Question 3

QUESTIONER: CAN IT BE A CASE OF COLLECTIVE AUTO-SUGGESTION?

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.