, but he describes it in the way of a scholar, an intellectual. And this makes the experience appear to be one of mental projection. It is not difficult to distinguish a real experience, an experience of the oceanic consciousness from the one that is projected or imagined. An oceanic experience is everlasting; once it comes it comes forever, and it wipes out all other experiences from your mind. It really wipes out the mind itself. One blessed with such an experience sees the divine everywhere - in trees and rocks, in streams and rivers, in mountains and stars. But so far as projected visions are concerned, they appear and disappear, they never last. They are transient, momentary. Being an intellectual, Arvind is not able to portray it rightly; for a man of intellect such a task becomes difficult.

But there is another side of Arvind which is poetic. He is not only an intellectual but also a great poet. As a poet he is not less than Rabindranath Tagore. If he failed to receive the Nobel Prize, it was not because he did not deserve it, but because his poetry is much too complex and difficult to understand. His savitri ranks among the great epics of the world; there are hardly ten great epics of the stature of Savitri. And unlike the scholar, the poet in Arvind is quite capable of seeing Krishna's visions. Ironically, Arvind has expressed this experience strictly in terms of logic and reason, which is of course natural. And his account of the experience does not have the flavor of the transconscious.

We use words in two ways. In one way the word is kept within the confines of its known meaning; it conveys only that which is conveyed by its meaning. It fails to go beyond its own limitations. In the other way, the word used communicates much more than its given meaning. The word itself may be small, but its meaning is vast; the meaning is larger than the word itself. Arvind's way is quite different; while he uses big words, he fails to communicate any great meaning through them. He is known for his long words and lengthy sentences. That is why he always ends up as a philosopher.

When words really take off, when they transcend their given meaning, they enter a world of mystery, they become a vehicle for the transcendental experience. Such words are pregnant with tremendous meaning; they are like fingers pointing to the moon. Arvind's words are not that pregnant, they don't have an arrow directed toward the beyond. His words never transcend their given meaning. And there are reasons for it.

As I said this morning, Arvind was educated in the West at a time when, like Darwin in science, Hegel was the most dominant influence in philosophy. And Hegel is also known for the pompous language replete with big words and complex phrases in his treatises. Going through Hegel's works one has a sense of profundity about them in the beginning. We tend to think that what we don't understand must be very profound. But it is not necessarily so, although it is true that profound things are difficult to under stand. So many people use obscure words and elaborate phrases to create an impression of depth on their listeners and readers.

Hegel is a case in point: his language is very complex, devious and bombastic - full of lengthy, explanatory statements enclosed within brackets. But as scholarship gained maturity in Europe, Hegel's reputation declined in the same measure, and people came to know that he knew much less than he pretended. Arvind's way of expression is Hegelian, and like Hegel he is also a systematizer.

He too has not much to say, and so he has to say it in a great many words, and long and involved sentences at that.

Expression has to have a logical and rational buildup. But if it says something which goes beyond it then it means the person saying it has known that which lies beyond words. But if he exhausts himself in his words, which say nothing more than what they mean, then it is clear he is only a knowledgeable person. Going through all of Arvind's works you are left with a feeling that they are wordy; there is nothing experiential about them. If someone who knows something of the beyond keeps silent, even his silence will be eloquent. But in the absence of such an experience, even a million words will prove to be a wastage. When you say something, you have to say it logically, but if your "something" is experiential it will leave its flavor, its perfume in your every word and metaphor.

Not only that, your words will also say that they could not say what they really wanted to say. As far as Arvind is concerned, it seems he has said much more than was worth saying.

In this context I recall a significant event from the life of Rabindranath, which will help you to understand the thing better. The great poet is on his deathbed, and an intimate friend has come to say farewell. The friend says, "You sang all you wanted to sing, you said all you wanted to say; not only that, you did all you wanted to do. I believe now you can leave this world in perfect peace and contentment, with a feeling of utter gratefulness to God."

Rabindranath opened his eyes and said, "You have got it all wrong. Right now I have been saying to God, 'How ironical it is that when I have put together all the musical instruments and am ready to sing, I am called upon to leave the world.' I have yet to sing my song. What people think to be my song is only preparation for the real song I was going to begin, but alas! I have yet to say what I wanted to say."

Arvind cannot say the same thing. He has said all that he wanted to say, and said them very methodically. And I say that as a mystic Rabindranath is head and shoulders above Arvind.

You also want to know what will happen to Arjuna's individuality if he is only an instrument in the hands of existence. If everything happens exactly as it has to happen, if everything is pre- determined, then what is the meaning and responsibility of an individual person? Isn't he just a cog in the machine?

It is a significant question, so try to listen carefully to what I am going to say here. You will come upon some basic truths of life if you understand this thing rightly.

