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Question: What Are Spirits Or Vital Beings?...

Question: What are spirits or vital beings?

Sri Chinmoy: Some were once part of a human being, but some are only part of the universal existence. These entities do not want the soul’s light. These beings get pleasure in creating mischief and destruction.

We cannot say that these forces are mental hallucinations. In the West we use the terms ‘hallucination’ and ‘superstition.’ We know that superstition and hallucination exist, but these beings also exist in the world of reality. I have seen them with my own eyes, as have other members of my own family, as well as our servants and neighbours. And I have dealt with them with my own light and spiritual power.

Question: Would These Vital Beings Be Frightened...

Question: Would these vital beings be frightened of your transcendental picture? And would it chase them off if they attacked us, let us say while we were walking down the street?

Sri Chinmoy: Believe me, if they see the transcendental picture and if the transcendental picture is operating at that time, they will be frightened. The trouble is that you will not think of the transcendental picture at that time. When you are attacked, you will be shocked, and the picture will not occur to you. But if the victim is receiving light from the transcendental picture, then they will be terribly frightened and are bound to leave. If the person receives, only then will the force go away. If my transcendental picture is there and somebody sees it who is not in any way my disciple, if he does not care for me, then it is just a picture. He will not receive light from it, and the forces will not be afraid.

If somebody has become a victim to these forces and you show him an ordinary picture, even if he has faith in that picture, it will not protect him. First of all the person will not have enough faith in that particular picture if it is not my transcendental picture. Second, even if he does have faith in the picture, divinity will not come from there. The protective power of light works in a specific way. In this chair there is a soul, and in my body there is also a soul. But there is a great difference between the soul that I have in my body and the soul that the chair has. It is true that in a carrot there is God, and in a pencil there is God. But how much divinity is there in that carrot or in that pencil? If the victim looks at the transcendental picture and is able to receive from it, the vital being will have to leave. It will be terribly frightened of the light and power that will flow into the victim from the picture.

Forces attack, but protection is always there. The best thing to do is to think of protection first thing in the morning every day, when you pray and meditate.

Question: Is There Any Way For Somebody—not...

Question: Is there any way for somebody—not somebody in the spiritual life but an ordinary person—to fight if a spirit attacks them? Is there anything that they could do? In the movies like Dracula and others they have the cross and all these religious things that will stop a ghost from hurting them.

Sri Chinmoy: It is good if one can show something like that. If a hostile spirit, an evil spirit, attacks, the most effective defence is always to use purity. These forces cannot tolerate purity.

If someone has been attacked and is helpless, occultists can do something to help them. I have also done this. First they make a circle and then they enter into the soul of the person who is the victim. The soul can give the occultist a message; the soul has the omnipotent power to bring forward right in front of the occultist the actual image of that particular ghost or evil spirit. So the soul, like an x-ray machine, will bring it forward and say, “Here is the one; this is the evil spirit that has attacked me.” Then the occultist will immediately write down, or paint or somehow capture just the impression of the spirit on a piece of paper. He need not be an artist—far from it. Then he uses some occult formula and crosses the whole face with the help of the soul. When he does this, the spirit that was inside the victim leaves. The person may be unconscious; he may be vomiting or behaving strangely. Usually the victim of an evil spirit is terribly afraid of water, and also of his friends or relatives. Anything that he sees frightens him. But when the occultist uses his power, immediately the victim is released. In serious cases, when the victim does not get any help from a competent occultist, the doctors will give injections and do many things. The victim will remain in the hospital for three, four, five days before he dies, and most of the time he will be in a coma.

Question: Does This Happen Often?...

Question: Does this happen often?

Sri Chinmoy: I have known and seen about ten or eleven cases. Not that I have dealt with them, but I have seen the kinds of things that happen. Most of the time occultists deal with these things. In India there are some people who are not occultists at all, but they know something of the vital world and they deal with the evil forces in a very crude way. Their crude way is very bad. They start striking the victim violently. When I was six or seven years old, I had a neighbour who became a victim. A village exorcist came and began striking him mercilessly with a piece of wood. The man cried and screamed, but the exorcist said, “It is by striking him that I am actually exorcising the evil spirit.” Now the exorcist was successful, as they often are, but that was a very crude way.

