The Dogs May Bark But the Caravan Moves On: The Spirit Realm And I

By Raja Arasa Ratnam

There is evidence of souls taking both mind and memories to the afterlife.

For souls to be able to take earthly facilities to the afterlife, soul, mind and memories need to be outside the earthly body. Attachment to consciousness – which envelops, while also pervading, all existence – would explain this capability.
My soul seems to have given me glimpses of past lives.

Why?

To link key features of my past to my future most of which may have already been laid down?
Ah, the mystery of existence!

• Language: English
• Publisher: William R. Potter
• Release date: Apr 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463618905

Raja Arasa Ratnam

I am an octogenarian bicultural Asian-Australian, formed by the communalism and spirituality of Asia, but with my feet firmly grounded in the individualism of the West. I am a communitarian small-l liberal, and a freethinker in matters religious. I seek to contribute to building a bridge between these cultures (as suggested to me by the spirit world about 2 decades ago); and have thereby been writing about issues relating to migrant integration (but not assimilation).I claim to be widely read. A professor of history and politics (a published author of renown), who treats my books as representing a sliver of post-war Australia’s history, did describe me as an intellectual who cannot be categorised (but not slippery). Two of my books were recommended in 2013 by the US Review of Books. All of my six books were reviewed favourably by senior academics and other notable persons. I am not just a pretty face!My books are all experience-based, including the book of short, short stories of imagined people and situations. Usefully, I was Director of Policy on migrant settlement-related issues over nine years in the federal public service in Australia. My highly interactive and contributory life, reaching leadership positions in civil society, also contributed to my writing, as did a demeaning life under British colonialism, a half-starved existence under a Japanese military occupation, and exposure to the White Australia-era racism, sectarian religion-fuelled tribalism, and a denial of equal opportunity.

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An Imported Black in White Australia

When I arrived in whiter-than-white Australia in 1948, in spite of my honey-coloured skin, I was frequently addressed as a ‘black bastard’ in public spaces, and generally described as black. Colour prejudice was rife. It was displayed in my direction through looks (often aggressive), and in insulting utterances (full of disdain). Acts of discrimination (such as being the last to be served in shops) were common.

How so? Why did the hoi polloi (the common urban Aussie) behave in such a hoity-toity fashion? Through the protective aura of the vicious White Australia policy; and by an apparently osmotic absorption of colonial attitudes. Had not their British ancestors confirmed their innate genetic superiority by invading the imagined terra nullius Australia, killing and driving away the indigenes, and destroying their ancient cultures and economic base? Accepting the Aborigines as First Nation Peoples is even now beyond the tolerance level of the movers and shakers of this relatively new nation.

Significant culture shocks were generated by the entry of fee-paying, educated, well-dressed, well-behaved, confident, young but coloured university students speaking clear English, and who were buttressed by the ethos of Asian communalism and their civilisational heritage. Since Australia was originally intended for white British people exclusively, these shocks were bilateral.

Habituation and some socialisation, and ignoring the ignorant Aussie, built necessary bridges. The displayed ability of some of us to drink lots of beer at Aussie barbecues also helped. Then, shared education and the guiding influence of teachers added to cement relations within the next generation for those of us who married white Aussie women, and remained in Australia, and produced a new model of Aussie.

By then, pressure from the newly-independent Asian nations had weakened the colour bar. By initially favouring the lighter-coloured East Asians, preferably Christian, the government was able to fully open the immigration door to darker Asians (preferably Christian) by the end of the 20th century.

For a nation which was disgustingly racist, this is a tremendous achievement. We are now officially colour-blind, except for the unavoidable (the ‘ignoramus’) social yobbo. Whether dark non-Christians can rise to the top of the totem-pole is moot. Time will tell. Yet, it seems timely for me to present to the reformed Australia and to the world at large a snapshot of early post-war Australia, the incredibly racist and religiously bigoted nation that I entered 70 years ago. Why? Because very few Anglo-Aussies alive today could possibly know anything about White Australia, the land of their forebears. They would have been born after World War Two, and not exposed to the dark side of their nation.