Certainly one's individuality will be destroyed if he is forced to be an instrument in the hands of another. But if someone becomes an instrument on his own accord, just the contrary will happen, his individuality will achieve its ultimate flowering. There is great difference between these two states. If someone forcibly turns you into a means and uses you as such, you are bound to lose your soul. But your soul will be fulfilled if you surrender on your own and become an instrument in the hands of existence. Please understand this difference - it is very subtle and great. For instance, if you come and overpower me and fetter my hands and feet, I become your slave. But what will happen if 1, on my own, willingly volunteer myself to be your slave? Then I become the master of slavery - its architect.

I would like to relate a story from the life of the Greek sage, Diogenes. I love to relate this story again and again; it is really beautiful.

Diogenes is passing through a forest. He is naked, walking fearlessly like a lion walks. Some people who are engaged in slave-trade happen to see Diogenes. They are tempted by his powerful physique. It is really splendid, as splendid as that of Mahavira. It is no wonder that both Mahavira and Diogenes discard clothes and live naked; they have such beautiful bodies that they alone can afford to go naked. Although the slave-traders are eight in number, they are very afraid of Diogenes who looks so powerful. It would be difficult for them to overpower and capture him.

In fact, one who wants to overpower another person is essentially a weak and fear-stricken person.

Only a fearful person wants to frighten and dominate others just to assuage his own fear. A really fearless person never tries to dominate others. He loves everybody's freedom as much as he loves his own. A fearful man is always afraid that if he does not dominate others, others will dominate him.

This is the psychology of all wars. That's why Machiavelli says in his book THE PRINCE, that to be on the offensive is the best defense.

So the traders are afraid of Diogenes, but their greed is equally strong. A slave like Diogenes would fetch a fabulous price in the slaves' market. After much discussion among themselves, they decide to make an attempt. Prepared for a good fight, they surround him from all sides, but Diogenes confounds them in a strange way. They would not have been surprised if he had resisted them.

They were well-prepared for it. But instead they find Diogenes standing quietly and serenely in his place with not a trace of fear or agitation on his face. He folds hands and giggles, saying, "What do you want? What is your intention?"

The merchants are embarrassed and hesitatingly tell him that they wanted to capture and enslave him. Diogenes laughs and says, "Why make such a fuss about it? You are fools; you should have just asked me and I would have agreed. I have been watching you anxiously discussing and preparing an elaborate plan which is all useless. Where are the handcuffs? Take them out of your bags. And here are my hands." Saying this he stretches his two hands to them. His captors are amazed, and their confusion is worse. They have never seen such a man, shouting at them, "Where are the handcuffs? Take them out of your bags!" And he speaks as if he is the master and they are his slaves.

With great hesitation and fear they take out a pair of handcuffs and put them on Diogenes' hands, saying, "It is something incredible. The way you have put yourself in our hands is unbelievable. You baffle us.

What Diogenes says to them is significant. He says, "I have learned the secret of freedom, which is to become a slave on my own. Now no one can rob me of my freedom. You have no way to enslave me."

Then they chain him and with one end of the chain in their hands, they march him to the slave market. Diogenes then says, "Why carry a heavy chain in your hands unnecessarily? Don't you see I am going with you on my own accord? Take off the chains so we walk with ease, and take care that you don't run away before we reach the marketplace. And rest assured, I am not going to escape."

The merchants soon remove the chains, because they know in their heart of hearts what kind of man he is. He has voluntarily surrendered himself to them. There is no use putting fetters on one who has given his hands for handcuffing without their asking.

Diogenes walks at their head as if a king is marching with his retinue.There is not a trace of fear on his face, while his captors look like his captives. He looks so charismatic that wherever he goes all eyes are turned on him. Pointing to his captors, Diogenes tells the spectators, "What are you looking for? They are all my slaves. And although they are not in chains yet, they cannot nm away from me.

They are so found to me." The merchants are really crestfallen.

At long last they arrive at the marketplace where slaves are bought and sold. The leader of the gang approaches the market manager saying, "We have a strange man to sell, and sell as soon as possible. Otherwise all of us will be in trouble. He tells everyone that he is the master and we are all his slaves, because we are so bound to him that we cannot run away from him. And it is true, we cannot leave him, because he is going to fetch a fabulous price for us."

Diogenes immediately mounts the dock meant for slaves to be auctioned and stands there with the dignity of a king. Then the manager shouts, "Here is a great slave for sale; whosoever has enough money should bid for him."

Diogenes first shouts at the manager, "Shut up, if you don't know how to sell a master." Then he says to the bidders, "Here is a master for sale; whosoever can afford a master should bid for him."

If you are forced against your will to be an instrument. if it is not your own choice, then you are certainly a slave and your individuality is killed. But Krishna does not ask Arjuna to be such a slavish instrument; he only wants him to understand the reality and to flow with the stream of existence. It is foolish to fight with the river of life and try to swim upstream. He says to Arjuna, "Leave yourself in the hands of life, of existence, and you will be fulfilled." If someone surrenders himself to existence, to truth, to the whole, and surrenders with full understanding and joy, then his individuality, instead of being crippled, attains to full flowering and fruition. Then he is his own master. And there is no better way of proclaim ing one's mastery than the way of surrender.