Question: Does This Happen More In One...

Question: Does this happen more in one part of the world than in another? There are more occultists in India than there are in America, so does this happen more there?

Sri Chinmoy: I have no idea. I have read a few books, and even in America it seems that this happens quite often.

Question: But They Don't Recognise It In...

Question: But they don't recognise it in America.

Sri Chinmoy: No, they don't recognise it in America. In America many people who have been attacked by a hostile force simply end up in a hospital because the cause of their malady is not understood. In Indian villages it is accepted as a daily occurrence. That is why between one and three o'clock in the afternoon children are forbidden to go out. If they have to go, they go in a group; they do not go out alone. Between one and three in the afternoon is the worst time.

Question: How Does The Spirit Take Possession...

Question: How does the spirit take possession of a person? How does the spirit gain access to the person’s consciousness? Do they just go in?

Sri Chinmoy: They have the power in the vital world. They can easily do it while you are walking down the street or any time. And why just spirits? Human thought can also enter. If just now you have good thoughts, very powerful thoughts, with those powerful thoughts you can enter into someone else very powerfully. You are sending thought waves to someone, and he may see an actual being before him, as if in a dream. This being can take any form you will it to. From thought we can create form, for thought is very powerful. When the Yogis use their willpower or thought, immediately they give form to it. The story that Kanan acted about stealing the egg-plant*—do you think that it is just a cock-and-bull story, that it has no reality in it? That story is absolutely authentic. The woman who kept appearing all the time and the child and all that—these all came from thought waves, from the willpower of the Master. The Yogi used his willpower and immediately it took form.

Question: I Would Like To Know The...

Question: I would like to know the difference between soul and spirit. I know that they are two entirely different things, but I cannot understand the difference.

Sri Chinmoy: A spirit, as the term is used in the West, is a vital entity, and it is usually not good. The soul, which embodies God, is deep inside us; it is part of the Self. Through the soul we enter into our all-pervading divinity. When we use the term 'soul,' it refers to a spark of the Self, the Omniscient and the Omnipotent.

A spirit, as we use the term here, refers to a vital entity which is unsatisfied or dissatisfied when the person dies, and which stays in the vital world for some time. There are many, many disturbing, obstructing, conflicting forces that take the form of spirits.

These spirits try to create disharmony, division and so forth. This is their function.

Spirits sometimes will also help someone gather information in the vital world about what is happening there or what is going to happen tomorrow or the day after. They have this capacity because the vital world is higher than the physical world. If you climb up a tree and look down from the top, you have a wider view and can see everything more clearly. From the vital world it is easier to observe the happenings of the physical world. But from the physical world it is very difficult to enter into the vital world. Occult practice or spiritism is involved here.

Very often spirits say to someone that they will bring their parents or their dearest ones to visit the bereaved person. I wish to say that people who listen to these spirits are committing a great blunder, because the spirits do not actually bring the soul of that particular person, their dearest and nearest. Rather, they bring dissatisfied, hungry entities from the vital world.

There are some spirits that take possession of the existence of the people who deal with them. The outer beings of these people allow the spirits to enter into them, with the result that they become possessed. Sometimes these people predict many things which may or may not happen. Unfortunately, however, this does not bring them into the spiritual life. After a few years the spirits say: "Now give me payment. I gave you name and fame. You did not know anything about the past or future. I showed you, so now you have to give me payment." What can he give? His name and fame cannot bring joy to the hungry spirits, so the spirits strangle him. Many, many black magicians and people who deal with spirits have been strangled or killed. I know because I have been near quite a few of these cases.

