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March 12, 2019

Ghosts

Ghosts

Beyond ghost stories, have you ever really thought about ghosts? I think they are poorly understood because too much fantasy mixed with imagination is cooked into an unpalatable metaphysical stew. Miriam Webster dictionary defines ghost as, 1: “seat of intelligence,” and 2: “a disembodied soul especially: the soul of a dead person believed to be an inhabitant of the unseen world or to appear to the living in bodily likeness.” Of course, the second definition is the “popular definition” because it is “spooky,” and nothing about “seat of intelligence” is.

However the truth may be and wherever it may lie, I think a third definition is warranted: “ghosts are what we create when we don’t follow through with out intentions.” Whenever we intend to do something, energy is set in motion with all persons and material things connected with that intention. “Thoughts have wings” it is said, and things are set in motion connected with those thoughts. If we were to die before our intention was fulfilled, while the physical body is no more, does it not make sense that as a disembodied “spirit” or “ghost” we would rush to fulfill that intention, perhaps unconscious of being “bodyless” and unable to do so.

If we were without a body, it is not too difficult to imagine the “seat of our intelligence” bumping about here and there as energy, disturbing the surroundings wherever it ventures. Creaking floors and apparitions are too commonly reported to be mere imagination. There is nothing astonishingly metaphysical about “ghosts” to warrant the age-old question, “do you believe in ghosts.” Sadly, many people answer in the negative, but this is tantamount to believing the body alone is who we are. Not a thoughtful position.

My main concern is not so much with the traditional way of thinking about ghosts as the “departed,” but rather the possibility that ghosts are part of our every-day world, and something that we are constantly creating and being influenced by. I think that whenever we set in motion an action with words like, “I will do that” and for whatever reason don’t follow through, a ghost of that action is set into play, and this ghost will look for other means of fulfilling that action, effectively making us the “ghost” of whoever is acting in our stead, sort of like a “ghost writer.”

The first-person pronoun, “I” is behind every intention. If I go to pick up a ball and someone else rushes before me and grabs it, my “I” sense is mixed with that individual. How could it be otherwise, if intention leads to action, and karma is the fruit of action? Small karmic mixings like this may be relatively inconsequential, but think about more weighted circumstances, for example, contemplating marrying the love of your life, but dragging your feet to pop the question, and someone slips between and takes her away. When something like this occurs, where the intention is heavily laden, we feel hollow inside, just like a ghost.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see that we are becoming ghosts of our own intentions more than we might like to think, but also, we are making other people ghosts of theirs. This intermingling of energy with others is inevitable. We simply cannot fulfil all that we intend to fulfill. Couples constantly play each other’s part as circumstance dictate. Playground kids are ceaselessly robbed of their intention. And, there are no doubt many instances where strong intentions are fulfilled in ways we may never know.

Ghosts are certainly not as far fetched as the status the name has garnered. If we use our rational mind to think about them a bit, it doesn’t take allot of reasoning to see that there is no reason to confine them to the realm of the metaphysical or the dead. The “seat of our intelligence” is constantly intermingling with other “souls” as we strive to fulfil our intentions with varying degrees of success. We cannot help but be molded by this constant flux of energy as we coarse through life.

If there is anything to “take away” from this fanciful observation it would be the importance of mingling with people who are our equal or superior so that we are positively influenced rather than dragged down. This may be why the Buddha said in the “Dhammapada,” “if you associate with gold, you become like gold, if you associate with silver, you become like silver, if you associate with lead, you become like lead.” It depends on us to seek good companions and an uplifting social environment.

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