Try to understand this thing very clearly. There is no better way of proclaiming one's mastery over himself than the way of surrender. If I surrender it means that I am my own master; no slave surrenders, he is just overpowered and captured. By surrendering, Arjuna does not become a cog in a machine; he really becomes a man with a soul, he becomes godly. For the first time, his individuality attains full flowering, and it happens effortlessly and naturally.

Question 2:

In this context a few things have to be understood first.

It is true that on a particular full moon night, which is known as Buddha's full moon night, five hundred lamas gather at one of the summits of the Himalayas - the same Himalayas where we are gathered at this moment - and see visions of Buddha. The number of lamas who gather there never exceeds five hundred; it is fixed for good. It is only on the death of one of them that another lama is admitted in his place. But there is a basic difference between this and Arvind seeing visions of Krishna. In the case of his visions of Krishna, it is Arvind who takes the initiative and makes efforts to see them.

The lamas don't have to do anything; Buddha himself appears before them according to a promise he had given to his disciples in his lifetime. The lamas have only to be present there at the appointed time. And this difference between the two events should be clearly understood.

Buddha has left behind him a promise that at a particular time of Buddha's full moon night of each year and at a particular spot in the Himalayas, he would appear for his chosen disciples. At this promised moment Buddha's oceanic body takes the form of a wave body, seen by five hundred lamas together. But the lamas have no part in it except that they present themselves on the said occasion. This is one difference between this encounter, this darshan, and the one that Arvind has.

Secondly, while Arvind is alone at the time of Krishna's appearance, there are altogether five hundred lamas to witness Buddha's appearance. An event of mental projection is always personal, you cannot make another person an associate with you. If you ask Arvind or any other person who sees such visions, for that matter, to allow you to share his experience, he will just say no, it is not possible. But when five hundred people see visions of Buddha together, it cannot be a case of psychic projection. Not only that, all the people present compare notes and accept something as real only when each of its ac counts tallies with another. As far as Arvind is concerned. he is his own witness. And then while Arvind comes to it after long efforts, the lamas make no efforts whatsoever.

It is just the fulfillment of a promise made by another person in another time.

Question 3:

No, it is not possible. And there are reasons for it.

Anybody and everybody cannot be admitted into this council of five hundred lamas. There are very strict criteria governing one's admission into this group. Only those are admitted into it who fully succeed in knowing their unconscious minds, because unless they are masters of their unconscious they are not immune from individual or collective hypnosis. Hypnosis works upon one's unconscious mind and therefore when one becomes fully aware of his unconscious he cannot be hypnotized any more. There is no way to hypnotize a person who has burned all the trash of his unconscious and illumined his whole psyche. Now there is no such area in his mind where suggestions can be planted so that they eventually become projected visions and images. That is why the lamas have very strict rules regarding the admission of every new member. Only on the death of a sitting member a new one is chosen to fill his place, and the way he is selected is very unusual.

There are strange and very difficult rules that govern the selection of a person for lamahood. Not only his present life is investigated, even his past lives are looked into. To deserve this place, he has to have a long record of sustained spiritual practice. For example, the present Dalai Lama carries with him the soul of the previous Dalai Lama he has been selected to succeed. When the lama dies he leaves behind him a coded message saying that he will take his next birth with certain specific signs and the child that conforms to those signs should be selected as his successor. It is an arduous and complicated process. The whole country is informed by beat of the drums that if a child with specific signs is born in any family, the family concerned should inform the lamasery concerned about his birth.

Similarly when the Dalai Lama dies, he leaves certain clues to find his successor. These clues are a well-guarded secret, and thousands of children born after his death are interviewed to find out who is the incarnation of the late Dalai Lama. And the child who answers all the queries and signs is selected as the succeeding Dalai Lama.

Before they select a lama to fill the vacancy in the five hundred member council, they put him to a lot of tests to ascertain that he has known his unconscious, and that he cannot be hypnotized any more. So the question of collective hypnosis does not arise. And remember, when these five hundred lamas gather together for visions of Buddha, they stand in utter silence, not even a word is whispered around. It is an event altogether different from Arvind's experience.

Thirdly, it is quite possible to establish con tact with souls who have left their bodies but have not attained to their oceanic existence. If someone dies without being enlightened he will continue to live in his subtle body; he will not be one with his oceanic form. And it is possible, with the help of certain techniques, to come in contact with such souls living in their subtle forms. There is no difficulty about it.

Krishna's soul cannot be available in his subtle body. He has transcended all his seven bodies and become one with the universal existence, therefore you cannot come in contact with him in the way you come in contact with ordinary souls that hang around their old world. For instance, Gandhi is a soul with a subtle body, and he can easily be contacted. There are rules and techniques for establishing contact with them. Many times such souls make efforts on their own to contact their friends and relatives. But they scare us, because we don't want to come in contact even with the souls of those dear to us. They now belong to an alien world unknown to us. Even if the spirit of one who was in his lifetime dearest to your heart appears at your door, you will scream with fright and run away from him. You will shout for help, because you were acquainted only with his physical body; his astral body is alien to you.

