NATIVE CHARM
COMMUNICATION FROM OTHER PLANES?
Belief in communication from other planes- superhuman sources, discarnate spirits, distant places, etc is widespread. Dreams are the most widely shared and reported phenomenon.It is shared by people all over the world, irrespective of racial, religious and linguistic differences. While one section of the 'rationalist' academia dismiss such beliefs as superstition. other sections like psychologists, parapsychologists,etc are busy analysing the contents of such experiences. Freud and Jung did pioneering work in this regard and they have numerous followers everywhere even to day. Many scientists and inventors have reported getting solutions in dreams. The birth of great souls and Avataras like the Buddha and Christ was announced by dreams of their mothers. Rationalists may prattle anything; humanity's experience is more ancient, and universal.
Maya Devi, mother of Buddha, dreaming of the birth of the Blessed One!
Public domain via Wikimedia commons.
One difficulty faced here is that there is obviously no objective standard to go by- we cannot test a dream or communication in a lab. Scientific instruments may monitor the brain or other bodily function and confirm that some one is having dream or experiencing dreamless sleep, but only the subject can reveal the contents. Also, the dreams and other communications are obviously from different sources, of varying levels of correctness, and it is difficult to standardise.
Public domain via Wikimedia commons.
Again, while one may have a dream, it may be in symbols and one needs to interpret- but there is no standard way of interpreting. So much is written on the subject, one is not sure of what is right.
Carl Jung, first follower of Freud, then branched of on his own. His theories on dreams are more comprehensive.
Public domain via wikimedia commons.
But for individuals who want to study and understand the matter, there is no difficulty. One has to keep a careful note of such things and analyse them in the light of one's own experience over a period of time.. There is no other guide. Of course in our tradition, there is a standard way of interpreting some symbols such as animals, birds, etc, or events such as being splashed with mud, getting hands dirty, etc.
In general, as for dreams, there is either a literal or symbolic way of understanding, and it differs with individuals. With my mother, it was always symbolic. Once, when I was writing my final PUC exams, she dreamt one day that a huge cobra with raised hood got into the place where I was sleeping and got under my blanket. It so frightened her that she got up perspiring, and failed to note whether the snake actually bit me! My grand mother interpreted it as a good sign, and said that getting bitten (in the dream, of course) was even better! Later, I passed with good marks and so the dream was felt to be benign, and the interpretation,correct.
But my wife gets dreams which are literal. There are at least three stunning instances.
1. Just after the third child was born, she dreamt that we were all walking in a vast open area surrounded by water- we were in fact walking through the water; it was so extensive, but there was no sense of fear. She was carrying an infant in her arms. But within weeks of his birth I lost my father and according to priestly advice, we had to go to Rameswaram to perform the last rites. Those who have been there know how extensive is the water there and how shallow it is! We can walk far into the sea, which is like a lake without waves! And she had to walk into the water, carrying the child in her arms!
Picture taken from:www.ghumakkar.com.Acknowledged with thanks.
2. Once she dreamt that she was sitting on the steps of our old house, with our second boy on her lap. (We were then living in an apartment, having vacated the old house.) In front of the house was a row of cheap multi-storied flats built by the govt in the name of slum-clearance. Suddenly, she saw the huge buildings collapse, with debris falling all over, and in a few moments there was only rubble where the buildings had stood! But the child was safe on her lap. She got up greatly worried. This boy was then staying in Washington DC and studying. But that day, the WTC towers collapsed in the US and the Pentagon was also attacked. Even as we were watching the TV greatly worried, the boy telephoned from Washington to say he was safe.
National Park Service.
3. This dream also occurred while we were living in a rented flat. She dreamt that something wrapped in white sheets, which looked like a dead body, entered our building complex. It was accompanied by a small crowd. I was at that time working in a different place; she was alone here with the children for the sake of education. She was terribly worried and telephoned me to find out all was well. But on the very next day, a casket, wrapped in white sheets as she had seen in the dream, arrived in our building complex. It contained the body of some resident of the complex, who had died elsewhere and the body had come by air!
