Question 2

I Bow down to those who have destroyed all enemies.

I Bow down to those who have achieved liberation.

I Bow down to those who are the religious preceptors.

I Bow down to those who are the priests.

I Bow down to all the religious aspirants.

 

 

It has five divisions. On each division there is an invocation which becomes deeper and deeper. Ordinarily, people chant the entire mantra, but this is not the proper way. Those who desire to contact high souls should go on repeating only the first part. The remaining four parts need not be repeated. There should be full emphasis on one part only because the souls related to that part are different from those related to other parts.

 

For example, the first part of this mantra, namo arihantanam, is a prostration to the arihantas – those who have destroyed all enemies and those who have transcended all their senses. Ari means an enemy and hanta means the destroyer. Therefore, this is a particular invocation to fully enlightened souls who can take only one birth more. This one part should be repeated with a special sound and impact. In this invocation, other Jaina souls are not included and, therefore, they cannot be contacted.

 

This Arihant is a special technical word which is connected with the highest Jaina souls. With this mantra, the soul of Jesus Christ cannot be contacted; there is no such desire expressed here. With this mantra, even Buddha cannot be contacted. This is a technological term for the invocation of a particular category of Jaina souls. Like this, in all the five separate parts of Namokar, there is an invocation for five different categories of souls.

 

The last invocation, NAMO LOYE SAVVA SAHUNAM, is for invoking all the religious aspirants. It is directed to all aspirants of all religions; it has nothing to do with the Jainas or any specific group other than Jainas. It is a very generalized invocation for contact with any religious aspirant without any particularization.

 

All religions have such mantras through which contacts have been made. These mantras became shakti-mantras, and they became highly significant. A mantra is like a name given to a person, such as the name Ram. When the person is called by the name, immediately he becomes alert. So there are also mantras for ordinary spirits. There are sciences for invoking both ordinary and extraordinary souls. Sometimes it may not be possible to contact a particular soul who is invoked because he may not be there due to the lapse of time.

 

But it will always be possible to contact souls of a similar type with a mantra. Now take the example of Mohammed. He always said that he was only a paigamber, a messenger, because Mohammed never felt that whatever he was experiencing was his own. The voice which came to him from above was very clear. His experiences are described by Mohammedans as ilham – revelations. Mohammed felt that something entered into him and began speaking.

 

He himself could not believe the happening. He did not think that anyone else would believe him. If he were to say that what was spoken was spoken by himself, he thought that no one else would believe him because he had never spoken that way before. He was not known to the people to speak in such a way. People did not know that he could tell such things, so he knew that no one would believe such a story.

 

He came back home from the place where the revelation took place in a mood of great fear, trying to avoid others and escape being seen. He did not want to reveal immediately what he knew, because then people would not trust him as he did not have a background for such things in his earlier life. Upon coming home he told his wife what had happened. He also told her that if she was able to trust him, then he would tell it to someone else – otherwise not, because that which had come to him had come from above.

 

Someone had spoken to him; it was not his voice. But when his wife trusted him, he began telling others. With Moses too, the same thing happened. The voice descended upon him. In order for this voice to descend, some great divine spirit must use someone as a medium. But everyone cannot be used as a medium. This capacity and purity to become a vehicle, a medium, is not a minor thing.

 

Communication can only be possible if a capable vehicle is available. For such communication, another’s body has to be used. This type of attempt was made in recent times with Krishnamurti, but it failed.

 

This is the story of the attempted reincarnation by Buddha under the name of Maitreya. Buddha had said that he would take one more birth, with that name. A great deal of time had elapsed – about two thousand five hundred years – but still Buddha did not take birth. Indications had been received that Maitreya was not able to find a suitable mother or womb. Therefore, a different type of attempt was made.

 

If it was not possible to find a suitable mother or womb, some selected individual might be developed and made ready through whom Maitreya could speak whatever he wanted to. For this purpose, the large Theosophical movement was started – to arrange for the selection of a suitable individual and prepare him in every way to deserve to be the vehicle for Maitreya.

 

The soul which wanted to give a message through Mohammed found in Mohammed a ready-made vehicle; he did not have to prepare anyone. Even the soul that gave a message through Moses did not have to make a vehicle. They found the vehicles ready-made. Those times were simple, and people were more innocent and less filled with ego. It was easy to find a vehicle then because one could, in full humility, surrender one’s body to another soul for use, as if that body did not belong to him.

