15 Dec 2015
Shri Veena Datta asked: Please give me a detailed account of visions.
Shri Swami replied: Visions are of two types:
1) Internal: These visions are projections of your mind only. So many feelings are hidden in your mind from several births onwards. These feelings are expressed as visions and appear as real external scenes. This happens to be a mental illness about which doctors say that the patient talks with another person appearing before him. This is true since it is a scientific fact.
2) External: A scene appears without any relationship with your mind. This is not the projection of your mind and is not a mental illness. The scene is arranged externally and the forms appearing are energetic. This is independent and not any feeling of your mind. This appears due to some external reasons to give you some external information.
The real problem is that the internal vision is often mistaken as the external vision. Your own aspiration is conveyed there to you. You are mislead by such false external vision. Most of the people even tell lies that they had external visions in order to get some recognition in the surrounding public. They feel that it is prestigious to have such visions, which bring special status for them. This should be stopped. The reason is that the spiritual path is always based on truth only. By telling lies for such false fame, you get sin unnecessarily. Even if you get visions really, you should analyse the vision whether they are internal or external. If the result of such vision is proved practically, you can conclude such vision as external since internal visions have no practical outcome. Unless practical result comes out of it, it may not be the real external vision. It may be your internal vision expressing your long time hidden aspiration. The practical reality of the outcome of the vision should be proved so that we can infer the reality of the external vision. The proof is in reverse way, which is from fruit (practical outcome) to cause (vision). If the vision says that something will happen, you should wait till that happens practically in reality. Then only, you can say that the vision is practically real. You should wait till the practical result is clearly seen and then only you should declare that your vision is correct. Otherwise, millions of visions are expressed by millions of people.
I tell here My own experience. I had a vision in which Lord Dattatreya appeared and asked Me to propagate the spiritual knowledge. The energetic form of Lord Dattatreya also merged in Me indicating that I was totally possessed by Lord Dattatreya. The Lord said that I will have to propagate excellent spiritual knowledge. I never opened all this and kept silent about the visions thinking that such visions may be My internal visions expressing My aspirations. But, when the spiritual knowledge that radiated from Me happened to be wonderful, I conformed that the visions were true and propagated the information about the visions. Hence, the reality of the visions should be totally experienced and then only we should declare the visions.
Similarly, the scripture also should not be believed without logical analysis and similarly, the vision should not be believed without practical experience of the future outcome. Both the scripture and the vision should not be mentioned at the very outset because the strength of the scripture and the vision should not force you in any way to accept the truth without analysis. The scripture supported by sharp logical analysis and the vision supported by the practical outcome alone stand as true. The essential point is that you should not aspire for the false fame and you will achieve nothing out of it except unnecessary sin.
Similarly, the dreams. Most of the dreams are reflections of your feelings absorbed externally or may be the reflections of your feelings acquired in the previous births. These dreams also must be tested by the practical outcome after which only you should narrate your dreams to others. Otherwise, your mind becomes a treasure of confusion and you will also make others to become treasures of confusion. If you are attracted by false prestige and waste time in explaining these visions and dreams to others, it becomes a sin since you are not only killing your precious time but also the precious time of others. Instead of wasting your time in such false or waste talks, you can make the time perfectly useful in discussing about the spiritual knowledge or in singing devotional songs to earn the grace of God.
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