Spirits

Here I am using the term spirits in a general term and it includes ghosts, bhut, prêt etc. When a person dies, the spirit of the person remains in a confused state unless the person was an enlightened one or had been expecting death for some time and was mentally prepared for the same. The spirit suddenly gets freedom from the body. However, still it has some attachment to the body which was hosting it for so long and continues hovering around it. It still thinks of the body as its own but gets confused by its inability to control the body. It tries to communicate with the people close to him but it cannot do so. Finally when the body is consigned to flame or buried, as is the religious custom, the confusion aggravates because its own body is being destroyed and it cannot do anything about it. Suddenly it feels that all the relatives and friends are alienated. In the confused state, it cannot differentiate between relatives and friends on the one hand and other general people on the other. It stays put in the smashana or the burial ground as the case may be, for some time. That is why smashanas (graveyard) are such a fearful place. Many of the spirits living there have died recently and are confused and they may attack any living being that disturbs them. The spirit may also prefer to come back to the house where the person died. The spirit, in many cases, turns against close relatives because it wants to communicate with them and it feels abandoned by them. That is why, generally, the person conducting the last rites faces many difficulties for some time. This is one of the reasons for the Hindu custom of keeping the person, who conducted the last rites, confined to house for some time.

Gradually, the spirit retires to a secluded place, may be a forest, abandoned house, a mountain, and remains there bidding its time for the next birth. Gradually, it loses the attachment to near and dear living persons and becomes disinterested in their living conditions. Only in exceptional circumstances, may be for a cause, they come near their relatives or friends of the previous birth. They normally avoid human contact and are afraid of humans because some have the power to enslave them. Many people enslave spirits and do black magic through them or use them for their own purpose. The stories of Vikram and Betal are the famous examples. The nature of the spirits depends on the nature and circumstances of its death and the accumulated Karma. Ante mati, sah gati. If a person has died of old age or some disease of prolonged nature, the will to live has died before the physical death and the spirit retires to a lonely place very soon. He has already lost the earthly attachments. However, in case of apamrutyu, or sudden death, like accident, the spirit suddenly becomes free and remains unsatisfied. It still tries to gratify its senses and being unable to do so, adopts an antagonistic attitude to all living beings. Most of them do not retire to secluded place and given an opportunity, try to do harm to living beings. So also people, who are dis satisfied at the time of death. Some spirits seem to be benevolent and try to help people. Many village Gods, in fact, are spirits of this nature.

There is one type of spirits of lower order. They take delight in misplacing your belongings. You might have kept something somewhere; the spirit will move the thing somewhere else. You will not be able locate it. This creates problem and you start suspecting servants. The bigger problem is when the spirit moves the objects to the neighbour’s house or vice versa. A spirit may bring something from your neighbours house and keep it in your house, without your knowledge. When the neighbour detects this, he may accuse you of theft. Some persons use these types of spirits to enrich themselves. They also cause scratches on your skin. You may find a long scratch mark on your skin as if caused by a nail. Apart from this nuisance, they are harmless


People believe that spirits do not come near iron or they cannot cross a railway line or if you recite Hanuman Chalisa, they will be scared away. This is far from truth. If you have been initiated by a sadguru and you recite the guru mantra, you can inflict pain or harm to the spirit and they stay away from such people. For a mantra to be effective, you have to have siddhi of the mantra. But there are people, who have accumulated power may be in the previous birth, who cannot be attacked by the spirits. It is also true that people with passion are not scared by spirits. You will find the example in many smashans of the cities where young couple visit in the evening for a moment of privacy.

The spirits generally feel incomplete and tormented since they cannot fulfil their wishes. They yarn to take rebirth for fulfilment. However, the rebirth cannot come as per their wish. It has to follow a higher design. The enlightened ones spend this time in tapashya or penance to gain liberation or move to the next higher plane. It may be borne in mind that all the papa punya or consequences of good and bad deeds are carried forward to the next life. You do not start afresh in the next life. If you have attained a certain spiritual position in this life, you will continue from that position in the next life. If you have passed fifth standard in this life, you will start from sixth standard in the next life. For most of the penance, a human life is required. A spirit cannot do that completely. However, it may do a limited penance or take the help of a living being. The spirits who have done penance in the previous life go to a higher plane where they do not feel tormented and where rebirth is not compulsory. There is a general belief that if you do some good deeds in this life, you will get salvation, that is, your spirit will stay with the Supreme Being. That is far from truth. Rarely any spirit attains that state immediately. This depends on the accumulated Karma.
The spirits are not to be believed. They are known to fake identity of some other people. A spirit may come to you and say that he is the spirit of one of your relative. Don’t believe this. When you see a shade or a light or something, don’t jump to the conclusion that it has something to do with God or benevolent spirit. It need not necessarily be. The spirits are not in self control in Amabashya and are in distress in Poonam. So don’t try invoking a spirit in Amabashya, the night of new moon, if you are not a master of the game. This is not to suggest that other days are harmless. Likewise, even benevolent spirits will not communicate with you on full moon night, since they are in distress.