 

But now it is impossible. Individuality has become rigid and ego-centered; no one wants to surrender. Therefore, the Theosophists selected four or five small children – because it could not be confidently predicted how each child would develop. They selected Krishnamurti as well as his brother Nityananda.

 

Afterwards, they also selected Krishnamenon and also George Arundale. Nityananda died a premature death as a result of the intensive preparations to make him the medium for Maitreya. Krishnamurti became so mentally disturbed by his brother’s death that he himself could not become the medium.

 

Krishnamurti was selected at the age of nine by Annie Besant and Leadbeater. But this world is a big drama; this experiment was done by great powers. The drama was played on an international stage by powerful individuals. When the possibility of Maitreya entering into Krishnamurti became very near, certain, the soul of Devadatta who had been Buddha’s cousin, and who had for his whole life opposed Buddha and attempted several times to kill him, influenced the mind of Krishnamurti’s father.

 

Thus, a legal suit influenced by Devadatta was filed by Krishnamurti’s father against Annie Besant and the other Theosophists, demanding back the possession of his son Krishnamurti who had been in their custody. This suit was fought up to the Privy Council. This fact has not been told before. I am telling it for the first time: Annie Besant fought the legal battle tooth and nail. But in the law courts, it was not possible for her to win because it was the father’s right to claim possession of his minor child.

 

Even if the child were to refuse to go to the father it was not possible for him to win because he was a minor. Therefore, it was necessary for them to run away from India taking Krishnamurti with them. In India, the suit was going on and Annie Besant ran away out of India with Krishnamurti. The suit went on up to the Supreme Court; there also Annie Besant was defeated. It was a legal battle and Devadatta was more powerful.

 

Ordinarily, the law becomes more cooperative in the hands of bad men because a good man is not preoccupied with matters of law. The bad man first makes all the necessary arrangements for his legal battle. Afterwards, Annie Besant appealed the case to the Privy Council in London, and there the decision was reversed, against all legal provisions, to let the child remain with Annie Besant. There had never been any such precedent before, nor was the judgment just and proper. But there was no further appeal beyond the Privy Council.

 

This judgment was made possible by the influence of the soul of Maitreya who did not interfere in the lower courts or the appellate courts. He reserved his powers of influence for the last court of appeal. Thus, on the lower plane, it was an enacted drama witnessed by big headlines in newspapers and legal battles fought in law courts. But on the higher plane, a great battle was fought between two powerful souls.

 

Afterwards, such great pains were taken in Krishnamurti’s preparation that had, perhaps, never been taken before with any other individual. Individuals may have taken greater pains in preparing themselves for certain achievements, but so many people had never staked so much on one person. But in spite of all this great effort, when the time came all hopes fell through. Theosophists had gathered some six thousand people in Holland from all over the world, and it was scheduled to be announced that Krishnamurti had on that day given up his own personality and accepted that of Maitreya. All the preparations were made.

 

The long awaited moment came when he was to climb up to the rostrum to announce that he was no more Krishnamurti, so that the soul of Maitreya might enter and begin to speak. Six thousand delegates from all over the world had gathered together from far and wide, in great expectation, to listen to the voice of Maitreya. A great unprecedented event was to take place. But nothing happened.

 

At that crucial moment, Krishnamurti refused to relinquish his individuality. Devadatta had made his final attempt, and what could not be done in the Privy Council was made possible in that last court of the delegates. He made Krishnamurti announce that he was not a teacher – not a world teacher, that he had nothing to do with anyone else’s soul, that he was what he was, and that he did not want to tell anything more. A great experiment failed.

 

But in one sense, it was the first experiment of its type, and there was a greater possibility of failure. So it is not possible for souls to communicate unless they can enter into someone’s body. That is why a birth as a human being is indispensable. For example, someone dies now, and if he remains in a bodiless state for a hundred years there is no development of any type whatsoever during the hundred years.

 

He will begin in the new birth from where he was when he died in the previous life – right from there – no matter how long the intervening period may be. This intervening period is not a time of development. It is like waking up in the same bed where you had slept the previous night. That is why many religions went against sleep, because during sleep there is no progress.