To come back to the term 'spirit,' in India we use the term with a capital S. and it means something different from what it means in the West. This Spirit is the masculine form of God which does not enter into the field of creation. It is the unmanifest Beyond, the Self. When we enter into the inner life and make spiritual progress, realising ourselves and liberating ourselves from fear, doubt and limitations, we gain a free access to the Spirit. There we achieve our own identity with the Cosmic Vision and Reality. This conception of Spirit is not used in the West. In the West we use the term 'spirit' to refer to spiritism and to beings in the vital world.

Question: If A Spirit Comes To You,...

Question: If a spirit comes to you, how can you tell if it is a good spirit or a bad one?

Sri Chinmoy: When good spirits come to you, you will always feel the fragrance of a flower. Even if there is no flower in the room, you will smell the fragrance of flowers or incense, and you will get joy. But when bad spirits come near you, you will always feel a kind of fear or anxiety or uneasy sensation in the room, and in your body. Just before they come you may have been very pure, but the bad spirits make your mind impure.

Question: Can A Spirit Help A Person?...

Question: Can a spirit help a person?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes. Parents may come during a dream and tell you to do something good, or they will tell you the future, or they may simply warn you that something is going to happen. My mother died over twenty years ago, and now she is in Heaven. Hundreds of times she has come and helped me. Sometimes when I have misplaced something, and I am disturbed because I need that thing, my mother appears before me. Just as I see you in a physical form, I can see her, touch her. Then she tells me: “Look, it is there in that drawer.” I say: “No, it cannot be there because I have not used that drawer. I never use it.” But that is where I find it.

In India they say that if you put something down with your left hand, it will take hours of searching before you find it. Of course, there is another method. When I misplace something, if I concentrate I can find out immediately where it is.

Question: I Read A Booklet Which Says...

Question: I read a booklet which says that every person has some guides connected to him and the person can pray to these guides. Is this true?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes, everyone has not only one, but two or three guides. In India we call them presiding deities. And also, our parents or relatives who are attached to us, after they have left the body, help and guide and pray for us. If they still have any feeling for us from that plane, they help. It is easier for them to pray for us than for us to pray for them, because they are on a higher level than we are.

Question: If We Burn Incense And Candles,...

Question: If we burn incense and candles, does this make it easier for us to invoke spirits?

Sri Chinmoy: When I used to have a pain in my feet, my sisters used to see a white figure massaging my feet. They did not see the actual face, but only a shadowy form. I could see the full face, however, and everything else. I told my sisters not to touch the spirit because it was extremely pure. I asked them to burn incense and candles, and set out flowers. Whenever a spirit comes you have to do these things; otherwise it would be very difficult for the spirit to stay with you. Although you may be the purest man on earth, the spirits will find you always full of impurity. But if there is a flower, incense and a candle, then they will find it easier to remain.

Sri Ramakrishna, one of our great spiritual figures, after he had left the body, once went to the house of one of his devotees. The devotee wanted him to stay for a considerable time, but Sri Ramakrishna said: “Here, out of my infinite boundless love, I have come to you, but I see that you are so impure. You should keep incense burning in your room. When I come and stay in this place, it is like sleeping on a bed of thorns. How do you expect me to sleep on a bed of thorns?”

Question: Why Do Flowers And The Burning...

Question: Why do flowers and the burning of incense help to bring good spirits back?

Sri Chinmoy: It allows them to stay peacefully. It purifies the atmosphere. It is their food; it is a kind of fruit to them. You torture the spirits if your room is not clean when you invoke them, even though your body and your mind may be clean. You may be thinking of God and you feel you are pure, but if your room is not pure, it is torture for the spirits.

Question: Guru, How Did The Hostile Forces...

Question: Guru, how did the hostile forces originate?

Sri Chinmoy: They are all dissatisfied or unsatisfied beings. Some of them never took human birth; others were human beings once. And when they were human beings, they quarrelled and fought and murdered people and did all kinds of unspeakable things. They were not satisfied by any experience they had. Even by killing hundreds of people they could not have been satisfied. Satisfaction is not in their life.

