Interesting Dreams with Dead People

November 13, 1999

Dear Parents,

Sai Ram and Hari Om! Divya conveys her namaskars. Here all is fine.

Tomorrow Jnaneswari will leave for Visakhapatnam and I will have rest here!

Though I feel this is an ideal place to stay, the strange and restless pull is irresistible. On one hand I am loath to go out in the big, bad world; on the other hand I feel I am being dragged away, like Swami as a mother is pulling the hand of the child to another, advanced classroom.

When I was in Anandashram, feeling the same restless pull but not knowing what to do, I could only turn to Yukteswarji and I wrote to the Puri ashram. The answer was not favorable (no lady guests allowed) but by the time the answer came (one month), Swami Satchidananda had just called me saying I had to go, and at the same time the devotees there told me of this ashram. So, due to the strange pull I am searching about; at the same time thinking that God will guide and in fact, my destination has already been pre-determined by Him!

Thank you for your very kind offer and suggestion to return to the clean, efficient and perverted America. Who knows? Only time will tell. Until then, I am focusing my search in this country. You know I adjust more comfortably with Indian villagers!

I am sure you remember how fond Yukteswarji was of the wayward and egotistical devotees. Whatever the reason, past life connections or what, the fact is that many of us have inexplicable attraction for some people, and those same people are often not the greatest personalities. How affected was Yukteswarji, when he had to send the wayward dearly beloved devotee away! I remembered this story a lot seeing, over the years, the love that Jnaneswari treasured for her dear Susheela. Susheela would only complain about everyone daily, and have umpteen suspicions both true and totally false. Jnaneswari just listened and listened with such respect, at all the ravings due to Susheela’s righteous indigestion. Love is like that. Poor Jnaneswari is still pretty sad and depressed over her loss. It seems she told Susheela shortly after she first arrived in Shanti Ashram, “God has taken Swami Omkar and my dear own sister Shanti from me; but now I have new strength and joy, for He has sent you to me!” Her love for Susheela was like that.

As for me I am a handy sevak but I get on her nerves with my own idea of Dharma (like sometimes taking supplies of rice or biscuits – very small amounts – to be fed to any poor malnutrition guests or animals). We are on two different roads that don’t meet often, as far as mind is concerned. Actually she never saw (or expressed to others that she saw) faults in others, but her love of Susheela overcame all obstacles. So sad to say, it seems only Jnaneswari is truly sad and depressed at Susheela’s departure. The rest of us are admittedly relieved. How sad!

Everyone has their good qualities. I must say that our Susheela did admirable meditation for hours at a stretch. She didn’t like saying mantras so concentrated on self-inquiry, ‘Who am I?’ The answer was, of course, that she was God, which explained her righteous nature. She also arranged flower vases very nicely, and changed the bed sheets in Swami Omkar’s rooms, loyally every Thursday. She also gave golden advice to others, telling we should meditate more, go into silence and do self-inquiry. MAY HER SOUL REST IN PEACE!

On 6 November (18 days after her death) I had a dream of Susheela! Since three months I have newly started another dream-cum-thoughts diary, and I copy from it:

DREAM: There was a big, ethereal, shining, white hall somewhere, and it was filled with people in colorful clothes. They were all sitting on the floor facing the front, as if waiting for a function. I entered the door at the front, to the left of the facing people. I went to the back where there was place and as I was sitting who should I see? In a corner at the very back was Susheela, wearing light ochre clothes (as she wore in the first year I was here), smiling slightly and nodding at me, as if to say, “Oh! So you’ve come!” I just stood transfixed staring at her, wondering in my mind, “What is this? She’s dead! Then how and why is she sitting here, perfectly visible before me??”

Then I woke up, unable to decide whether it was just a concoction of my mind (but it was so clear!), whether she remembered me ‘up there’ and made a path to contact me in subconscious dream, or if I will enter soon into a hall of the freshly dead! Only He can say!

Here is another dream, on the very next day, 7 November, also copied from my diary, this time about my poor, forever-in-poor-health-and-wishing-death friend in Puttaparthi, Vidya!

