There are many different forms of communication, at various levels of evolution, of which the average human is as yet only aware of a few. The usual modes of communication with which all are familiar, whatever their level of education or evolution, are speech, smell, sight or vision, and touch. These employ our sensory apparatus with which we were born, and are gross, physical levels of communication. They are used at all levels of existence in the worlds of insects, animals, birds, and humans; the sense of smell playing a large part at the sub-human level.

The native tribes of North America used smoke signals. In medieval times, beacons of fire were lit on hilltops to muster the troops, or to signal an emergency, et cetera. The ringing of bells in churches to announce times of prayer, marriage, death, and emergencies requiring the population to come in for safety is well known. The call to the devout for prayer in the Islamic religion was the muezzin's loud call, heard over long distances, repeated at least five times a day. And there is the not unfamiliar ululation of the women in Arab countries, used to signify the happiness or the sorrow and grief of a whole tribe.

Speech at a distance, even distances crossing entire continents and encompassing the globe, has been made possible by technological advances giving human beings the facility of verbally communicating with each other, across the vast distances separating them. As for seeing, the unaided human eye can see at considerable distances, but here again optical instruments that enhance vision, such as the telescope and the microscope, permit us to see objects in the macro universe as well as the micro universe, although within limits. Modern technology makes it possible to see what is happening half way around the globe, or even on distant planets, by electronic transmission images that are received by the viewer on suitable instruments, such as television consoles or computer monitors, which convert the electronic patterns into viewable pictures.

All these involve vibrations of energy. The average individual of today is as familiar with such evolved means of communication as he is with the bullock cart, the train, the aeroplane flying in the sky and the huge seafaring vessels floating serenely on the oceans of the world; though few are aware of how a massive ship floats on water, or a huge plane flies in the sky! Modern life has taught us how to use the marvellous inventions of an advanced technological age without the need to understand how they work. We accept them because, in one way or another, they make life easier to live, make communication instantly possible, and add comfort to the home. A mere television set brings selected events from anywhere in the world, or even in the cosmos, right into our homes, as we watch from the comfort of our armchairs while munching a sandwich!

The energy used is electro-magnetic energy. Light is the supreme form of this energy, for it can speed its way across the universe with a velocity of 300,000 km per second. Nevertheless it takes time, and so when we see a distant star, what we see is only the light that emanated from that star in some distant past - 4.33 years in the case of the star nearest to our earth. If the star had died before the light from it reached us, we would have absolutely no knowledge of its death until its dying burst of energy reached us! So what do we really see? And yet we say that 'seeing is believing'!

Radar was discovered after studying the way bats communicate. Whales, and other aquatic forms of life also communicate using sound, which is transmitted through water. Sound needs a physical medium through which it can be transmitted, and therefore cannot be transmitted through a vacuum. Its waves travel very slowly when compared with the velocity of light. When there is a flash of lightning, we see the illumination first, and only many moments later, depending on distances, hear the sound that we call thunder. The people of pre-science times had no knowledge that the light and sound both reflected the same phenomenon. Heat, too, is a manifestation of energy vibrating at a different level. It has been used by the armed forces in guided weapons systems of mass destruction, and can be said to be yet another form of communication, but with a limited application. We can see how circumscribed knowledge can be, when we depend only on the information available to us through the medium of our five senses.

What we have to appreciate is that these manifestations of energy require naturally developed organs of perception to receive those vibrations and to translate them into what we see as light, hear as sound, and feel as heat. Schopenhauer, the great German philosopher, has said that when a giant oak tree crashes down in a forest, there will be no sound if there are no ears to hear, but only vibrations! In essence therefore, we are limited to receive substantially narrow ranges of energy for which Nature has given us the necessary instrumentation. The truly vast ranges of such energy patterns are sadly beyond human perception.

What of the ability to transmit by thought alone? Unfortunately, human beings are, as yet, unwilling to accept that we can communicate with each other without any mechanical or electronic means being used. It has been accepted that thought can go from its source to its destination, even if it has to travel across the whole universe, instantly. The Russian scientists of the former USSR were reported to have conducted very secret research into the possibility of transmitting orders to orbital spacecraft as well as to manned space flights by thought power alone, since the traditional media of communication needed time for the orders to reach the targeted recipient. In situations involving distances measurable in parsecs, thought power alone could ensure immediate response to orders. This shows that many, including scientists, did believe in the possibility of sending thought messages across the immensities of space. What degree of success those scientists achieved, if any, is sadly not known. In the lives of the evolved saints, however, such transmission of thought seems to have been possible, if not common.

My revered Master, my spiritual guide, Ram Chandraji Maharaj, used thought communication with his Master, Lalaji Maharaj. I have seen him suddenly putting on his cap, and attentively listening with his head bowed, nodding his head and making a murmuring noise, "Haan, haan," (meaning "Yes, yes," in Hindi) and then, if he was so inclined, letting us into the content of the message that he had just received from his Master! This has happened quite frequently even when he was strolling around the house, when he would come to a sudden stop, and receive the message. When he wanted to communicate with his Master, he generally sat silently in a very relaxed manner, but his attention centred somewhere, far beyond our human approach, and all of us knew that such occasions were to be respected silently with humility, until my Master reverted to his normal state. I once asked him whether he heard the Grand Master (as Lalaji Maharaj was addressed), Babuji said that there was no hearing, as we understand it, involved. He said that it was really the heart that received messages "from above" as he put it, but our familiarity with sensory inputs could beguile us into thinking that the message was heard with the ears.