Question: Will There Ever Be A Time...

Question: Will there ever be a time when there won’t be any hostile forces anywhere?

Sri Chinmoy: There will be a time. It will take millions of years, but certainly God will not remain imperfect forever. He cannot. He must perfect them someday.

Question: When You Fight, Guru, Do You...

Question: When you fight, Guru, do you have an army?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes, many armies.

Question: Is It Your Inner Beings, Or...

Question: Is it your inner beings, or is it other beings also?

Sri Chinmoy: My inner beings fight with me and for me.

Question: Is The Weapon Concentration?...

Question: Is the weapon concentration?

Sri Chinmoy: It is not concentration. Spiritual Masters keep some solid power, which they can use if they want. It is not the power of concentration. It is like the strength you have in your arms. You do not use it at every moment. Similarly, inside me I have solid strength; it is there already. When the time comes, I just use it. It is like having thousands of dollars in the bank; it is up to you to use it. You can use one cent or the whole thousand dollars. But why should you use one thousand dollars or even one cent if there is no need? If there is need, a divine need, in most cases the decision to use this power comes from the Supreme.

Question: Guru, Do You Ever Call On...

Question: Guru, do you ever call on the disciples to fight these battles?

Sri Chinmoy: Still I don’t have that kind of disciple. You will be like that one day. Then I will use you gladly, very gladly. When I was somebody’s disciple, I used to participate in hundreds and hundreds of these battles. Then what? The following morning I received no recognition. Only once, when I did something most extraordinary, when my own Guru did not dare to do that kind of thing, on the following day the Guru told the person what I had done. But usually he would not give me credit on the physical plane.

Question: Guru, When You Talk About Fighting...

Question: Guru, when you talk about fighting a hostile force, is it a question of bringing down something and injecting it? Or is it actually a kind of struggle that you are engaged in? When you fight a hostile force, how does that differ from just meditating and bringing down Light and Peace?

Sri Chinmoy: In meditation we invoke Peace and very devotedly try to receive what descends. But when we meet a hostile force, it is like a battlefield. There we must blindly kill. There we do not think of father, mother, brother. There we have to act absolutely like a mad elephant. No, ‘mad elephant’ is not the correct word. When spiritual people fight the hostile forces it is like hundreds of lions fighting. There it is not like bringing anything down. It is real fighting.

Question: What Is It Like When You...

Question: What is it like when you fight in the inner world?

Sri Chinmoy: How can I tell you? In the vital world there are many, many destructive forces. Now most of you have not even seen a ghost. God does not want to show you a ghost. But these forces in the vital worlds are infinitely more powerful and more frightening than a ghost. They are extremely ugly and filthy and, at the same time, unthinkably strong. When you see them you do not even want to fight. You feel that it is better to surrender immediately. It is not that they are so beautiful and luminous that you want to die at their feet. No! As soon as you see them you, think it is impossible to defeat them, so you say the best thing is to surrender and just peacefully die.

Question: Have You Ever Been Possessed By...

Question: Have you ever been possessed by a spirit?

Sri Chinmoy: Spirits come and try to possess spiritual Masters, but they cannot possess us. We do not allow them to. It is God’s Will that we fight them.

Once when I was twenty-one years old, six spirits came and attacked me. I was in my bed and I started to fight with them. By God’s Grace those spirits had to leave, but they returned later. It was around three a.m., and there was such a commotion that all the members of the house—there were eleven or twelve of them —came down. Only my brother, who was there in my room in a bed right next to mine, could see that I was fighting with something and talking in another language. He did not know the meaning of what I was saying, but he wrote what he heard when I was arguing and fighting with them. Afterwards he asked me the meaning of it, but I had forgotten everything. Later I concentrated and meditated and told him the meaning of these foreign words.