So it is easy to establish contact with a soul that is bodiless and is hungering for a new body. It is not a matter of mental projection on the part of one who wishes to come in contact with such a soul who has everything except the gross body. Very simple devices are available with which you can connect with such a spirit if you want to. For instance, so many of us are sitting here discussing Krishna and his philosophy. Do you think there are only as many persons here as are visible to our eyes? No, there are many more who are invisibly present here, and they can be contacted right now, if you wish. What you need is a willingness on your part to come in contact with them and certain receptivity toward it.

You can make an experiment as I suggest. Three of you can go into a room, close it from inside and sit quietly with your eyes closed and hands folded in the way of namaskar - salutation. Then say prayer fully that if there are any souls in this room, they should contact you all in the way you suggest - say by knocking at the door. And soon you will hear a knock at the door where there is no one with a body. You can suggest to the invisible soul present in the room to answer your questions through a paperweight Lying on the table before you, and you will see that within three to four days the spirit will begin to answer your questions through the medium of the paperweight.

Then you can carry the experiment further; it is not that difficult. There are any number of bodiless spirits hanging around you everywhere and al ways, who are willing to communicate with you, but they have no way to do so, because we are aware of only one way of communication and that is through our physical bodies. And there is no bridge what soever between us and the bodiless souls.

But there are simple devices, which form a part of occultism, to come in contact with them.

You also want to know if man's soul can leave his physical body, travel astrally and then return to his body again. It is quite possible that you leave your body, go out of it, travel astrally and then return to your body as you like. The physical body is only an abode and you can go out of it if you know the right techniques to do it. There is a special discipline, a whole science about it. Sometimes it happens accidently without any efforts on your part. In moments of deep meditation you will find that you are out of your physical body and watching it from a distance. There is a whole occult science, and we can go into it separately at some different time.

Question 4:

Ordinarily when a person dies, it is only his physical body that dies, he and his mind do not die with the body. Ordinarily the mind of the dying person goes with him, and for a little while after death he retains all his memory of his previous life. It is like what happens with our dreams. After you wake up from sleep you remember your dreams for a little while. Slowly the memory of dreams begins to fade and by noontime it fades away completely. And by the even ing you cannot say even a word about them.

Although you dream in your sleep, in your unconscious state, yet on waking you can clearly recall a few fragments of your dreams, particularly the latter part of your last dream. It happens because in the latter part of your sleep you begin to wake up and you are only half asleep. You can remember the dreams fully or partly that visit you in your half-asleep and half-waking state. But even this memory does not last long; as hours pass it disappears. In the same way a man's bodiless soul remembers its previous life, its friends and relatives for a little while after his death. And this memory is rather painful, because he cannot relate with them any more.

It is for this reason that we do a few things. Soon after someone close to us meets his death, so that he is relieved of the memories of his past associations and attachments. Now it is not good to carry them, because they are very painful. Hindus cremate the dead bodies of their relatives soon after their death; they try not to delay if it is avoidable. And it is significant. Cremation destroys all identity and attachment of the dead with their bodies, because they remember their past only through the medium of their dead bodies. The dead body serves as a bridge between the released soul and his past life. So cremation is in the interest of the departed souls.

When somebody dies suddenly or in an accident, he doesn't know he is dead. For a little while he feels stunned and bewildered to see that he is separated from his body, maybe, something has gone wrong somewhere. It happens because inside the body nothing really dies except that the soul leaves the body. Not a few, but the majority of souls feel utterly confused and confounded soon after their death. No one can figure out why his family members are weeping and crying, why there is so much grief all around, because he feels as much alive as before, except that his body is a little separate from him. It is the body that gives him a sense of continuity, because it is the medium of all his associations with the past. Only meditative people, those who have experienced deep meditation can escape being pulled and bewildered, because they know that they are separate from their bodies.

Soon after cremation or burial of a dead body the soul is gradually freed from its past memories and associations. It is like we gradually forget our dreams. It is on the reckoning of time taken by different kinds of souls that we have different death rites for our dead. Some people, particularly children take only three days to forget their past associations. Most others take thirteen days; so some communities in the East have thirteen-day long death rites. There are a few souls - souls with very powerful memories - who take a year's time for this purpose. Because of them, some of our death rites are spread over a full year. Three to thirteen days are the general rule, and very few souls survive without bodies for a full year; most of them are reborn with new bodies within a short time.

A person who dies with awareness, who remains fully conscious and aware at the time of his death, does not die really; he knows he is deathless. He is not dying, he is leaving his old body like we discard old clothes. And a person who attains to such a state of deep awareness is rare; he is free of all attachments and psychological memories. He has neither friends nor foes; he is free of all cravings and desires. He is a class by himself; dying with awareness he will be born with awareness, unencumbered by his past.