DREAM: Here in Shanti Ashram a group of people were getting ready to visit Tirupati, the famous pilgrimage spot (where many go to shave their heads after a birth or death). In the dream I refused to go with them and had, instead, a sudden and intense urge to go to Puttaparthi.

I arrived in Puttaparthi to Vidya’s room, where the undertaker was just removing the under-planks of her bed. The man said that she had died the evening before. He went and next in came Vidya’s trusted maid, Easwaramma (E), with a little girl. E told me more details how the day before Vidya had become very ill with sores on her face, etc., got serious and passed on.

The room and its details were very, very clear – all disarranged boxes of things with a lot of old grayish dirty clothes around. All was in a gray tint. I saw a letter to me that Vidya had started on her writing table. E gave me a couple of her mementos for me to keep, as she was clearing up the room and taking things for herself.

I woke up at 3:30 AM with an eerie feeling, wondering if it had any truth or if it was just restlessly induced dream, due to thoughts of dead people lately.

8 November – now the plot thickens! Before bed last night I had written to Vidya about the dream and asked of her welfare. In the letter I had also mentioned about feeling some change was afoot and that I might change residences to I know not where. Then I wrote that it probably won't be to Parthi because that scene in the drama of my life is finished and it would be like returning to a dream that one had already woken up from (that usually never happens!).

Now – the joke begins! I went to sleep to be met with a very clever dream, a sort of continuation of last night’s dream! The scene was sort of a darkened room on a big campus, like West Prasanthis of Prasanthi Nilayam. Now I was visiting Vidya the day before she died, and enacting scenes just as I had dreamed them (no, I hadn’t dreamed them in the physical world, but in the dream-world I had dreamed them the day before!) (Get it??!)

Something about Vidya was a little out of sorts, I was collecting the daily milk and tiffin for her, telling her that I had dreamed these scenes and if they went on as planned, she’d die the next day!

Switch to after her death, only now I was having a interview with the deceased! Not only that, but Vidya was turning into Venkamma and both were describing the same thing: how when they died the chanting of the Name of God was going on, how they felt themselves floating up and rising, how they could see everything – their body, the people chanting, etc., how everyone realized that just then death had occurred (when the soul rose up and out of the body) and what happened afterwards.

Next the characters in the drama change, though the scenes remain the same! Can you believe, now the one who died was Krishna himself and it was him describing how he was floating up and seeing everything after he died!

Next it was I – or was it him? – who was writing a composition on palm leaves about the death, watching it all happen, how all was really a dream or drama and that he really knew everything and was the master of it.

Whew! Is it all the mixture of a restless mind, stuffed with philosophy like this from young age, or a joke of the Divine trying to pound into my brain that all is truly a drama written, directed and played by Him, or by us who are really Him? Figure it out!

By the way, the dream of Vidya I had on 7th morning, the morning of Dipavali, the festival where Krishna killed some demon. It is symbolized by bonfires, burning images of the demon, plus fireworks symbolizing destroying the demon. On 7th night all the fireworks was going on, and I had gone to sleep with the blasting of the fireworks, to wake up in the silent morning to this unique dream.

Whew! What a hopeless writer I am! I never even plan or think about what to write, I just sit and words flow out on the paper without thinking even one word in the brain first. One thing I can say, it sure helps to have a typewriter, otherwise I could only write two pages by hand before the hand pains!

When I complain to the postmaster girl about the high rates it is costing to send all these letters to American, she answers, “What can I do, when each letter you send has a basta of papers?” You know what a ‘basta’ is? It is a 100-pound bag of rice!

Tomorrow, Monday, I'm going to inquire from a doctor amma about the orphanage her relatives run. Sigh – how can I volunteer to look after kids or elderly people? I don’t like humans much. Maybe I can go to some reserve forest that has nice wild animals – I like animals! I couldn’t be in a zoo with all the animals caged up, nor in a loud kennel with howling dogs. We’ll see what Swami has planned for me, as the days pass!

Rats or rat race, this is the question.....

Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu.

Love,

Divya