109. God Part Thirteen

 

The section on spirits and life after death continues

 

               4. A restless spirit. Shahab writes (blog 65-6 ). “I was allotted a house at 18 Civil Lines Cuttack, Odisha, India. It had the reputation of being haunted. Strange events started happening. One night the light went out and then came back automatically. Somebody knocked at the door softly, three times. As I opened the door, there was smell of perfume, rustling of silk dress, and a white ring of smoke. Another night, cigarette case got opened and couple of cigarettes were lying on the bed. One night I could not find my slippers. They were later found, rolled up, in the pillow. Every third or fourth night, faint knock at the door would occur. All the events were pleasant and mischievous. Nothing sinister.

               One night, there was sudden silence and then an explosion. For the next several months, for approximately three and a half hours each night (from about 11pm to 3 am), I was harassed and persecuted. I was not physically harmed. Here are some examples. Almost daily there was rain of stones and bones, which later left awful smell of dead fish, burnt peppers, or gutter. Once, whole day and night, whatever I would eat would have stones or sand in it. I peeled a banana; its center was filled with sand, like a thermometer is filled with mercury. I had a dining room table weighing 150 to 200 pounds, it started rising in the air, till the china on it was hit by the blades of ceiling fan and went smashing. Then, the table came down with a crash. Its one leg grazed my right big toe which is numb till today. Sometimes telephone would ring for an hour. One night it was raining heavily, somebody rang a bicycle bell, and yelled ‘postman! Telegram for you’ I opened the door. A uniformed postman was outside. When I extended my hand, instead of the postman there was a human skeleton, laughing, its upper and lower teeth striking each other. I ran inside and closed the door. There was sound of nails scratching the door for few minutes. Sometimes red blood would come from the taps. Sometimes I would hear the sounds of horses running outside.

               All were not illusions and hallucinations, because each morning before my 2 servants would come from their quarters, I would gather all the stones, bricks, and bones, from the room and dump them outside in the pond, so that they should not know what was happening. The stones would be dry, despite heavy rain outside. My obstinate nature prevented me from leaving. I relied on verses of Holy Quran for protection from evil forces. The verses had great power. One night I played my gramophone. Instead of the singer’s voice, screeching, terrifying screams or a woman’s sobbing came out. I wrote a famous verse of Quran, in Arabic, on a piece of paper and put the paper on the record. Screams stopped and singer’s voice came. I removed the paper, and the terrifying screams resumed. As a test, I wrote the Urdu translation of the verse on the record. It did not work. I wrote it in Roman numerals, it did not work. It worked only if written in Arabic. Ultimately I found the truth. Eighteen to twenty years ago, a young Hindu woman named Bimla Kumari, a college student, was smothered to death and buried in that house, by her British lover, an officer. She was in advanced pregnancy and the lover killed her to hide the affair. He had since died. The old mother of Bimla was alive and, still waiting for her daughter in Allahabad. The spirit of Bimla was trying to inform her mother, in some way. Secondly, she also wanted her bones to be properly taken care of, as per Hindu religious customs. The spirit of her British lover was trying to prevent all this to happen, with all of his evil powers.

He was using all means to scare me, as he had done to all previous tenants, so that I should abandon the house, and his evil deed remain hidden.

               Bimla’s mother was informed. By a government order, on her request, the corner of the room was dug.  Her bones were found. Her body was cremated in the proper Hindu custom, at a burial ghat. The same day all evil happenings ceased in the house. It was no longer haunted.  Peace came.

               5.  I have already recounted the spirit of Sri Yukteswar coming back after his death, in a Bombay hotel room, and talking to Yogananda for about 2 hours (blog 80. I am repeating it for people who have not read Part 2).              Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar.

This is the most amazing, unprecedented story in all of the spiritual or religious literature. I cannot say enough about its uniqueness. Nobody has come back in this world, after his death, and told some of his experiences of other world(s), in great detail, or any detail. Nobody has ever come back, except as a spirit. Period.

Readers must, by now, be familiar with Sri Yukteswar, the guru of Sri yogananda. About three months after his death, he reappeared in a Bombay hotel room where Sri Yogananda was staying. It happened in afternoon while he was sitting and meditating in bed. The whole room was transformed with light and splendor. Sri Yogananda was filled with ecstasy as he saw Sri Yukteswar. He tightly embraced his master, Sri Yukteswar

“ My son” the master said, tenderly

“ it is really me, in flesh and blood body….from cosmic atoms I created an entirely new body, exactly like that cosmic-dream physical body…….. buried in the sands of Puri”

 He was resurrected in another planet Hiranyaloka (Illumined Astral Planet ). The inhabitants of that planet were highly developed spiritually, but still they had some impurities that required further purification. Sri Yukteswar was assigned, by God, to help them in the purification process.

               6. Swami Yogananda writes. “An aged woman (Ma) was Sri Yukteswar’s disciple. On the evening of March 16, 1936, Ma arrived at the ashram and asked to see her guru.

               ‘Why, Master died a week ago!’

               ‘This morning at 10^o clock he passed in his usual walk before my door! I talked to him for several minutes in the bright outdoors'.

 

To be continued