In hallucination you see things — extraordinary things — but you never feel blissful or peaceful. This is the only sure sign of differentiating between hallucination and spiritual experience. When it is hallucination, bliss and peace are not possible. In the state of delusion too, bliss and peace are not possible, but this confusion as to whether it was hallucination or spiritual experience does not remain. In hallucination you see figures, giant figures, or pygmies, et cetera, yet you doubt as to whether they exist or not. But in delusion you take things as existing which really do not exist. Hallucination is like a conscious nightmare!
Garrett asked, "How can you imagine things you have never seen?"
Baba dictated, "You have seen things far back, ages back. You can never produce what you have not seen. Imagination is infinite. But sometimes you see in your dreams events that occur years after, and all of a sudden you remember having dreamed it. Sometimes you see such funny [strange] things, things having no meaning. Or you see persons you have never seen in this life, but you have either seen them in the past or will see them in the future."
Garrett asked, "When you have dreams of future events, have you seen that?"
"You will see it later even if you have not seen it yet," Baba replied. "Imagination is always something you have seen or will see in the future."
"What about astral journeys?" Garrett inquired.
"Astral journeys are taken by persons consciously and unconsciously, but those that really matter are the ones done consciously. You actually experience being aloof from the gross body and having a subtle body, and seeing with the eyes of the subtle body, and smelling with the nose of the subtle body.
"In a dream when you sleep, this physical body is not used, and yet you see, smell, hear, taste, et cetera. You do it all with the subtle body, but not consciously. When you do it consciously you actually experience being aloof from the body. You smell, you eat, you hear, you feel, doing it all as concretely as you do with the gross body, not vaguely as in dreams. You can then actually feel the body as a cloak — you take it off and put it on like a garment. Actually, not just imagination."
Garrett asked, "What happens when we establish a direct, mental contact with you, Baba, thinking of you?"