Part I: Astrology and prophecy

• Question: What do you think of astrology? Is there any truth to astrological predictions?
• Question: What is your opinion about prophecy? Can the future really be known in advance?
• Question: Lately in newspapers and magazines I have been reading about prophecies that part of the world is going to be dissolved or sink into the ocean. Is there any truth in this?
• Question: Peter Hirkos, who is well-known now throughout the world, was an ordinary person before he fell off a ladder near his house and struck his head. When he regained consciousness, he was able to look into the future and tell what would happen. He helps the police discover murderers and all kinds of things. What do you think happened when he fell down and hit his head?
• Question: What is the difference between astrology and Yoga?
• Question: Guru, once you said that you tried to help three disciples whom you saw were destined to die. You said that with two of them you succeeded, and the third you weren't sure of at the time. What does it all depend on? The person's receptivity?
• Question: Is there any significance if a child is born during an eclipse of the sun or the moon?
• Question: The stars affect us, the earth affects us and so on. Now when we meditate, do we affect any other planets, for instance, or anything else?

Part II: Spirituality, psychic power, occult power and black magic

• Question: What is occultism, and on what plane do the occult forces exist?
• Question: There have been many books written about the occult. Do you feel that they are of any real value?
• Question: Can you tell me the difference between spiritual power and occult power?
• Question: Can you please explain what psychic power is and in what way it differs from spiritual power?
• Question: I have been told that I am in the process of developing psychic powers. Should I continue visiting spiritualistic centres with this point in mind?
• Question: Are psychic powers of benefit, or are they in a way a hindrance to self-realisation?
• Question: The fakirs in India who have these powers, do they devote them to the good principles of Yoga or do they use them for business?
• Question: Is it true that psychic powers do not develop or manifest spontaneously in Yogis, but have to be developed through exercises or other means?
• Question: Would you call the ability to communicate directly with one's own Master without the use of the spoken word a form of psychic power?
• Question: Is it possible that some people are practising negative occultism without realising it, just by malicious talking or other things?
• Question: Are we losing anything by not developing ourselves in the occult world?
• Question: I thought occultism was something like black magic. Can you explain what it is?
• Question: Guru, you said that beings in the occult planes can use occult power in a way that could harm human beings. Are there actual beings that do this, or is it only the so-called black magicians? And how do they exert influence over people, especially spiritual aspirants?

