lokeshvara Posted March 18, 2008 Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 Namaste all i just want to first say thank you to you all. everyone here has been so welcoming and kind. and now on to another question (i know, i have lots) what is the general stance on ghosts and demons? do they exist? what are they? is there any teachings on the reason for hauntings or possession? thanks again and i hope i'm not flooding the board with random questions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sunds Posted March 18, 2008 Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 Ghosts are haunting souls. They say if the personn dies being uncontended, the souls roam around. That is why we Hindus do shraddhs(death ceremony). However some of these are good souls and some evil. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shivaduta Posted March 18, 2008 Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 ghosts and demons are entities from parallel dimensions... they are not visible to all... and can not hurt humans per se... they do not operate by our laws of physics and yet they can be seen by some and they can be seen by all at certain places and times... human attunement to ghosts can increase when a person is emotionally upset... or is undergoing trauma... ghosts "bhutas" are of human origin... "pishaccyas" are maddened spirits which are incapable of listening to reason. "pretas" are the undead or dead bodies which have been reanimated by different means... the demons like yakshas, chetakas, dakhinis and other entities are generally believed not to be of human origin and have powers much in excess to human powers and they can be controlled through various tantrik practices... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theist Posted March 18, 2008 Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 Ghosts, yeah they are about no doubt. I call them floaters. Had my murdered step-brother try to take my body once. This haunting experience gets tied in with schiophrenia often. Such people with this problem become susesptible to ghostly torment and pyschiatrists then blame it all on the disease. On the other hand some people take the symptoms of disease and imagine it all to demon possession. Actually it is often a mixture of the two which is impossible to see clearly from our side. Like the crazy fellow who suddenly commits a murder by impulse, throwing someone in front of a subway train. Was it solely his schiophrenia or was there a demonic presence taking advantage of his crazy mental state causing the impulse? This is also a reason why one should avoid intoxicants. Prabhupada wrote in somewhere that ghosts actually take over the minds of weakened people and not directly their bodies. One more reason to always remember Krishna. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lokeshvara Posted March 18, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 Thank you everyone for the insightful answers. do yakshas etc want to hurt humans or are they generally disinterested? also does staying mindful of Krishna protect one from ghosts or possession? i ask because when i was heavy into buddhist practices i could feel things around me and we were always told that if you don't say this or that mantra then the ghost can possess you and drive you mad or it could haunt your house and bother your family. having lived with nasty ghosts when i was little, this is a concern of mine. thanks and hope you are having a great day Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theist Posted March 18, 2008 Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 Krsna is the Supreme Person. As such He dwells in the heart of the being who is playing the role of the ghost as well as our own. Krsna promises to always protect His devotee so we should always feel dependent on Krsna and look to Krsna for protection. Chanting Krsna's name through this body or in the astral is the best protection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sreeram Posted March 18, 2008 Report Share Posted March 18, 2008 Pretas yakshinis and gnadharwas do exist. I have come across some people who have seen pretas and they feel the presence of these evil spirits. But I think every one doesn’t have that extra sensitivity. I don’t know why. I have not seen or felt there presence so far. It’s like the two sides of a coin. One is good and one is evil. There are some powers in this universe that we are yet to understand. There was incidents like a 5 year old muslim girl is speaking in Sanskrit and chunting the mantras. It was told that some preata atma of brhamin has entered into this girls body and that atma was doing this. Moderns since is describing this as dual personality but it is hard do digest. I am trying to understand the logic behind this. But luck so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shivaduta Posted March 19, 2008 Report Share Posted March 19, 2008 do yakshas etc want to hurt humans or are they generally disinterested? i do not think as such any lifeform is interested in hurting anoither this is not a part of natures way... however sometimes supernatural lifeforms come into conflict with humans... more out of misunderstandings ... like for example you begin diging up the ground (for purposes of construction) which is sacred to some supernatural being. that is why there are vastu pujas and such rites before construction of homes and offices. mostly they follow the rule "dont hurt anyone unless someone messes with u" but it is difficult to understand what they consider as messing up with them There is another point and that is the unleashing of such entetities (on a person) by a genuine tantrik... (not many genuine guys exist...) at the behest of a personal enemy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shivaduta Posted March 19, 2008 Report Share Posted March 19, 2008 This haunting experience gets tied in with schiophrenia often. Such people with this problem become susesptible to ghostly torment and pyschiatrists then blame it all on the disease. On the other hand some people take the symptoms of disease and imagine it all to demon possession. True it is very confusing to diffrinciate between schiophrenia, posession by ghost and past life (memories) regression... demon posession however is a rare phenomenon... and pretty easy to identify... by the very nature of the demonic superpowers unleashed... i havent seen of heard of a single direct incidence though... i seperate demons from ghosts because of the nature and quantum of their respective energies... and also because ghosts are generally believed to be humans who are ddead and uet havent let go of their attachments. demons are an entirely different breed though and have nothing in common with humans.