Just as one remembers his past for a while after death, so he does after his new birth too. A newborn child carries with him for a brief time the memories of his previous life as a spirit. But by and by this memory fades away and by the time he learns speaking it is completely lost. It is rare that a child remembers his past life even after he is articulate and able to communicate with others. He is called a freak of nature. He must have been a man of rare memory in his past existence.

In this context you also want to know if apart from going into it by way of mystical experiences there is any philosophical support for reincarnation. It is only through logic that philosophical evidence in support of reincarnation can be built. But logic suffers from an inherent weakness: it can be used as powerfully both for and against a proposition. If one wants to describe logic rightly, and those who know it well have said so, logic is like a lawyer or a prostitute who goes with anyone who pays the fee.

There are those who have proved logically and philosophically that reincarnation is a fact, and there are also those who have disproved and blasted this theory with the help or the same weapons of logic and philosophy. Logic is a kind of sophistry; it is like a lawyer who supports the case of anyone who pays his price. He has no viewpoint of his own, but he brings forth his whole reasoning skill to support his client's case. That is why logic is never able to establish anything - although it seems to be convincing at face value - because the contrary point can be made as skillfully with the help of logic. There is no difficulty about it. Logic is a double-edged sword which cuts with ways - for and against a proposition.

For this reason philosophy can never prove or disprove the theory of reincarnation. Although philosophy can say a lot it can go on saying for thousands of years, it will never succeed in its endeavors. It is like a barren woman who looks to be complete, but cannot give birth to a child.

Logic has another side to it which is interest ing. You use logic to establish something that you already believe to be true and right. Logic is just a means used to support your assumptions, your pre-suppositions.

There is a well known professor in an Indian university who is conducting research on rebirth. Only recently he came with a friend of mine to see me. At the very start of his conversation he asserted that he was going to prove the theory of rebirth scientifically. I said to him it seemed his mind was already made up in favor of rebirth and that he was looking for scientific evidence to support it.

But it was utterly unscientific to accept something before one had fully investigated it from all sides.

If someone wants to be scientific, he should say that he wants to enquire whether the theory of reincarnation is true or not. If he is going to prove rebirth, it means that he already believes it to be a fact and not a fiction.

As far as this person is concerned, the matter is already a proven fact for him and he has only to produce some cogent arguments in its support. And arguments can easily be collected and produced; it is not that difficult. If you want to prove the theory of rebirth you can find any number of arguments in its favor. This world is so vast and complex and paradoxical that you can gather all kinds of arguments and evidence for or against anything that you choose to support or demolish.

Philosophy will never be able to prove or disprove rebirth. So if you make a slight shift in your question, you should ask whether science can shed some light on this very ancient debate.

Philosophy has failed, and failed utterly. It has been debating this question for five thousand years and nothing has been solved. There are people who believe in rebirth and there are equal numbers who don't believe in it. And no side has been able to convince the other side of the validity of its standpoint.

It is ironical that you can convince only one who is already convinced; you cannot convince the unconvinced. This is logic's impotence, which it fails to see. You can easily convince a Hindu of the truth of rebirth, because it is part of his belief system. But you will know how impotent logic is when you try to convince a Mohammedan of the truth of this theory. You can easily convince a Christian that there is no rebirth, but you cannot convince a Hindu that it is a fiction. Logic is a skill which works well for those who use it to prove something which they believe to be true. Therefore it is not a right question to ask if rebirth can be proved philosophically. The right question is Is there a way to approach the question of rebirth scientifically?

Science is pure enquiry; it is objective and impartial. While philosophy and logic have their standpoints for or against a belief, a proposition, science has none. A scientific mind means that it is open and impartial; it wants to find the truth, it is open to both the alternatives, both sides of a thing; it is not closed. Science does not depend on belief. It wants to investigate into the truth or otherwise of a hypothesis. Science is the only discipline prepared to re-examine its own findings and conclusions. Science is prepared for any possibility that an objective enquiry and investigation can lead to.

Science has only recently begun to take interest in matters like reincarnation. It is only fifty years since psychic societies came into being in America and Europe, and they have done some good work in this direction. A handful of intelligent people with a scientific bent have interested themselves is psychic research. They are not mystics, who have said for a long time that things like life-after- death and rebirth are facts which they have known from experience but cannot prove with arguments.

The mystics say anyone can know these things if he goes through a certain meditative discipline, but they cannot make you know what it is. It is like I have a headache and I know what it is, but I cannot make you know it. You will know it only when your own heal starts aching. I can do nothing to communicate my headache experience to you.