Part III: The spirit world

• Question: What are spirits or vital beings?
• Question: Would these vital beings be frightened of your transcendental picture? And would it chase them off if they attacked us, let us say while we were walking down the street?
• Question: Is there any way for somebody — not somebody in the spiritual life but an ordinary person — to fight if a spirit attacks them? Is there anything that they could do? In the movies like Dracula and others they have the cross and all these religious things that will stop a ghost from hurting them
• Question: Does this happen often?
• Question: Does this happen more in one part of the world than in another? There are more occultists in India than there are in America, so does this happen more there?
• Question: But they don't recognise it in America.
• Question: How does the spirit take possession of a person? How does the spirit gain access to the person's consciousness? Do they just go in?
• Question: I would like to know the difference between soul and spirit. I know that they are two entirely different things, but I cannot understand the difference.
• Question: If a spirit comes to you, how can you tell if it is a good spirit or a bad one?
• Question: Can a spirit help a person?
• Question: I read a booklet which says that every person has some guides connected to him and the person can pray to these guides. Is this true?
• Question: If we burn incense and candles, does this make it easier for us to invoke spirits?
• Question: Why do flowers and the burning of incense help to bring good spirits back?
• Question: Guru, how did the hostile forces originate?
• Question: Will there ever be a time when there won't be any hostile forces anywhere?
• Question: When you fight, Guru, do you have an army?
• Question: Is it your inner beings, or is it other beings also?
• Question: Is the weapon concentration?
• Question: Guru, do you ever call on the disciples to fight these battles?
• Question: Guru, when you talk about fighting a hostile force, is it a question of bringing down something and injecting it? Or is it actually a kind of struggle that you are engaged in? When you fight a hostile force, how does that differ from just meditating and bringing down Light and Peace?
• Question: What is it like when you fight in the inner world?
• Question: Have you ever been possessed by a spirit?
• Question: Guru, do things happen in the West such as evil spirits entering people and then everybody thinks it is some medical defect? For instance, could some psychiatric cases really be cases of evil forces that have entered?
• Question: If you hadn't helped X, would the forces have stayed for the rest of her life or would they have just left after a while?
• Question: What happens to that soul in its next incarnation? Is it ruined?
• Question: How can you tell the difference between someone who wants power because he is possessed by one of these beings and someone who wants power because it is his nature, because he is not spiritually developed?
• Question: Is there a way to combat these beings?
• Question: Why is it necessary for a soul that has left the body many years ago to ask for a material thing, in this case a skull (referring to a story about a ghost shaking the bed of someone who had taken an old skull from a cemetery)?
• Question: But what happens to these souls? They are not free, but are still somehow bound to their former lives.
• Question: How do they ever get out of it?
• Question: What are ghosts? Are they the vital beings of dead people?
• Question: Is there any truth to stories about haunted houses?
• Question: Could X hear them too, Guru, or just you?
• Question: Did they know who you were? Were they doing that on purpose?
• Question: If you hadn't thrown these spirits out, would they have left on their own?
• Question: Can everyone see ghosts, or just some people?
• Question: Do these spirits have personal grudges against the people?
• Question: What about graveyards? Are there ghosts there?

Part IV: Mediums and the unseen world

• Question: What is it that the spiritual mediums contact when they give messages? Whom or what are they speaking to?
• Question: How can one contact one's dear ones in the other world?
• Question: If one tries to contact somebody who has departed from the world, then how can one be sure one has contacted that particular soul and not an evil spirit?
• Question: Can a person lend his body so that a spirit can enter and talk through him?
• Question: I had an experience in my childhood. In my home everybody played the piano, and as far back as I can remember, everybody has played the piano. One day when I was three years old I asked the maid to take me to the piano, and I started playing with both hands a tune that my mother had been playing the night before. What is the explanation of this?
• Question: I didn't only play once; I played many times like this. What does this mean?
• Question: What do you think of healing in relation to spirituality?
• Question: What is the relationship between automatic writing and mediums?
• Question: From your viewpoint is hypnosis acceptable or not, and why?

Part V: Man and the universe

• Question: Do you believe that there are people just like us here on most of the other planets?
• Question: Do you believe there are beings from other planets who come to earth in flying saucers?
• Question: Is man unique in the whole universe?
• Question: So they cannot become God, they cannot reach God?
• Question: So we are more evolved than they?
• Question: Will science ever discover the soul?
• Question: Do you think God will help the hand of those doctors who are transplanting hearts from dead people into sick people? Do you think that this will be a practice in the future?
• Question: What happens when a woman's heart is transplanted into a man's body?
• Question: I was wondering how the souls of identical twins are related, or if they are not at all?
• Question: Guru, is it possible to meet your twin soul later on in life? Do certain people have soul mates?
• Question: As I understand it, there are some forms that are not actually the souls of persons but just forms in the astral world. Will you please explain what kind of consciousness the soulless forms from the astral world have?
• Question: Is there as much reality in astral travelling as in meditation?
• Question: Have you heard of scientology? It is what you might call a kind of spiritual psychology where people try to bring out the supposedly negative aspects and get rid of them, resulting in finally what they call the 'clear' person, who is rid of all personal defects.
• Question (About the month of September, 1972, which was a period of great turmoil in the inner world): Wouldn't it be easier on you if some of the things that are happening in the inner world were manifested on the outer plane, instead of your having to take them all on yourself in the inner world?
• Question: Why did He, Guru?
• Question: Can the death forces take anyone at any time, even if it is not in their destiny to die just then?