One really does not know what to make of dreams. And often, dreams do frighten us, or at least make us uneasy. One does not know whether they convey intimations of things to happen, and if so, how soon or when; or are mere reflections of our own thoughts. Whatever the books- new or old- may say, one should be guided by one's own record and experience. The best policy seems to be not to anticipate dreams as some sort of divine communication. Certainly, not all dreams are divinely inspired. And when we do get dreams, it is better to say traditional prayers seeking to nullify the effects of dreams, or to read the relevant chapter in Sundara Kandam, and rely on God, rather than on such dreams.
There is another class of communication from discarnate spirits. Now, parapsychologists and even medical doctors are investigating phenomena such as "Near Death Experience" (NDE), hypnotic regression and recall of past lives, etc. But one should not become naive to believe anything. God has mercifully hid from us all memory of past lives- even the memories of this one lifetime are unbearable for many of us. Like Macbeth, we all feel like crying at times:
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
And pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Clease the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upn the heart?
Macbeth, Act 5,Scene 3.lines 43-48
Why then should we seek to load ourselves with memories of past lives?
Edgar Cayce, an exceptionally gifted psychic who received communications from spirits while in trance. Personally, he was a pious Christian, and humble, and never profited materially from his psychic gifts.
This is a picture which appeared in 1910 in New York Times.
Records of thousands of "readings" he gave for people have been preserved. The information revealed there often go counter to the official dogma of his faith!People like Cayce are extremely rare.
In the same way, it is not a healthy idea to seek to establish communion with the dead. No one becomes wiser after death.There are surely cases where a dead relative has appeared to someone in a dream, and revealed the location of a lost object or some such thing. But it is a different matter to seek to commune with discarnate spirits. Saints tell us that we are not sure what type of spirits will be contacted and we lack control over them. So this is to be avoided totally.
However, there may be genuine contacts occurring spontaneously- these are one time events, and not deliberately sought.
While in Nagpur, my friend Neville was preparing for MA (Political science ) exam in the Nagpur University. I was studying along with him, just to give company. One day during the final exam, early in the morning, an aunt of his was shot dead by a mentally unstable relative. This friend
was shattered and he could not recall anything that he had studied. He was sitting in his chair in a dazed, depressed condition, having decided not to appear for the exam. Probably, he dozed off a bit. Suddenly,he woke up with a jolt. He felt a soothing hand on his shoulders, and heard the voice of his elder brother Hillary: 'Neville, don't bother. Go and write the exam'. He looked around, and found no one. The point is, this brother Hillary had died 15 years before! Neville did write the exam, and passed with flying colours. He was a very devout catholic, and would not try to contact spirits on his own. This experience was all spontaneous.
Nearer home, we had another experience. My father in law was a small-time lawyer in a small town in Tamil Nad. In spite of over 40 years of practice, his clientele was small, and his income modest, just adequate. Once I asked him about it. He told me that it was not his aim or practice to accept all or any cases that came to him. He would first have to determine whether the party was telling the truth, whether his case was just and fair. Only then he would accept the case. As a rule, he would not take up family matters, especially divorce cases. His choice was therefore limited, and he was happy about it.
One of his sons studied law but by the time he qualified, my father in law had passed away. In those early months after he set up independent practice, my wife had gone for a visit to her place. One day, the brother in law returned from court, saying he got a new case that day. On enquiry, he revealed that it was a divorce matter. Immediately, his sister reacted: "But why ? Father would never take up a divorce case". He simply said that it was difficult to get cases as it was, and he could not afford to be too choosy. He kept the paper on the rack, and the matter was dropped.
The next morning, after his usual coffee, he went to his office and sat on the chair. A framed photo of my father in law hung above the chair on the wall. The rack containing case files was on his side. Sitting on the chair, he just extended his right hand to pick up the paper relating to the divorce case he had kept on the rack the previous evening. And lo, something stung him on his ring finger, and there was sharp pain! He withdrew his hand in a hurry, and a big brown scorpion fell down!
Now, how do you interpret this? Do you take it that my father in law was communicating through the scorpion that he was not pleased with his son taking up divorce cases, something his sister had tried to convey the previous evening?
We thus see that we have different levels and means of communication, but we cannot always interpret them!
