SONGSOPTOK: It seems that fear is the most important primal instinct in the animal
world. The two main manifestations of fear in the human society is centered
around two entities: God(s) and Demons. We somehow learn to fear ghosts and
spirits at a very early age and remain marked by that fear later in life. What
is your personal experience? When did you start fearing ghosts and for what reasons?
ALPANA: I was
brought up in a large family with eleven
members ,we use to hear ghost stories from grandma, our house was also surrounded by big trees like
neem, (azardicta indica), bel
(aegelmarmelos) etc but we were, specially me, was not very much afraid of
ghosts as we knew somehow that these ghosts remain only in her stories and in
the story books we read when grew up older..
SONGSOPTOK: Very often adults try to
control the tantrums of children by threatening them with ghosts and spirits.
Do you remember any such incident when you were very young? In your opinion, do
such methods have a permanently negative effect on children? In what way?
ALPANA: Yes, surely
all those tantrums give deep negative impression on young child’s mind and remains for long time unless child
later proactively strives to remove these negative impressions or adults couch
them as those are mere stories . I have seen a boy in our family who used to listen horrible ghost stories in
his childhood , he is now adult but he has not be able to overcome his fear of
malevolent ghosts. He still sees or fears ghosts supposedly present in
every nook and corner of the same house in which we were grown up without any
fear .Perhaps the fear has embedded in sub conscious .It has become very difficult to remove this
negative impression.
SONGSOPTOK: Not only do we frighten children with ghosts, we often
entertain them with ghost stories. When children learn to read, grown-ups often
try to incite them to get into the habit of reading by buying ghost stories.
What do you think of this practice?
ALPANA: In my
opinion children could read ghost
stories as one of the many variants of
stories but one should be actively discouraged
from buying to reading too many
of them .It is also important to
introduce them that a child should see as means of entertainment only.
SOPTOK: Adolescence is normally the period when we
start asking questions about different things. Did you start asking questions
about the existence of ghosts? Will you share the details with us?
ALPANA: At the age of 14 or 15 my uncle
whom I was very much attached died. For
the first time I saw the person who was so jovial only few days back lie
lifeless in front of me. I remember, pondering for the first time - is it the
end of everything? I remembered someone
had told me about soul, heaven, hell existed. Relatives who had come for mourning,
they were also talking about soul. For the first time I wanted to know
about soul and soon on the day of last rites ( Shraddh) I
could know from Geeta chanting that soul
is everlasting, never ceases to exist. This gave me a thought of gaining
more knowledge on life after death. I started asking about soul to people whom
I thought knowledgeable on such matter.
SONGSOPTOK: A lot of people claim to
have direct experience of ghosts or other inexplicable phenomena. Do you have
any such experience to share with us? Or experiences of people you know?
ALPANA: No I don’t have any such experience myself but I have heard an incident
from a monk of Ramakrishna Math, Belur, who was present in hospital as an attendant of his Guru ,
then president of Ramakrishna Math, when the senior monk was terminally ill. According to him: “ after suffering for few
days one evening the attending doctors
declared my Gurudev dead and slowly they
left the room. I was alone in the room , instantly I could see the room filled
with bright light, glowing but soothing,
suddenly many people (looked like
angels) arrived from nowhere with unknown flowers having wonderful fragrance,
started paying their respect with their flowers , my Gurudevs face was also
glowing with faint smile on his lips, the
scene kept me in trance, for how long I
stayed mesmerized that I do not know ,
when I came to my senses I saw slowly senior monks of the order are entering
the room and paying their respect to my Gurudev. I was so captivated by the incident I saw just before
anyone entered the room that I forgot to pay my pranams to my Guru. Though I
was the only person present at that moment of passing away of my Guru, after
coming out from trance, I became the last person to pay pranam. This narration by the monk is my only
paranormal experience through him.
GSOPTOK: It is true that most of us
like reading or watching films about ghosts, spirits or mysterious phenomena.
Do you enjoy these things too? Can you think of a specific story or a film that
really thrilled you? Do you have any favorite writers of this genre?
ALPANA: I never like very much to see such stories of films which give goose
bump. But in the adolescence stage I remember The story “Monkey’s paw” by W.W..Jacob
scared me till my bone. Now I like to study serious writings on life after death .To me these
are best explained in our scriptures like Chhondogyo Upanishad, kathoupnishad or Katha Upanishad, Geeta,Garuda puran etc . According to theses
scriptures human beings are bonded by karma .People born in this world to do
karma when it is completed they leave this physical earth and reaches to the realm
in the heaven according to their karma. Stages
of karma is along story so don’t want to go into it.
SONGSOPTOK: Many of us think that
science still has to go a long way to explain everything that we experience on
earth. Science has enlightened us about a lot of things, but there are certain
areas that can be considered as the twilight zone – the breeding place for the
uncanny and the preternatural. What are your thoughts about this?