For the last fifty years men like Oliver Lodge, Broad, and Rhine have explored some new frontiers of the human mind. They are all men of scientific persuasions they don't have any beliefs and prejudices of their own. They have done some real work on life-after-death and incarnation. Their findings are authentic. and they go a long way in support of reincarnation. Now there are scientific techniques to contact bodiless souls, and they have been contacted, and every care has been taken to eliminate the chances of deception and fraud in the use of these techniques. In the past there have been any number of cases of fraudulent seances to communicate with the dead. But if even a single case of authentic necromancy succeeds, it is enough. And many such experiments to contact bodiless spirits have been successful in establishing that souls change their bodies, that they are born again and again A number of people who had devoted their lives to necromancy before leaving their bodies, had promised to their psychic societies that they would communicate with them after death, in a specific manner. And some of them did succeed in their efforts. They communicated some very valuable information regarding the life-after-death phenomenon to their societies, and this information goes a long way in the support of rebirth.

A great deal of research has been conducted in the fields of telepathy and clairvoyance, and they have yielded good results. Without the help of any technical aids, I can communicate with a person who is thousands of miles away from here, which means that astral communication, communication without the help of any physical instruments is possible.

Question 5:

I am just now going to explain it. Even if it is a mental communication, it is certainly different from the physical one. And once science gets to know something different from the physical body, it will not be long before it comes to know of the soul. The whole quarrel is centered on the question of whether there is something in man which is different from his body. And if it is settled that there is something different from the body, half the journey is over. This is how science works. Let science begin with the mind, and gradually it will come to the super-mind, the soul. Science never accepts that mind is something higher than the physical body.

There is a man known as Ted, whose mind has taken the scientific world by surprise. And the psychic societies have learned a great deal from his experiences, which are simply extraordinary.

For in stance, I am now here and Ted is in New York. He does not know me, nor has he heard about me, nor seen a photograph of me. But he can create my image in his eyes just by concentrating his thought on me. If someone asks him to work on me, he will close his eyes and meditate on me for a full thirty minutes. And in thirty minutes' time he will create my image in his eyes and this image can be captured by a camera. And it will be my photograph, although a little fainter than the one taken directly here. Ted has produced thousands of such photographs and they have all been verified and found to be true.

What does it mean?

It means that Ted's eyes are capable of seeing me from such a long distance. They can not only see me but also capture my likeness exactly as your eyes do when you are looking at me here face to face. Scientists put Ted to all kinds of tests and he always proved authentic.

Now that we have entered the space age, and space travel is coming into vogue, scientists are getting interested in telepathy in a big way. We have already reached the moon, and are attempting to go to Mars. Incursions into distant points in space are underway, and some of these incursions will take years to be completed. Traveling to Mars alone is going to take a full year, and it is full of incomprehensible hazards. In case there is any mechanical failure, we will never know what happened to out astronauts. They, with their knowledge of space, will be lost to us forever. That is why both Russia and America, the most advanced countries engaged in space explorations, have become deeply interested in telepathy. This is to provide an alternative channel of communication to the astronauts in the event of failure of the normal channels they have at their disposal. They cannot wholly depend on their mechanical instruments; some cases of their failure have already occurred.

It is believed that an astronaut skilled in telepathy can communicate with us in case his mechanical instruments fail him. We can afford such failures on the earth, but when it is a matter of space travel, we must have some alternative arrangements so that we keep track of our valuable astronauts and their great work. So now telepathy has a place in the scientific laboratories of America and Russia.

There is now a unique man in Russia, whose name is Fiodev. He has succeeded in sending telepathic messages to people who are at a distance of a thousand miles from his laboratory in Moscow. If someone is sitting in a park of a town a thousand miles away from Moscow, and Fiodev directs a message to him telepathically, the person will get the message intact.

Science is now searching for something which is more than just physical. It is coming closer to the mystics who say that man is not only his body, he is something incorporeal, spiritual too. And once it is settled that there is something spiritual, there will be no difficulty in coming to the truth of reincarnation. So science is going to accomplish what philosophy has failed to do. The mystic, of course, has known it, but he has no way to explain it. Science can do the explaining too.

Scientific enquiry into rebirth is quite possible.

Question 6:

There have been many experiments like this, but none of them have yielded results. Scientists think - and naturally they think in terms of matter - that if there is something other than matter in man, then with the passing away of his life or soul there should be some reduction in his body weight.

But is it imperative that the element that goes out of one's body at death have weight? It can be weightless as well. Or it can have so little weight that it cannot be measured by any instruments available to us at the moment.

For example, sun rays have a little weight, but there is no way to measure them. If all the sun rays spread over a square mile area are collected together, they will weigh roughly ten grams. But it is so difficult to work it out. Similarly, even if our souls have weight, it cannot be measured. So all glass casket experiments - they were carried out at many places - proved futile.

Apart from taking the weight of a dead body, the glass casket experiment has yet another objective to achieve. It was thought the soul of a dying person - if he has one - after leaving his body will break out of the sealed casket and thus leave some holes or cracks in the casket. But nothing of the kind happened; like sunshine a soul can pass through a wall of glass without breaking it. If x-rays can pass through a thick wall of bones and steel, why cannot a human soul pass through a glass casket? Logically speaking there is no difficulty.

And weight is a relative thing. What we call weight is really the pressure of gravitation on something.

