Namashkar!
I am currently reading Karma and Reincarnation. In one of the chapters, Yoganandji has described how to get in touch with departed souls whom we have been unable to forget. Is that method applicable also for our friends and near ones who are still alive but we are not in touch with? How is that method different from telepathy and what are the other ways to communicate to them that we remember them and regard them through the ether?
—Nina, India
Dear Nina,
On reading the pages in Karma and Reincarnation it does not mention contacting those in their bodies, but I don’t think that means you cannot do so with the techniques Yogananda has described. You will read in the Autobiography of a Yogi many instances of this type of telepathy between the masters.
Do realize that to contact another soul it would be good to do so only if they are good souls. Yogananda strongly states to contact only the good as you are opening your mind to another. Also he says that “by deep, incessant meditation only, try to get in touch with your dear dead ones.” This is true also of your living ones. And realize that it could take months of continual practice to bring them to you. With living souls, they too have to be in a calm, reflective state to receive your thoughts.
In the Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter 19, “My Master, in Calcutta, Appears in Serampore,” Dijen was also given the message to meet the train, but his consciousness was too restless to receive it.
In Chapter 43, “The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar,” you will see the state the one has to be in to be able to transmit in the way you would now like to do. In pages 167-168 Yogananda talks about the Yugas, the cycles of time. We are currently starting into Dwapara Yuga, the age of energy. Treta Yuga is the age following when telepathy will be easier to do.
Do practice what Yogananda has described. Meditate with concentration at the spiritual eye and call to your friend there trying to feel his/her presence. In this way you may eventually be in communication and you will have learned how to develop calmness, centeredness, and love.
In joy, Seva