There have been two or three occasions when my Master gave me sittings with a specific purpose. When he appeared to be unable to proceed, Lalaji Maharaj told him, by this means of communication, "Send him to me, and I shall complete the work myself." During the long years of my intimate personal association with my Master, such occasions have been too numerous for me to disregard this means of communication, which Babuji Maharaj called 'intercommunication'. He has himself recorded in his personal diary, not only such person-to-person communication with Lalaji Maharaj, but dialogues in which several highly elevated souls have participated - including the Buddha, Swami Vivekananda and Jesus Christ. We must observe some caution when we refer to so-called messages from spirits, dead persons et cetera which fall generally within the domain of spiritism or occultism, and are supposedly received by mediums during séances. There is advisedly a great deal of suspicion regarding this class of messages. One has to be careful in all such matters, without automatically writing off messages received from the highest liberated personalities, such as Lalaji Maharaj, Babuji Maharaj, and other saints of that calibre referred to above.

Ancient civilisations, especially those from the eastern world, have all recorded messages received by spiritually developed individuals who were able to communicate with so-called higher entities using forms of vibration unknown to them, and to us. It is a welcome phenomenon that, in the past decade or so, there has been a considerable body of literature not merely on the possibility of such communication, but recording what the authors claim as actual communication with God himself! Was thought power used in such communication? The human recipient generally received it as a thought form. And wonder of wonders, he was able to comprehend the message in his own language, though the transmitted message was not couched in any human language! How did the person, or the spiritual entity at the other end, send the message or order? It is perhaps impossible to say how the message was sent. The depth of such communication depended only on the individual's level of spiritual attainment. They were able to receive messages as visible patterns, or as sounds, and often have had enacted for their understanding whole scenes pertaining to the future, which such seers later communicated to the mass by the limited means available to humanity - speech and vision.

From merely natural human possibilities to scientific and technologically developed means of communication using scientific techniques, to the spiritual dimension - is there an acceptable and perceptible development in human abilities? Or is the subject again to be relegated to the realms of doubt, suspicion, often of fear-generated hatred leading to persecution, and thus to what has been a final relegation to the limbo of scientific impossibilities?

Developed souls have enjoyed contact with what has been known as higher worlds through the medium of dreams. In the life of a spiritual aspirant, dreams tend to be more and more meaningful as the individual develops, and has quite often formed yet another medium of communication, often a one-way affair, but certainly not limited to that. Having said all this, which is merely elementary science which children now-a-days learn in school, we have to conclude that deeply entrenched beliefs in what communication means, and even more deeply held prejudices, account for the inability of the average human being to accept the fact of communication with other souls, even when they are still with us in human form. As for communication with the disembodied souls, well, that is generally written off as some sort of aberration, and if the concerned person persists in speaking about it, he runs the risk of being institutionalised.

I assure the reader that I too have been very sceptical about the possibility of communicating with worlds other than our own. But there have been far too many hidden nuances in the messages from my Master to permit me to remain a sceptic. I must confess to an occasional doubt even now, but such doubts are fleeting, and leave me in peace almost the very instant that they appear. There is no shame in sincere doubt, which my Master said should not be called doubt, but as inquiry. But to remain a sceptic and an unbeliever even after receiving ample inner verification about the veracity of these messages, that would indeed be a shame, and a tragedy.

My invitation to the reader is to set aside all preconceived notions and prejudices, and read what follows, and then judge with the heart, for the heart is par excellence the instrument for verification of the truth.

A medium, who is not a professional, has passed on these messages to me after my Master gave orders that they be made available to me. She is a sister-abhyasi of the Sahaj Marg system of spiritual practice. I have recorded messages from four sources, all of them beloved to me, and all beyond question. The first is my mother, Janaki, who passed away in the year 1933 leaving behind four children, three boys of whom I am the eldest, and the fourth child a girl, who followed her mother when she was but three years old. As I have written elsewhere, I had no knowledge of my mother at all, remembering nothing more than the last heart-rending scene before her mortal remains were taken away for cremation. Nevertheless, she has remained with me as a pervasive reality often appearing in my dreams somewhat vaguely, and on other occasions thoughts about her adding to my sorrow when I was in a mood of despair and loneliness.

The second entity who has graced me with his messages is the Grand Master of the spiritual system hailed as Sahaj Marg, now spread all over the globe. He is a personality with whom I have had no personal relationship, since Lalaji Maharaj, as Mahatma Ram Chandraji of Fatehgarh was popularly known, attained Mahasamadhi, preceding my mother into the Brighter World when I was five years old. I have been blessed with spiritual experiences wherein He has graced me with His spiritual presence on several occasions. On a few occasions I have been blessed with direct sittings too from Lalaji Maharaj.

The third person to bless us with His messages is Babuji Maharaj, my spiritual Master, who has filled my life to the brim with His loving presence, His teachings, and His divine love, starting with my very first meeting with Him in Shahjahanpur way back in 1964. His loving and patient guidance have followed me throughout the forty years of my sadhana under the Sahaj Marg system, and even today that same guidance, filled with His love and compassion, is generously made available to me through these messages. Lalaji Maharaj rediscovered the Sahaj Marg system of spiritual practice, and my Master spread it all over the world, during the years 1972 to 1982, when I was closely associated with Him in his work carried out through the Shri Ram Chandra Mission.

My wife Sulochana, who departed for the Brighter World in November 1999, is the fourth giver of messages, having secured her place in my Master's heart in His lifetime, and now seated at His divine feet in the Brighter World.

I invite the readers of this book to set aside their scepticism, their doubts, perhaps even anger, when confronted by the whispers from sources not located on earth, but received as messages addressed to me, many to another abhyasi of the Mission, and many also of general relevance not addressed to anyone in particular, but to the whole of humanity. May these messages bring new hope to threatened humanity, threatened with instant extinction by the forces of hatred, wilful violence and religious bigotry.

P. Rajagopalachari
Satkhol
Basant Panchami, 13th February 2005