If your body weight is one hundred twenty pounds here, and you are flown to the moon, your weight will not remain the same; it will be eight times less than it is here. Your hundred twenty pounds will be reduced to a mere fifteen pounds. The gravitational pull of the moon is eight times less than that of the earth. For this reason, if you can jump five feet high here, you can jump forty feet high on the surface of the moon. In other words, weight is nothing but the gravitational pull of the earth, and it is possible the earth cannot pull a human soul to itself. Maybe, the law of gravitation does not apply to souls, and there fore souls have no weight whatsoever. If we can build a space which is free from gravitation, then every thing in that space will be without weight.

The first and the most frightening experience of those who first landed on the moon was one of weightlessness. As soon as man passes beyond the earth's gravitational field, which extends up to two hundred miles in space, he becomes absolutely weightless. Every astronaut in a spacecraft hurtling through space has to keep himself tied to his seat, otherwise he will fly like a balloon to the roof of the spacecraft.

So the weight of a thing is relative to many things. And it is just possible that a soul has no weight.

For this reason, experiments carried out in Paris and elsewhere were doomed to fail. In my view, the pull of gravitation applies to a thing only in pro, portion to the density of its matter; the less density the less weight. As far as the soul is concerned, it is the end part of density, it is all rarity, and therefore the law of gravitation ceases to operate on it The soul is wholly outside the jurisdiction of this law And as long as we continue to enquire into the question of soul with the tools of matter, science will go on denying its existence. We need altogether new tools of investigation to discover the law of the soul. The psychic societies and pioneers of parapsychology like Rhine and Meyer and Lodge, whom I spoke about a little while ago, are engaged in devising such new tools in place of the established tools of physical science, and perhaps with their help science will confirm the insights of the mystics which they cannot prove with any evidence.

Question 7:

There are reasons for it.

The relationship between Ramakrishna and Vivekananda is basically one of the master and the disciple; it is not the same relationship between Krishna and Arjuna. Secondly, Krishna is not trying to prepare Arjuna in a way so that he can take his message to the world at large; all his teachings are meant for Arjuna's growth and are exclusively addressed to him. On the other hand Ramakrishna wants Vivekananda to be his messenger to the whole world.

Krishna is not aware that his dialogues with Arjuna are going to turn into the BHAGWAD GEETA.

It is incidental that they turned out that way. It is Krishna's spontaneous discussions with Arjuna while the two of them were standing on the battlegrounds of Kurukshetra. He does not know that his sayings are going to be so significant that they will be discussed for centuries upon centuries to come. They are meant for Arjuna alone, for his spiritual transformation. They are very intimate conversations meant exclusively for a close friend. My own experience says that every significant and momentous word of wisdom came into being by way of an intimate dialogue. A writer can never touch that depth which a speaker does. All that is of the highest in the world of wisdom has been spoken, not written, As I said this morning, all of Arvind's words have been written by him, he did not speak anything. On the contrary, Krishna and Christ, Buddha and Mahavira, Raman and Krishnamurti, said everything by word of mouth. Speech is personal; it is between one person and another; there is an element of intimacy about it. Writing, except when one writes a letter, is impersonal; it is addressed to an unknown and abstract audience. Krishna is in direct communication with Arjuna; it is an intimate dialogue between two friends. There is no third person between them, Ramakrishna's case is very different, and there are reasons for it, Ramakrishna had attained to super-consciousness, to samadhi, he had experienced the truth, but his difficulty was that he lacked the ability to communicate to others that which he knew. He was in search of someone who could serve as his medium and take his message to the world at large. He knew the truth, but he could not communicate it. He was un educated; he had hardly gone through two grades in an elementary Bengali school.

This simple villager had a great treasure with him, but he did not know how to share it with the world.

He was not articulate; he was utterly lacking in language. His sayings that are available to us are highly edited, because it is said that being an uneducated country man, his original utterances were natural but coarse and uncouth, replete with four-letter words. Those who prepared an anthology of his sayings deleted everything they thought was coarse and vulgar, and almost remade it. I don't think they did a right thing; they should have made an authentic report. It should be exactly as he had said it. It is true that he freely used invectives, but what is wrong with invectives? They should have been there. But his disciples decided to present their Master, who was known as a paramhansa - one who had attained the state of absolute innocence - as a sophisticated teacher, and so they did a lot of pruning of his statements.

However, Ramakrishna was in need of some one who could be his mouthpiece. So when Vivekananda came to him, he decided to use him as his instrument. There is a small incident in the lives of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda which sheds light on their relationship, and I would like to relate it here.

Vivekananda once said to Ramakrishna that he wanted to have the experience of superconsciousness or samadhi. Ramakrishna explained to him the necessary techniques and guided him through its discipline. Ramakrishna was a Master of such great attainment that his very presence could trigger a process of samadhi in Vivekananda. He was so dynamic that just a touch of his hand sent Vivekananda into deep samadhi. Do you know what Vivekananda did after his first experience of the superconscious?