These spirits were evil spirits. Very often evil spirits try to take away our spiritual power in our unguarded moments. It is not only spiritual power that they take; if you have honesty, simplicity or, especially, purity, they try to take it away. Purity they take first, because they know that if purity is gone from somebody, then that person cannot progress any further. If one wants to have something lasting in one’s spiritual life, then one must have purity first.

Question: Guru, Do Things Happen In The...

Question: Guru, do things happen in the West such as evil spirits entering people and then everybody thinks it is some medical defect? For instance, could some psychiatric cases really be cases of evil forces that have entered?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes. In the West, there are many like this whom I have seen under psychiatric treatment. X, who was one of my first disciples, had actually been attacked by an evil force, but her mother thought that it was a mental breakdown and put her in a hospital in the Bronx for a year or two. She became practically insane there. One day Y told me about her and I felt very sorry. I was in Manhattan at the time and I went to see her. She had been there for some time, suffering and not making any progress, and was in very bad condition. They thought that she had lost her sanity and needed psychiatric treatment, but I saw clearly that she had been attacked by an undivine force. She didn’t know me well at that time; she had only heard about me casually. But I did help her and a few days later she was released. Twice after that we held meditations and I gave talks at her house. One time when I was about to start my meditation there, her cat came and fell at my feet, and told me inwardly that it wanted to have a human incarnation. Everybody was so surprised because all of a sudden the cat came and fell flat at my feet and looked at me so fixedly.

Question: If You Hadn’t Helped X, Would...

Question: If you hadn’t helped X, would the forces have stayed for the rest of her life or would they have just left after a while?

Sri Chinmoy: I have no idea what would have happened in her case. Perhaps it would have lasted for quite a few years, and then if the forces saw that she was getting weaker and weaker, they would have left. They would leave, not out of mercy, but because they had destroyed the person. Then they would go to somebody else. And it is not that as soon as they leave the person becomes all right. No! If they have severely damaged or permanently ruined a person, then they can go to some other person and try to create problems for him. If the spirit has not totally destroyed the victim, then there is a possibility that he can be cured. But after total destruction, at that time it is a hopeless case.

Question: What Happens To That Soul In...

Question: What happens to that soul in its next incarnation? Is it ruined?

Sri Chinmoy: The soul is not ruined. But the poor soul does not get enough opportunity in this incarnation to make progress, to manifest its divinity.

Question: How Can You Tell The Difference...

Question: How can you tell the difference between someone who wants power because he is possessed by one of these beings and someone who wants power because it is his nature, because he is not spiritually developed?

Sri Chinmoy: If one has the ability, the easiest thing is to concentrate on the soul. Then one can see whether the person has become a victim of these wrong forces or if his own vital being is craving for power. Let us consider a child. We should feel purity in a child’s face; by nature a child should be sweet and loveable. But instead of that, if we see a child is always breaking things, fighting and full of aggression, we will know that this child has been possessed by something. In some cases, the child is born possessed in this way and when he grows up his very nature is to fight and seek to conquer. He always wants others to be behind him or at his feet. With a child, one can easily tell in this way. And if one can concentrate on someone’s soul, one will immediately know if that person has been possessed by another being or not.

Question: Is There A Way To Combat...

Question: Is there a way to combat these beings?

Sri Chinmoy: Yes, by bringing in peace. Peace is the best antidote. When peace enters into these beings, they die immediately. It is like poison to them, for this restless world is terribly afraid of peace. If we can throw peace into the persons who have become victims of these aggressive life-forces, then peace immediately swallows their aggression. Parents can easily solve the problem by concentrating on the hearts of their young children and bringing peace into them. There is no other solution; only peace will solve the problem.

Question: Why Is It Necessary For A...

Question: Why is it necessary for a soul that has left the body many years ago to ask for a material thing, in this case a skull (referring to a story about a ghost shaking the bed of someone who had taken an old skull from a cemetery)?