AllALPANA:religions in All religions in the world believe in presence of soul which is immortal
but Hindu scriptures have done detailed
research on this subject long ago which are very nicely described in Puarans. Scientist
never believed in the existence of soul or after life. But now scientists have
started doing research on this subject and found evidences of afterlife (for
example they have found that the weight of a human body decreases by just after death. Many CCTV’s have captured
some cloud like thing escaping from dead body immediately after death,). Now
scientists are taking much interest in this subject with the help of new
gadgets but to prove it has to go long way. Serious research is also going on
reincarnation after finding numerous evidences from people having previous
birth. Story of reincarnation Manika from Kerala was much in news.
SONGSOPTOK: We find it difficult to
accept that nothing remains after death, which often leads us to imagine the
supernatural. We are naturally attracted to what lies beyond the known everyday
world. What is your opinion about this? Do you think that everything ends with
death? Or is it because since we don’t really know that we oscillate between
belief and doubt?
ALPANA:religions Educationally I have
science background yet I have strong belief in
soul and after life because I am born in
a Hindu family, so from childhood I know
that human body decays but the soul is immortal. So I have a strong belief on afterlife.
This is described nicely in Geeta soul is immortal, neither it is
born nor it dies only leaves the body and starts another journey toward heaven
rests there for a while and born again to finish his/her karma. I am a
voracious reader and I have read numerous books of different religions, found
same thought put forward everywhere so I have a strong belief death is never
the end of life. There is no doubt about it. Not long ago when Monks could talk
to the departed soul who asked help from them.(Sri Ramakrishna Paramhans, Swami Vijoy Krishna
Goswami , LahiriMahashaya and many more).
Yearning for reading made me read numerous books of different religions and
have found tantamount thoughts on the immortality of soul. Hence for me, this
is conviction not an oscillation between belief and disbelief.
SONGSOPTOK: Almost all societies
believe that the entities that exists in the realms that are beyond our
understanding and our sensory perceptions possess an immense amount of power.
But the capacity of humans is limited. So why does humans believe that the
souls of the dead are immensely powerful? What, according to you, is the reason
for this?
ALPANA: As human we are programmed to give greater weight age to our sensory
perceptions. But death challenges our ability to perceive the beyond, the
journey of the dead which begins with death leaving behind the living. It is
something that we can’t experience vicariously. After studying the book “ Laws
of Sprit World” I don’t think the
entities acquire immense power just after leaving
physical body. They reach to their realms according to their karma and then
guided by the higher souls present in that realm. ( It is nicely describe the
book “ Laws of spirit world” by Khorshed Bhavnagri )
SONGSOPTOK: As we grow more and more
dependent on science and technology, it is possible that our belief in the
supernatural will grow weaker with time. In that sense ghosts and other
entities are likely to have a very dark future indeed. But wouldn’t that
deprive us of a whole range of feelings and emotions? Wouldn’t we become poorer
in our sensations? What is your opinion?
ALPANA:Fear is one Reply: Fear is one of the
important emotions that will and should
remain in human mind which will make a person inquisitive towards unknown.
Unike other emotions fear can also be thrilling and so it should be loved and sought by
almost all. So ghost as an element of
our literature and are here to stay.
The child dwells
into his karmic experiences and the parent in their inexperience refers to the
supernatural in the hope of “taming” the child .Parents only blatedly discover
that they must struggle to know the one begot. Invoking ghosts may deride as inappropriate
in case of parenting but it destined to be part of the struggle.
I also feel the fear of unknown can fuel a
journey of discovery. I don’t see any interest in supernatural or paranormal act.
Despite my science focused education and several years of teaching and
remaining in company of professors of other science faculty I have recurrent realization
–science didn’t answer each and every of
my queries nor gave me the peace of mind for which I craved for.
Now a days people, mostly young generation,
are becoming more and more technology dependant, more and more growing lust for
worldly attraction, they are becoming almost like robots. Emotion, feelings are
dyeing out. Their lust for getting what
they want increase by leaps and bound but emotion, feelings are decreasing at
the same proportion. I feel when each and every lust is satiated, saturated with
getting everything they want then their
quest for ABSOLTE is triggered.
India is a country
where physical luxury is still a distant dream for commoner. But amongst the privileged
whether here or in west, having achieved highest amount of physical luxury, get
fed up with physical entertainment and scientific explanations. At this point
they start asking question “Who am I”? “Why have I come to this world”? Their
quest for REAL enkindle, though in nascent state. .People are becoming interested in
meditation, Yoga , introspection, self examination and every other method to
get little peace of mind selling their Ferrari.
It is from there the urge and the journey to explore and engage with the
unknown begins.
ALPANA GHOSE:
Was born in a town in Bihar, Did her post graduation in Chemistry from Patna University, and PhD in polymer Chemistry
from Ranchi University then she taught in Ranchi Women’s College and retired as
Head of the Department of Chemistry.
Other than her subject Chemistry, reading and writing are her most favorite hobbies. Published many
books ( both in English and Bengali).
We sincerely
thank you for your time and hope we shall have your continued support.
Aparajita
Sen
(EDITOR)
Songsoptok
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