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The Great Mystery of Life Beyond Death

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The Great Mystery of Life Beyond Death THE GREAT MYSTERY OF LIFE BEYOND DEATH As dictated by a Spirit TO DIWAN BAHADUR HIRALAL L. KAJI INDIAN EDUCATIONAL SERVICE. BOMBAY. NEW BOOK COMPANY KITAB MAHAL. HORNBY ROAD BOMBAY 1938 Published by P» DirvjV.aw for the New Boob Company. KHnb Vabsb H orn by Road. Fort. Bombay t»nd Printed lit T c t f Printing 31. Tribhovan Road. Bombay 4, PREFACE No pleasure could be greater than the one I experience in presenting this volume to the public, in as much as I was given the unique privilege of expounding the Great Mystery of Life beyond Death as unfolded by the spirit o f the famous spiritualist, the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I wish to state with all the clearness and sincerity at my command that no single idea expressed in this book is mine and that no single sentence as recorded is mine either. Beyond touching up some loose expressions here and there, the book is presented as spelt out letter by letter on the Ouija Board by the late Sir Arthur through my son Mr. Ashok H. Kaji and my nephew Mr. Subodh B. Kaji. I may as well confess that I have not read hitherto any book on spiritualism, nor have I read any religious, philosophical or metaphysical books of the Hindus or any other nation for the matter of that. M y son is a B. Sc. o f the Bombay University and my nephew is an M. Com. of the same University, and neither of them has devoted any thought whatsoever to the problems of the spirit-world, and the life beyond death, for as they have repeatedly declared, it is enough if they concentrated on THE GREAT MYSTERY OF LIFE BEYOND DEATH the problems o f the life before them in this world of the living instead of dabbling in those of the life in the world of the dead, which might well have an interest for people in the evening of life. I want the public therefore to accept the fact that in this book there is absolutely no contribution of ideas, conscious or sub-conscious, by myself or my son or m y nephew, and no contribution to expression, excepting just a little touching up before publication, for I have retained even some queer and loose expressions. The Ouija-Board is, besides, a fraud-proof apparatus for spirit-communication. Neither the medium nor the instruments go off into a trance; they are fully conscious and remain just their ordinary selves. There is no darkening of the room, no switching off o f lights. The fact that the pointer is touched lightly by one finger of each of the two instruments is a proof of its movement being directed not by them but by the thought- impressions produced on the minds of each of them by some outside intelligence from beyond. No two persons can move the pointer in harmony unless each is trying to obey the same impulse of spelling out the same words to express the same impressed thoughts. While therefore the public might remain as sceptical as they choose of the fact o f spirit communication, they should, I beg vi PREFACE o f them,' recognise the fact that there is no> fraud or trick, conscious or unconscious, in the preparation o f this little volume. W ho dictated or spelt out the letters of the words in the sentences in the book is a ques­ tion indeed. W e are told, the spirit is that o f the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. If the public want any proof of this, I am sorry, I am not in a position to give it, though I feel convinced that the dictator was Sir Arthur’s spirit indeed. It is true that the value of spirit-communica­ tion is marred sometimes by the impersonation o f the spirit invoked by some frivolously minded or wicked spirit. But, as Sir Arthur pointed out to us, such a possibility cannot be entertained for a moment in this particular case, since no spirit would care to impersonate another at more or less regular intervals, over a period extending to about one whole year and that too, not for an amusing chat but for the serious purpose of book dictation, and since the impersonator would not be able to take up the thread just where it was left on the preceding sitting and to make refer­ ences to phenomena described or explained in preceding chapters. That the style in which the thoughts are expressed is not quite the one, which is so characteristically Sir Arthur’s and which is familiar enough to the vast number o f the readers o f his books on fiction, spiritualism and other subjects, is clear enough. THE GREAT MYSTERY OF LIFE BEYOND DEATH But this, as Sir Arthur explains, is not in any way strange. He was not writing, but orally dictating without being able to look over the sentences so