Have you heard of Swami Sundaranand? Popularly known as the sage-photographer, he is in fact a yogi, ascetic, trekker, mountaineer, naturalist, ecologist, photographer, philosopher and more, all rolled into one. He took the vow of renunciation more than 50 years ago and began living at Gangotri, approximately 11,400 feet above sea level in the Garhwal Himalaya, in a small cottage bequeathed to him by his guru, Swami Tapovanam Maharaj—a learned poet, author, and recluse. I had the good fortune some years ago to play a small role in the production of Swami Sundaranand’s book, Himalaya: Through the Lens of a Sadhu—a monumental work which contains more than 425 photographs out of his collection of more than 50,000 photographs covering the fascinating faces and moods of the towering Himalaya.
My good fortune was not confined to his book alone. My meetings with him were all too few and brief, yet I learnt many important things from him who had become free from the fear of death long ago. The most important : if you are free from the fear of death, you are truly free. You will then never be troubled by fear, never be held back by fear of any kind, he told me. Curiously, I was reminded of Swami Sundaranand’s words in Delhi’s Spirit Forest. In the last column, I had mentioned that the majority of spirits in the Spirit Forest are of those who had reached a certain high stage of spiritual evolution and are free from the cycle of birth and re-birth. But ironically there are also a sizeable number of murder victims spirits in the Spirit Forest.
Most of them are the spirits of young girls who were brought to the forest on the pretext that it was a romantic, secluded place and then murdered by their paramours. The victims bodies were always discovered, sometimes in a decomposed state, sometimes in an intact, recently killed state but they were seldom reported. There’s nothing to be gained by reporting the discovery of a dead body in the forest, explained a friendly chowkidar. If we do make such a report, it means hassles of all kinds. The police summons and questions you repeatedly, you’re treated like a suspect, and then you’re pulled up and given a black mark by the boss not to speak of all the paper work. Why get involved? After a while, the dead body will decay and be partially consumed by jackals and only the tattered clothes and bones will remain and they too will soon be covered by dead leaves, overgrowth and undergrowth.
There have in fact been occasions when I’ve been warned with a knowing look not to go to a certain part of the forest. Once, I insisted on going and what I saw shocked even me. She was maybe just 18 or 19 years old, slim and pretty. She must have been sitting against the tree trunk when she was strangled with a blue and red scarf. And that’s where she’d remain, her head drooping deceptively on her shoulder, as if asleep, till her body decayed or was eaten by animals and maggots.
This sight and the treachery involved was repelling and disturbed me so much that I decided to risk lingering nearby till dusk in the hope of being contacted by some murdered victim’s spirit. Considering the kind of death they had met combined with the fact that their families were almost certainly unaware of their fate and therefore no “rest in peace” rituals were conducted, I knew it was very unlikely that their spirits had been able to leave earth. And sure enough, spirit contact was made that evening followed by more in the days ahead.
I wanted to help them find release or help them if possible in whatever way they wanted. But I was startled by their response. They were sad and unhappy lost spirits but not a single one of those in contact wanted to leave earth and find peace in the other world. Why? Because they were afraid. They feared that in the other world they’d be punished for what they now saw as ‘transgressions’.
The young girl who had been strangled with a blue and red scarf had come to the forest with her boss, a married man with children, who had promised her he’d divorce his wife and they’d live happily ever after but he strangled her instead. Remorseful, she blamed herself and feared that in the other world she would be punished severely for violating earthly rules. Other murder victims had similar fears and preferred to stay earthbound as punishment rather than face who knows what as punishment.
Apart from the Spirit Forest, in other instances too fear of the unknown and other fears are often, along with attachment to people and objects on earth, primary factors that result in the creation of ghosts. Their lives and dreams cut short by unfortunate circumstances, such spirits remain in limbo—unhappy yet unwilling to move on because of fears. So intense are their fears that even evolved souls and spirit guides have been unable to persuade or induce them to travel to the higher realms. Paul Roland’s book, The Complete Book of Ghosts: A Fascinating Exploration of the Spirit World … mentions that fear is almost as strong an emotion as love, and can keep one tied to the earth plane as completely as denial, possessiveness, and jealousy can.
For me, it is a supreme irony that fears can hold you back in life and fears can also hold you back after death. In life, you fear death and after death, you fear moving on to the other world and would much rather exist as a ghost. If murder victims like those at the Spirit Forest fear punishment being meted out to them, what must be the degree of fear of the murderers themselves or of other criminals? Is this one of the reasons why the world over, there is a substantial number of haunted buildings that were once prisons? Writing about the 20 most haunted places in the world, Daniel Bettridge reveals that roughly 75,000 men and women—including infamous gangster Al Capone—enjoyed a stay at the Eastern State Penitentiary in the USA. “It officially closed in 1971 and has been left to fall into disrepair ever since, adding to the ambiance of a place that is said to be spooked by many of its former inmates.” Is there a solution? In Swami Sundaranand’s words, “Condition your mind, get rid of your fears”. But obviously, both in life and after death that seems easier said than done.