Later in the afternoon that day (November 11, 1940) Baba decided to move to a house in Kandy. He remarked, “In Ceylon everything hopeful is hopeless, and everything hopeless is hopeful! At least in this new bungalow there are no ghosts!” When some of the women looked relieved by this last remark, Baba commented:
Why be afraid of ghosts? A ghost means a human being without a body, and in that bodiless state he has to remain as long as the sanskaras of his previous birth last. Then he takes another birth. Ghosts are miserable. They have desires like any of us. They try to come in contact with human beings to fulfill their desires. When it is dark and silent, their subtle, smoky bodies become transparent. You have gross, subtle and mental bodies. They have only subtle and mental bodies, but these are not as limited as the gross. When stretched out, the ghost’s subtle body stretches out in all directions – upward and sideways. That makes you shiver and scream, when you see them like that. Depending on surroundings, darkness and quietude, they can be seen. Their bodies can enlarge and shrink. That is why in dreams the subtle bodies go anywhere, stretching out and out. They can also be photographed in suitable conditions, depending upon the surroundings, time, light and the photographer.
These discarnate spirits wish to contact living human beings. If Rano, a heavy smoker, has no body and for some reason becomes a ghost, she does not get another physical body until certain sanskaras are spent. They may be spent in one year or a million years. All depends on the contacts made to spend one’s sanskaras. For instance, Rano has her craving for smoking cigarettes. She sees Kitty smoking. She, too, wants to smoke, and tries to contact Kitty to have a cigarette. But contact with a gross body by the subtle body is almost impossible. Kitty feels the presence of the subtle body and is scared. But poor Rano only wants to have a smoke.
In some instances she, Rano the ghost, becomes so desperate that she waits until Kitty nods to sleep even the tiniest little bit, and then smokes through Kitty’s gross body. The subtle can enter any gross body or thing. When it enters you, you don’t even know it, and are not at all affected. But it can only enter your body when you are not conscious, when you are sleeping.
How many spirits have been drinking tea through Norina when she is not conscious? But the spirit has no hold, it does not reside in you or possess you, but just goes like the wind. And it only happens sometimes. Don’t think about it, or you will go mad! It is of no importance, so trivial, so insignificant!
Sometimes you feel angry for nothing. This might be some spirit wanting to spend sanskaras of anger through you. But this is so unimportant, not worth thinking about. Our bodies are full of germs, but we don’t think about it. If we did and tried to picture it in our minds, we would go mad. Masters are so bothered by these spirits – you have no idea. They want to touch me for liberation, and they do.
Always keep one thought in mind: that only God is real. Who is God? That which is One in existence. All things that exist are that One. If you say That exists, then that One is God. Everything else is automatically nothing. And if Nothing exists, then that Nothing, too, is that One God.
Can you grasp this? All this is nothing. The only thought you must have in mind is that nothing exists – zero exists. This nothing, too, is God. One God exists; nothing else exists. When you say nothing else exists, you mean nothing too exists!
What is Nothing? That, too, is the same One God! To call God “One” is not really right. God cannot be two. God is not One – it is all God – everything is God! Nothing is God! Think about it.
Lord Meher, Original ed., Bhau Kalchuri, Vol. 7, pp. 2636 – 2637.