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theist Posted March 19, 2008 Report Share Posted March 19, 2008 Not sure exactly of what you mean by demons but obviously some other category. That's fine, but ghosts can also act demonically as can those in gross human form. I do agree I am speaking mainly of those who are in the human birth and death cycle and are in between death and rebirth. Some metaphysical books I've read explain that an individuals (in human form) vibrations place in him in a correspondence to varying planes of the subtle astral world. For instance one who is pious aligns himself with planes where other pious souls are staying in the inbetween state and similarily those of a cruel nature to align themselves where the cruel natured beings a clustered between births. I tend to accept this principle. One could also see this correspondence in terms of the three modes of nature. If one is dominated by a crazy nature he will more in contact with those who last died in the mode of ignorance and will be susceptible to their influence. A good example was given in a little book I read many years ago. The author gave the example of viewing the difference in scenes surrounding a bar and a church in terms of the auric vibrations each gave off. We can easily imagine angels and higher beings being attract to interact with those emmersed in the church's atmosphere and likewise the lower beings who would be attracted to interact with those who emmersed themselves in the bar's atmosphere. Best vibration to stay emmersed in, as we know, is the vibration from Krishna's name and all that comes with it. This is our safest position. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 19, 2008 Report Share Posted March 19, 2008 Yes ghost are most defo there. I have seen people possessed in India. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xexon Posted March 19, 2008 Report Share Posted March 19, 2008 Ghosts have nothing to do with the soul. The soul departs at the instant of death and never lingers. A ghost is leftover mental energy, which exists as a highly rarified electrical charge. It's so highly rarified, it almost doesn't qualify as matter. Indeed, it is the highest form of physical matter there is. After that, you enter another realm altogether. This leftover mental energy is the identity of the deceased person. It contains the ego, memories, likes and dislikes. This identity can have a life of it's own for a while before it is reabsorbed into the sea of energy that it came from. It doesn't understand the death of the body and tries to carry on without it sometimes. You can even hold a conversation with some of them. But sooner or later, their batteries will run down because there is no way to keep them charged. This is where hauntings come from. No God or devil. No evil or divine. Just a dissipation of energies. x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theist Posted March 20, 2008 Report Share Posted March 20, 2008 Gotta disagree with you there xexon. What you are decribing is what Theosophists have called astral shells. Astral shells are supposedly left over after the soul moves on from astral plane similar to how we leave a physical body behind when we move on from the earth plane. It is not the case that this is all there is to the phenomena of ghosts. The soul can and does inhabit astral forms just as it inhabits gross physical forms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xexon Posted March 20, 2008 Report Share Posted March 20, 2008 By doing so willingly, I agree. But most people at the time of death don't even know which way is up. They are bound by karmic debt and are thrust back onto the wheel of life without much layover. For the average person, they get off one train only to board another. x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theist Posted March 20, 2008 Report Share Posted March 20, 2008 By doing so willingly, I agree. But most people at the time of death don't even know which way is up. They are bound by karmic debt and are thrust back onto the wheel of life without much layover. For the average person, they get off one train only to board another. x I don't understand what you are agreeing to. " By doing so willingly, I agree." It sounds as if your position is that there is no oppurtunity to remain as ghosts as they are immediately put back in flesh. Is that it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xexon Posted March 20, 2008 Report Share Posted March 20, 2008 When you said that souls can and do inhabit astral forms, I agreed. But these souls are advanced enough to do so by their own will. They are spiritually far down the path and have greater flexibility in their repayment of the karmic debt. There are other souls who have enough positive karma accumulated to enjoy some repose in the astral realms before reincarnating again. Karma writes the timetable for all these events, and eventually slips the soul back into this world in a customized life so that their journey can continue. x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theist Posted March 20, 2008 Report Share Posted March 20, 2008 Hmmm.... But we all have astral bodies even now. No one is without one. When physical death takes place the soul is still covered by the astral body rather well developed spiritually or not. It is the formation of the subtle body of mind intelligence that determines our next body. It carries us to our next body like the air carries aromas. I think we might have different meanings for the term astral body. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xexon Posted March 20, 2008 Report Share Posted March 20, 2008 I believe it is a matter of semantics and nothing more. As they say, the devil is in the details. x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lokeshvara Posted March 20, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2008 interesting discussion, thank you for the info. are beings always reincarnated as humans or can they be reborn as other things as well? if ghosts are beings in between lives, how long do they normally stay in that form? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 20, 2008 Report Share Posted March 20, 2008 Ghost are souls with the sukshma shareer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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