Sri Chinmoy: Ordinary souls have a malicious attitude of revenge. If they cannot take revenge on someone while they are on earth, they want to take it from the other world. They are not satisfied, and it is immaterial to them whether they act on a friend or on an enemy. They take revenge because they feel that they are gaining something. They get pleasure in this and are merciless. I know many cases similar to this story you told. These souls ask just for minor things—for a dollar, for example— and if they don’t get it, what do they do? They enter into your subtle nerves and upset your whole system. I know of a young boy whose friend died. This boy owed the friend the equivalent of a dime in Indian currency. For seven nights his friend came back saying: “Give me my money.” The boy said, “I am ready to give it back to you, but how will you take it?” The friend said, “No, give me, give me my money.” At the end of the week the boy’s health was shattered and he was bedridden for two months.

If you have a servant—a maid, for example—and the maid dies, if she wants to take revenge, she can remain in the vital world for a few months or a few years. From there her spirit may create many problems. But then, everything is limited; she cannot go on torturing you forever.

You have no idea how X suffered when her first husband committed suicide. Two or three hours after the wedding took place, he got the brilliant idea to kill himself. How X suffered from it for five, six, seven years—perhaps even more. Every day she was attacked, threatened, frightened, tortured in so many ways. I was in India at that time and I did not know her, but a friend of mine asked me to help her. I used my power, and after so many years of torturing her, the spirit finally left her alone.

We think that as soon as the soul leaves the body it becomes generous, pure, forgiving; but this is not so. If it were that way, we would always welcome death. We would say to death: “The moment you accept me I will be free from all bondage.” But it is not like that. The standard that we achieve in this life is a stepping stone. In our next incarnation we have to start with our present achievement. If we have cultivated forgiveness, love and sacrifice in this incarnation, then on the strength of our forgiveness, love and sacrifice we will go a step ahead in our next incarnation.

People who try to take revenge on their friends or acquaintances after their soul has left the body are really making great blunders. They are hampering their future incarnation, because they are not leaving the vital world. They are staying in the vital world and entering into the gross physical world to threaten, to frighten or to give some news. If they tried instead to enter into the mental world or the plane of intuition or the higher mind or overmind or the soul’s region, then they would make real progress, but they do not.

When that man whom you referred to in your question took home the skull, he put himself in contact with the vital forces. And he was inviting trouble by doing that. When I was nine or ten, I went to a place where I saw a skull. I saw a few words in Sanskrit written on the skull. Later, while I was going back home, I saw inwardly that in those very few words a long letter was written, and in this letter the deceased person was telling how his wife and children had been cruel and unjust to him. If I had brought the skull home, I would have had the same fate as the man you referred to in your question. Even though I was not involved with the deceased person, just because I showed interest in that particular skull I would have been bothered by him.

Question: But What Happens To These Souls?...

Question: But what happens to these souls? They are not free, but are still somehow bound to their former lives.

Sri Chinmoy: If a spiritual figure wants to show compassion, then he liberates them, he frees them from the vital plane. He tells them that they are causing misery not only for their relatives and friends but also for themselves. He tells them that they have no future and no light ahead if they continue like this. But unless a Master helps, these souls often remain in this deplorable condition for many, many years.

Question: How Do They Ever Get Out...

Question: How do they ever get out of it?

Sri Chinmoy: They get out when they finally realise that there are also higher worlds, which they can have. In the vital world, also, one must aspire to go beyond, to go higher. If there is no aspiration, then one has to stay. Even in this world, if one has no aspiration one will make absolutely no progress during his life. He will come and remain as a most ordinary human being, perhaps for many lifetimes. There are many human beings who act like animals. Why is that? Because they do not even have the aspiration to go beyond their animal consciousness.

Question: What Are Ghosts?...

Question: What are ghosts? Are they the vital beings of dead people?

