The whole of manifestation in all its aspects is a record upon which the voice is reproduced; and that voice is a person's thought. There is no place in the world, neither desert, forest, mountain nor house, town nor city, where there is not a voice continually going on – a voice that was once engraved upon it and that since then has continued. No doubt every such voice has its limit. One voice may continue for thousands of years, and another voice for several months, and yet another for some days and another for hours or moments. Everything that is created, intentionally or unintentionally, has a life, it has a birth and so it has a death. Plainly speaking, it has a beginning and an end.

One can experience this by feeling the atmosphere of different places. Sitting upon the rocks of the mountains one often feels the vibrations of the one who has been sitting there before. Sitting in a forest, in a wilderness, one can feel what has been the history of that place. It may be that there was a city and a house and that people lived there, and now it has turned into a wilderness. One begins to feel the history of the whole place, it communicates with one.

Every town has its own particular voice. It is, so to speak, telling out loud who lived in the town and how they lived, what their life was. It tells of their grade of evolution, it tells of their doings, it tells of the results produced by their actions. People perceive the vibrations of haunted houses because the atmosphere is stirred; and therefore, it is often felt distinctly. There is no house, there is no place, that does not have its own voice. The voice has been engraved upon it so that it has become a record, reproducing what has been given to it, consciously or unconsciously.

When Abraham returned from Egypt after his initiation into the mysteries of life, he arrived at Mecca. A stone was set there in memory of the initiation that he had just received from the ancient esoteric school of Egypt. The voice that was put into the stone by the singing soul of Abraham continued and became audible to those who could hear. The prophets and seers have since that time made pilgrimages to this stone of Kaba. This continued and is still going on.

A place like Mecca, a desert with nothing of interest – the ground is not fertile, the people not very evolved, no business or industry is flourishing, no science or art developed – it still has had an attraction for millions of people who have gone there for only one purpose, and that was pilgrimage. What was it, and what is it? It is the voice that has been put into the place, into a stone. A stone has been made to speak, and it speaks to those whose ears are open.

Every place where a person sits and thinks for a moment on any subject takes in the thought of man. It takes the record of what has been spoken so that no man can hide his thought or feeling. It is recorded even in the seat where he has been sitting and thinking. Many persons, by sitting in that place, begin to feel it. Sometimes, the moment a person sits on a certain seat, he may feel a thought quite foreign to him, a feeling that does not belong to him, because on that seat that thought was vibrating. As a seat can hold the vibrations of the thought for a much longer time than the life of the person who has thought or has spoken, so an influence remains in every place where one sits, where one lives, where one thinks or feels, rejoices or sorrows. This voice continues for a time incomparably longer than the life of the person who spoke or thought there.

Question: When many people have lived somewhere for a long time, would there not be a confusion of voices, or would one voice predominate?

Answer: There is a dominating voice which is more distinct than the other voices. At the same time, as one feels what a composer wishes to convey through the whole music he writes, through all the instruments, so even the different voices which are going on together make one result, and that result comes as a symphony to the person who can hear them together. A collective thought comes when one can perceive it, especially in a town, in a new city. It is a kind of voice of the past and a voice of the present, the voice of all as one music. It has its peculiar and particular effect.

Question: Would the thoughts of people coming afterwards prolong the initial thought?

Answer: No, it would add to it. For instance, if there is a flute, then a clarinet, a trumpet or a trombone added to it will make up the volume of sound; however, there is always one instrument that plays the first part. The main voice stands as a breath, and all the other voices attracted to it build around it a form. The breath remains as life. The form may be composed and decomposed, but the breath remains as life.

Question: Does the duration of the impression that Abraham made upon the Kaba stone depend upon its intensity, or upon the sacredness of the thought?

Answer: When the thought comes from an evolved person, this has a greater power than the thought itself, than what the thought contains, because the person is the life of that thought. The thought is the cover over that life. Perhaps Abraham would not have been able to engrave any other stone with that same power he had when he came with his fresh impression after his initiation. At that time the impression was perhaps more intense than at any other time of his life, before or after.

Abraham said, 'This stone I set here in memory of initiation, as a sign of God to be understood as One God. This stone will remain forever as a temple.' He was not a king or a rich man. He could not build a temple, he could only put up this one stone. However, this stone has remained for a much longer time than many temples built with riches.

This is only one example, but there are numerous examples to be found. There is the atmosphere of Benares, and there are the vibrations of Ajmer, where Khwaja  Muinuddin Chishti lived, meditated and died. There is the tomb of the saint where a continual voice is going on, a vibration so strong that a person who is meditative would sit there and would like to sit there forever. It is in the midst of the city, and yet it has a feeling of wilderness because in that place the saint sat and meditated on sawt-i sarmad, the cosmic symphony. Through his hearing that cosmic music continually, cosmic music has been produced there.

There was a wonderful experience during the lifetime of the Khwaja of Ajmer. To visit this saint, a great master, Khwaja Abdul Qadir Jilani, who was also an advanced soul, came from Baghdad. A remarkable meeting took place between them in Ajmer. Now, the latter was very strict in his religious observances, and the religious people would not have music. So naturally in order to respect his belief, the Khwaja of Ajmer had to sacrifice his everyday musical meditation. But when the time came, the symphony began by itself. The great master felt that, without anyone playing, the music was going on! He said to the saint, 'Even if religion prohibits it, it is for others, not for you.'

Question: What is the character of remote places that have always been uninhabited, or very little inhabited? Is the attraction that such places possess due to the absence of distracting voices?

Answer: In remote places, sometimes the voices have become buried, and there is a kind of overtone that is most gentle and soothing, for the voices have gone and the vibration remains as an atmosphere. If the place has always been a desert, it is still more elevating because it has its own natural atmosphere that is most uplifting. If some travelers have passed through it and if this brings their voice to us, even that is much better than what one perceives and feels in cities and in towns because in nature, man is quite a different person. The more he approaches nature, the more that is artificial falls away from him. He becomes more and more free from the superficial life and more at one with nature. Therefore his predisposition which is nature, truth and goodness, all comes up and makes life a kind of dream for him, a romance, a lyric. So even his thought there, as a human thought, begins to sing through nature.

Question: Does a tomb keep the voice of the person who is buried there?

Answer: No, not the tomb, but the place where the person lived. In ancient times, people made a mark where a person had lived, they made a tomb where the vibrations of that person had been recorded. Ancient tombs were mostly made in places where the person sat, thought and meditated. In this case, the tomb is an excuse, it is only a mark that shows that here the person sat.

In India, where cremations take place, they often make a seat to mark the place where the one who died meditated and produced his vibrations. He may not be buried there, but a mark has been made just to keep that seat, that place.
 

checked 25-Oct-2005