dictated; sometimes he did ask me to read out what I had written to enable him to pick up the lost thread. The dictation was besides by the conveyance o f impressions of thoughts in words to the two young men, being thus restricted by the capacities o f Sii Arthur to convey and of Ashok and Subodh to receive the correct impressions and spell them out on the Board. In this process of filtering through the minds of the two instru­ ments, Sir Arthur holds and rightly too, the style gets naturally altered completely. The logic, systematic presentation, analytical ability and experienced exposition, however, clearly reveal a master-writer and trained author, for evidently the two young gentle­ men could not possibly, at their age and stage of education, be regarded as capable o f producing, in this mysterious joint fashion, a book like this on a subject, on which their minds were a perfect blank. Besides, their obvious reluctance to carry on the work till completion clearly indicates that the thoughts, ideas and explanations emanated from an outside intelligence, we three having nothing to do with these. The story of this little volume might perhaps be of some interest to the readers. I viii PREFACE have always regarded myself as a rather prosaic, matter-of-fact person, not given to indulging in any flights of imagination. I was not conscious o f the possession o f any spiritual powers, latent or patent. I had heard casually o f the planchette and o f the efforts at spirit- rapping on the three-legged primus stove, furnishing a sabbath occupation to desk-tied and desk-tired clerks. My curiosity however was aroused in 1921 by my sister describing the experiences of a neighbour, who, placing an inverted tiny metallic bowl on a pane of glass and getting each one of a mixed party o f five, males and females, to lightly touch it with a finger, saw to his amazement the tiny bowl moving, though very slowly, on the glass surface towards one corner indicating an affirmative or the other corner indicating a negative answer to queries by members of the party. W e tried the experiment ourselves with some success; but, as we could not get the invoked spirits to spell out any words on the glass on which we pasted slips o f paper to represent the letters o f the alphabet, we lost interest in about a fortnight and dismissed the matter from our minds. It was in August 1932 that one evening when the family had gathered after dinner, I told my children of the episode of eleven years back. My offer to try the experiment was welcomed. W e began with the fingers ix THE GREAT MYSTERY OF LIFE BEYOND DEATH of five persons touching the bowl; but as we were getting interested a bit, one o f the party- had to leave. The remaining four however continued and succeeded in imparting the necessary energy to the bowl to move. This led us to experiment with three and finally with two, Ashok and Subodh. Our progress W eis rapid and we established communication with our relations; friends, local celebrities and others. W e tried to lift the veil of the future too to some extent, though -without any great measure of success. W e tried to fathom the mysteries of Life beyond Death and gathered some information. Ashok and Subodh tried, and sometimes successfully, to know beforehand questions which were to be asked in their examinations, though on being lectured to on the basic immorality o f the desire, they have successfully curbed this instinct so natural to students. A death in the family however upset us and turned our thoughts away from such experiments com­ pletely and our spiritual progress was arrested. In May 1935, the insistence of the late Sir Lalubhai Samaldas, a friend, who would not be denied, led us to resume our experiments on the Ouija Board, when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle became our spirit guide and friend. Ashok and Subodh rapidly advanced and w e had some very remarkable experiences. Sir Chunilal V. Mehta, K.C.S.I., the ex-Finance Member of the Government of Bombay, Sir PREFACE Lalubhai Samaldas, C.I.E., the well-known co-operator, and industrialist, Sir Prabha- shanker Pattani, K.C.S.I., the late septuagena­ rian Kathiawar statesman, Sir Kikabhai Prem- chand, a leading financial magnate o f Bombay, the Honourable Sheth Shantidas Askuran, Mr. K. L. Panjabi, o f the Indian Civil Service, and many of our other friends who had sittings on various occasions, enrolled themselves as believers, enthused us and extolled us, and infused us with a sense of the importance of the diffusion of a knowledge of the Great Mystery so as to help clear the confusion that so profusely befogs the vision of people about the life beyond death.
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