I work for the evolution of the ants to make them become human beings. If an ant bites you, you brush it off. Therefore, what does it matter to me if an ant bites me or brings me sugar? I remain unaffected, but naturally it reacts on the ant. It is nobody's fault. It all has to be.
This reporter [who recently interviewed Baba], poor boy, has a limited conception and is more interested in my throat not being impaired [by not speaking] than the value of Truth. Chimpi [Chanji] said it was all a bad sign. I said, on the contrary, it is a good sign! Now it is definite. I will stay here for my work, for opposition helps the work.
Later in the afternoon that day, Baba decided to move to a house in Kandy.
He remarked, "In Ceylon everything hopeful is hopeless, and everything hopeless is hopeful! At least in this new bungalow there are no ghosts!"
When some of the women looked relieved by this last remark, Baba commented:
Why be afraid of ghosts? A ghost means a human being without a body, and in that bodiless state he has to remain as long as the sanskaras of his previous birth last. Then he takes another birth. Ghosts are miserable. They have desires like any of us. They try to come in contact with human beings to fulfill their desires. When it is dark and silent, their subtle, smoky bodies become transparent. You have gross, subtle and mental bodies. They have only subtle and mental bodies, but these are not as limited as the gross. When stretched out, the ghost's subtle body stretches out in all directions — upward and sideways. That makes you shiver and scream, when you see them like that. Depending on surroundings, darkness and quietude, they can be seen. Their bodies can enlarge and shrink. That is why in dreams the subtle bodies go anywhere, stretching out and out. They can also be photographed in suitable conditions, depending upon the surroundings, time, light and the photographer.
These [discarnate] spirits wish to contact [living] human beings. If Rano, a heavy smoker, has no body and for some reason becomes a ghost, she does not get another physical body until certain sanskaras are spent. They may be spent in one year or a million years. All depends on the contacts made to spend one's sanskaras.