 

These religions began to reduce the sleeping time because of lack of development during sleep. You get up in the same bed you had slept in, unchanged. Exactly the same way, when you take birth again you pick up from where you had left off when you died. There is no change in your condition. It is like my stopping the watch now, but when I start it again it will start exactly from where it had stopped.

 

In the interval between births, all development is blocked. That is why no devatas can reach salvation while in heaven – because there is no action there; one cannot do anything there. There one can only dream endlessly. For doing something, one has to take a human birth on earth. Also, in regard to souls recognizing each other, two spirits desiring to meet each other can do so only by entering into two different bodies. There is no way of direct recognition.

 

It is like twenty persons sleeping in this room. They will remain the whole night in the same room, but in sleep there is no way for them to know one another. They can know one another only after waking. When we wake up, our recognition continues – but in sleep it is not possible; there we have no relationship whatsoever. It is possible that one person may wake up and see all the rest that are sleeping.

 

This means that if one soul enters into someone’s body that soul can see the other souls. But the other souls cannot see that one soul. If one soul enters into somebody’s body, it can know something about the other souls that are bodiless. But those bodiless souls cannot know anything. Actually, the fact of knowing and recognizing is possible only through a brain residing in a body, and upon death the body dies together with its brain.

 

But there are some other possibilities. If some persons have experimented while living, and have established relationships through telepathy or clairvoyance, which are methods of knowing without use of the brain and which have nothing to do with the brain, then such persons may succeed in establishing relationships with evil spirits as well as celestial souls. But there are very few persons of that capacity. However, information about the conditions prevailing in the spiritual world has been given to us only by such souls.

 

The situation is like this: twenty people drink liquor and all become unconscious. But among them one person who had a long habit of drinking could remain fully conscious, and so he could tell about the experiences of being drunk. The others could not because they became unconscious before they came to know anything.

 

There are a few organizations working in the world who prepare persons to communicate information about the spiritual world after death. For example, in London, Sir Oliver Lodge, who was a member of a spiritualist society, tried for a long time after his death to give a message, but failed. For twenty years, in spite of great efforts, no message could be communicated. Some other souls, in fact, informed that Oliver Lodge was trying sincerely to give a message, but tuning in could not be established.

 

For twenty years, he knocked at the doors of people to whom he had promised to give a message immediately after death. He was prepared by the society for this work. It appeared as if he had tried to awaken his friends from sleep. They would awaken and sit up alert, feeling that Oliver was somewhere nearby, but no one could become attuned in order to receive what Oliver had to say.

 

Oliver died ready to communicate and continued his efforts for twenty years, but there was no one ready to understand the language of the dead. Very often, some friend passing on the road felt Oliver’s hand on his shoulder, knowing full well the touch of his hand. But when he would try to talk to them, the awareness of his presence would become lost. All of his friends would be very much upset over this, but in spite of Oliver’s best repeated efforts no message could reach.

 

Preparations have to be twofold. If someone is capable of telepathic experiences while he is living, if he has developed the capacity to convey thought without words, if he has a capacity to see far off things with closed eyes, then such a person would know many things about the spiritual world.

 

Knowing is not only dependent on our physical existence. For example, a botanist, a poet, a shopkeeper and a child may go to a garden. They all go to the same garden, but they do not go after the same thing. The child will run after the colorful bees, the shopkeeper would think about his shop problems, the poet would stop at flowers and become lost in composing a poem, and the botanist would try to verify many things about trees.

 

The shopkeeper can see neither the flowers nor any poem in them. The botanist sees every root, every leaf, every flower, with such analytical eyes that he confirms the knowledge he has gathered over the last twenty or fifty years. None of the others can see what he can see. Similarly, those who die without knowing anything except the body cannot have any recognition of the other world, nor can they establish any relationship with it.

 

They die in a coma, in a deep unconscious state, awaiting a new birth. But those who made preparations in advance will be able to do something. There are scriptures for such preparations. If, before death, one dies in a scientific way with full preparation for it, with a plan and a methodology as to what he would do after death, then he can do something. There are chances for great experiences.

 

But when a person dies ordinarily, he may take birth immediately or after some years. Then he will not know anything about the condition of the intervening period between births. That is why there is no possibility of direct communication.

 

- Osho, “Dimensions Beyond the Known, #4, Q2”