How can ghosts being subtle act on gross objects as when opening doors or breaking things?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you. Sometimes we hear of ghosts opening doors or throwing away tea cups. So how can that subtle body actually exert influence over gross matter? The thing is that in the fifth canto, there is a hierarchy of beings given.
For example, there are animals, there are aquatics, there are birds, there are animals. So in that hierarchy, there are humans and actually above humans, ghosts are put over there. Although from the level of consciousness, we could say the ghosts, they committed some… most likely the souls committed suicide because of which they became ghosts.
But still, the point is that they often have greater power than humans. So for example, the devatas and the asuras. Devatas are considered higher than humans, asuras are considered lower than humans.
But the asuras and devatas both have more power than humans. So similarly, although their consciousness is lower, the asuras, but their power is higher. Similarly, the ghosts also, they may be more in tamoguna, but their power is higher.
So now, those beings who have higher power, then they can interact in subtle ways with gross matter also. So for example, we often hear of mystical weapons which devatas use. So sometimes, they chant a mantra, or the asuras, or even the devatas, or even the warriors on earth, who have been blessed with some weapons by the devatas, they chant a particular mantra, and by that, a particular astra is invoked.
So, there are, we could say, connections and mechanisms at a subtler level of reality, which we don’t know much about at a gross level of, while observing from a gross level of reality. So, can subtle matter in itself influence gross matter? Yes and no. Even now, when I’m speaking, how am I speaking actually? It is my soul’s consciousness, which is being rooted through the mind, to the mouth, to the brain, and through the brain, to the speech area of the brain, and from the speech area of the brain, the nerves are getting stimulated appropriately, and from the voice box, the throat, the particular sounds are coming.
So, subtle matter and the gross matter interaction, or for that matter, the soul, or you could say, broad spirit matter interaction, this itself is a matter of perplexity from the perspective of modern philosophy, modern science rather. Much of modern philosophy is actually scientific philosophy. So, in that sense, you could use the word philosophy also.
So, science operates on what is called as the causal completeness of science, or the causal completeness of nature. That means, if an object, say, if a ball is moving, somebody kicks the ball, and the ball moves and falls at a particular distance, then the trajectory of the ball can be described in terms of the laws of motion. So, the ball was hit with this force by this kick at this angle, and that’s why the ball moved through this trajectory till this distance.
So, material explanations, or science uses the word natural, or material, physical, we would say, whatever was the word. So, physicalism or naturalism, so, physical, natural phenomena can be explained fully in terms of natural causes, or natural factors. That’s the assumptions of science.
So, now, causal completeness itself is more of a presumption than a conclusion. The causal completeness is from one scale of reference. So, if somebody is observing your car, and they observe that your car is now moving from a tobacco area, one area of New Jersey to another area of New Jersey, if they want to decide why this car moved like this, so, they can trace backwards to come to a material cause, and say, okay, the wheels moved, okay, the axle moved, the ignition was sparked, the key was moved from the vertical to the horizontal position, and, if you consider that as a starting event, then, from that perspective, you could say that the car’s motion could be explained in terms of this chain of events, starting with the car key, slot, car key being moved from vertical to horizontal.
This explanation, in and of, does not intrinsically exhaust a higher explanation that Ramana Prabhu wanted to actually drive to a particular place. That’s why he came and he sat in the car and started driving it. So, the conscious explanation, or the personal explanation, and the natural explanation, they can be complementary rather than contradictory.
Now, exactly how in which factor they are contradictory, which factor, how exactly they are complementary, that may be a little difficult to figure out. But the point is that, say, even when, even when, if we get angry and we break a pot, and a ghost becomes angry and a ghost breaks a pot, so, if you consider, essentially, somehow, the signal has to pass from the subtle level to the gross level. You know, because we have a gross body directly connected with us, so we could say that this person who is, say, half-wounded, or whatever, person laughs too much or suddenly gets angry, or whatever I want to say.
Now, in first saying that, I have to acknowledge that even in my getting angry, say, because I was not able to reach for the program in time, in my getting angry, there is a comment, there is a thought, consideration of the elite strength. So, there is a conception of the mystical, because somehow from the subtle to the physical, the transition has happened. So, the intention to speak was there in my consciousness, and from there, speech has happened.
So, how exactly did this happen? How did this transition from subtle material to gross material happen? There are various theories to explain that. Simulated reality, where in the simulated world, say, somebody is riding a car, or driving a plane, and then they have a simulated cockpit, where if they move the gear in a particular way, move the handle in a particular way, and the car moves in that way. So, how does the signal transmit from the physical realm to the digital realm? There is a mechanism set up for that.
Similarly, in our daily life also, the transition from the physical to the mental takes time, but it happens, even if the physical is not present. So, if the physical is present, then depending, if the physical is present in the case of our bodies, then because the interaction happens so frequently, we don’t think anything abnormal about it. But in the case of a disembodied soul, a soul only as a ghostly body, because they themselves are so unusual, that if they interact, that attracts attention, that attracts a sense of mystical wonder and excitement.
But the transition of action-inducing stimuli at the material level is just as important as, or is just as mystical as the transition of signal from physical stimuli, from mental stimuli, mental desires, to physical object’s motion. So, in my case, if I desire, in anger, to break a glass, and then I move my hand and break it, in this also, from the subtle intention at the level of the mind, to the physical movement of the hand, there has been a transition from the subtle to the physical. Now, how exactly this transition from the subtle to the physical happened? That is the purpose of the expression is that, it’s through a system by which consciousness is projected and an intention is executed.
It’s like when you play a video game, say somebody is trying to fly a plane, the system by which the consciousness is projected into the digital screen, and then the actions corresponding to whatever actions are required in that realm, they are executed. Something similar happens through the arrangement of the super-soul, in the case of the souls who are looking for this kind of, who want to act at a physical level, despite being not having some physical voice.