There was a man in Ramakrishna's ashram; he was known as Kaloo. He had come from some rural area of Bengal, and lived in a small hut close to the temple of Dakshineshwar. He was a very plain, simple and innocent person. A temple remains a temple only so long as simple and innocent people like Kaloo live in its premises. The day clever and cunning people enter and reside there, its beauty, its divinity, its glory, is destroyed.

Kaloo had collected a huge number of statues of gods and goddesses - wherever he found them he brought them to his room and installed them on an altar. They were so many that they occupied every inch of space available in his small room, so much that he himself had to sleep under the open sky. This is the way of God: he occupies all the space of one who comes close to him, he soon ousts him from his own house. Kaloo had no time for anything else; from the morning through the evening he kept worshipping them.

Vivekananda, who was educated with a strong rationalist background, did not like this orthodoxy of Kaloo; he often advised him to throw his crude statues of gods and goddesses into the Ganges and get rid of them. Vivekananda believed that God was formless and omnipresent, and it was foolish to worship him through the medium of statues and their rituals. He often said to Kaloo that he was wasting his time and energy in fruitless rituals. But Kaloo laughed saying, "Maybe you are right but let me first worship them, they must be waiting for me. If others are wasting their time in other things, let me waste my time with my gods and goddesses. They are so nice and beautiful."

When Vivekananda achieved his first samadhi, it flooded him with a strange and powerful energy. A thought arose in his mind that if in this moment of ecstasy he sent a telepathic message to Kaloo to throw away his many useless gods and goddesses, he would not resist it. The moment Vivekananda thought like this, Kaloo sitting in his room got the message and he obeyed it without a question in his heart. He made a bundle of all his gods and goddesses, put them on his back and left for the bank of the Ganges to drown them into its holy water.

Vivekananda had only thought of it and it began to work - even before it was properly sent in the form of a message to Kaloo. That is why wise men say that such an energy, such a power should not be used, otherwise it will harm the seeker and impede his progress. They strictly prohibit its use: a seeker should just allow it to rise and watch it. That is enough use of it. But Vivekananda did otherwise, and he soon succeeded with poor Kaloo, whom he had so long failed to persuade in spite of all his cogent and logical arguments. What he could not achieve directly, he achieved through the backdoor when a tremendous meditative power became available to him.

Kaloo was busy with his gods when Vivekananda had thought of him, and suddenly and un knowingly he stopped his worship, put all the statues in a bag and moved to the Ganges.

Ramakrishna was sitting on the roofed porch of his house, which faced the Ganges, and his eyes fell on Kaloo. He called to him and asked, "What is the matter, Kaloo?"

Pointing to his bag, Kaloo said, "They are no good; I am going to consign them to the Ganges."

Ramakrishna scolded him saying, "Go back to your room and put them all in their places. I know who is speaking through you. I am going to take that rascal to task."

Ramakrishna rushed to Vivekananda, shook his body and said, "This is your last samadhi; you are not going to have any more of it. I am going to keep the key to your samadhi with me, which will be re turned to you only three days before your death."

Vivekananda was shocked and he burst into tears, crying, "Pray, don't deprive me of my SAMADHI."

But Ramakrishna said firmly, "You have a great work to do; you are going to be my instrument and my messenger to the world. If you enter samadhi you will not be able to come back, and the great work will suffer. What I have known has to reach to every nook and corner of the earth. Don't be selfish; give up your attachments, and don't hanker for your samadhi. You have to build a huge temple sheltering millions of thirsty seekers from all over the world. That's why I am taking away the key to your samadhi."

This key remained with Ramakrishna. And Vivekananda had it back as promised, three days before his death. It was only three days before he left this world that he had his second samadhi.

But let me tell you that if someone else holds the key to your samadhi, it means it is only a psychic, a deep psychological samadhi, and not a full experience of the absolute. A samadhi, a superconsciousness that depends on another is not real and ultimate; it does not transcend the mind. The samadhi that made Kaloo think of parting with his statues cannot be said to be deeply spiritual; it is mental. Of course, Vivekananda had transcended his body, but he had yet to get to the soul, and Ramakrishna had to stop him there, because he thought if Vivekananda went deeper into it he would not be able to fulfill the assigned work.

It is through Vivekananda that the world came to know of Ramakrishna. But Vivekananda had to sacrifice much. However, such a sacrifice is worth it, and it is very meaningful. Ramakrishna had to deliberately stop his further progress, because he thought if Vivekananda transcended the psychic state of samadhi, he could not be made into an instrument. Ramakrishna was not like Buddha who had both wisdom and the skill to express it; Ramakrishna has attained to the same wisdom as Buddha had, but he was not articulate. So he had to depend on Vivekananda for its transmission to the world.

It is true that Vivekananda was an instrument in the hands of his Master, but this is not the case with Arjuna. Krishna is not trying to make him into an instrument. He is just pouring his wisdom on Arjuna standing at Kurukshetra.

Now, we will sit for meditation.