Sri Chinmoy: Most of them are dissatisfied vital beings. Satisfied ones do not do these things. That is why in India, people observe quite a few rites when someone dies. For one month, they actually feed the deceased. If somebody dies, they keep all kinds of food in front of their house for one month after, thinking that the man who has died is still hungry. We used to keep food for our father and mother. Very often a dog would come and eat the food, and sometimes we became annoyed. But the village brahmin gave us sound advice. He said, “Your father has taken the form of a dog and the dog is eating the food.” I observed it at least six or seven times with tears in my eyes thinking, “Oh, my father is eating.” The dog was eating the food and I used to look at the dog with such affection, because the brahmin had told us that the dog was eating on behalf of my father. Such village beliefs! I have seen it with my own eyes. When my father died and when my mother died, we observed this ritual for one month and then, after a month, we believed they were not hungry anymore.

Question: Is There Any Truth To Stories...

Question: Is there any truth to stories about haunted houses?

Sri Chinmoy: Absolutely! Let me tell you about an experience of mine not long ago in Connecticut. We spent a few nights at X’s house. X told me her house was haunted, but I did not pay much attention to it. But at night the spirits came. I think there were three spirits involved: a father and two sons. It was a very long story. They screamed and screamed, trying to frighten me. The first night I didn’t take it seriously, but the second night it was really terrible, and I had to take it seriously. They bent a branch of a tree so it came right into my window, breaking the window. The branch came and practically pushed me out of bed. Then I said, “All right! Your time has come,” and I threw them out.

Question: Could X Hear Them Too, Guru,...

Question: Could X hear them too, Guru, or just you?

Sri Chinmoy: Anybody could hear them. X heard them many times. Her daughter used to get frightened, and sometimes she even fainted.

Question: Did They Know Who You Were?...

Question: Did they know who you were? Were they doing that on purpose?

Sri Chinmoy: No. They didn’t know that I was a spiritual man or anything. They just thought that somebody was staying there, so they did it.

Question: If You Hadn’t Thrown These Spirits...

Question: If you hadn’t thrown these spirits out, would they have left on their own?

Sri Chinmoy: Of their own accord, spirits do not decide to go. Once they have occupied a place, it is like a hostile force; they occupy a territory and one has to work very hard to get them out. I have done it in a few places. Some people pray to God and then God helps them.

Question: Can Everyone See Ghosts, Or Just...

Question: Can everyone see ghosts, or just some people?

Sri Chinmoy: If they take a form, the spirits can be seen by everyone. They can take a beautiful or an ugly form. When I was only twelve years old, one of our servants was attacked by a ghost. He was about twenty-three years old. Around noon or one o’clock, he was walking along the street when suddenly, from a tree, the stupid fellow saw a beautiful woman calling for help. When he went to help her she started kicking him with her knees. The boy fell down and fainted. Afterwards he was taken to a hospital and they tried all kinds of medicine on him. How he suffered! It was not a mental hallucination or anything.

Usually the female spirits are more mischievous than the masculine ones. Female ones come with a very beautiful form and call someone, and when the person goes, they kick him like anything. One evening my elder brother and his friend were walking together near a bamboo tree. Bamboo trees are very tall, and they saw that this tree was bending very low. My brother actually saw a woman in the tree, but his friend did not. It was not his third eye or anything that let him see the woman while his friend did not; it was just that his friend was not paying attention. His friend was so delighted to see a bamboo tree bent to such an extent that he just grabbed hold of it. The tree snapped back up, and my brother’s friend was thrown to the top of the tree. When he fell back down he broke his elbow and his shoulder. Nothing happened to my brother.

Question: Do These Spirits Have Personal Grudges...

Question: Do these spirits have personal grudges against the people?

Sri Chinmoy: Not actually against any individual, but they are mischievous beings that get pleasure from doing such things.

Question: What About Graveyards?...

Question: What about graveyards? Are there ghosts there?

Sri Chinmoy: In graveyards and in cremation grounds too, you can see how ghosts and evil forces fight and scream at night. People who live nearby can hear them.

The place where we went the other day for a picnic—X’s house—I saw many evil forces. Many people have committed suicide on that estate. Usually there are ghosts and evil forces moving around in an area where people have committed suicide.

The Spirit World