They would also begin to understand why our government keeps chortling about Australia being ever so multicultural, even as control of the nation has not changed at all.

It is against this background that I offer my experiences, with appropriate commentary, reflecting 70 years of objective observation of the Western nation to which the spirit realm had exiled me. Yes, this is true, as I will explain in due course.

My experiences are set out in 4 books on immigrant integration, details of which are set out in the following pages. I am not aware of any other Asian-Australian who had written about Australia and its evolution since World War Two. There are not many people alive, white, black or brindle, who have experienced this country as I have (refer my book The Dance of Destiny). The reviewers of my books have found my recorded thoughts both challenging and provocative, but not factually incorrect.

I have also published 2 other books: one on Australian society, the other is bicultural fiction.

What Shaped My Perspective?

Would I not be an opinionated fool were I to attempt to answer this curly question in an apparently factual fashion? The determinants of a human life, both genetic and social; the contributory causes of a personal destiny on Earth (including past lives); the variable behavioural-personalities surrounding a core-personality which is probably inherently imperceptible; a learned ability to transcend the limits of perception of matters substantial in order to intuit (perhaps through one’s ‘third eye’) phenomena in the ephemeral (or spiritual) realm: are these subject to dissection and analysis? Does one vivisect a songbird to trace the thrill of its trill?

What of the highly probable role of my Spirit Guide? I have been assured of his involvement in my life by a clairvoyant who saw him when he complained to her that I had not been listening to him.

There is also that ecstatic experience I had when I spent a week in an Australian ashram about 25 years ago. During a deep meditation, I felt a physical merger with an image of Lord Ganesha; it was an incredible feeling! During my boyhood, I had attended a Pilleyar (Ganesha) temple very frequently. Is it not significant that I began to write after that experience?

That represented a confluence of the spirit realm and a spiritual experience. As well, it was the spirit of my favourite uncle, sent by 'higher beings’ to offer me advice about my spiritual growth, who had suggested that I "contribute to building a bridge from where you came to where to are now." As I was somewhat knowledgeable about matters relating to successful immigrant integration, I wrote my first 4 books.

As a boy, I wanted to know the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ about almost everything. Indeed, one question has remained with me all my life: where did the universe come from? I was then 8 years old.

I began to read about religion (and religions) at 24. I also began the study of psychology and economics then – to understand human behaviour. A professor in each of 3 academic disciplines noted that I tend to think ‘outside the box.’ Why do I do that? I have no idea. But it is interesting to speculate on how (and why) I do not automatically toe an official line (unless I have to).

I observe, seek patterns, and speculate. These days, I cast my tentative views into cloudland, so that others may contemplate them. Thus, my books offer experiences and commentary – because that is what I do. Let the Cosmos do what it will with my speculations.

Like Socrates, I (really) know nothing (but would prefer to avoid his fate). Understanding is more important than knowledge.

A Dragon’s Welcome

After 70 years of a highly interactive and contributory life in Australia as an adult, including holding leadership positions in civil society, and now living as a recluse in a beach-side village, I continue my life-long search for understanding of matters both material and ethereal, with a spiritual intent. My reality covers the physical, the mental, and the spiritual domains – through experience. Significantly, twice in primary school, I wrote in my essays that I wished to live and die by the sea.

My capacity for intuition appears to be developing. Perhaps this reflects my progress, over possibly thousands of lifetimes on Earth, through the allegedly ascending pathway of my chakras. As a metaphysical (post-ritual) Hindu in this life, I am pleased to learn from this faith that there is meaning in Earthly existence through repeated reincarnations.

Strangely, I have had strong intimations, through 3 pathways, of my immediate past life as a Muslim warrior. This has led me to an understanding of the lessons I had to undergo (and suffer) in this life. Being a coloured entrant of a foreign faith into a white man’s land, which denied me equal opportunity in employment (contrary to the nation’s fabled ethos of a ‘fair-go’), taught me how a personal Destiny operates. Being positive, and contributing to my new home me led to onto my spiritual path.

Such understanding, when enabled by necessary fortitude and resilience, strengthens one’s psyche. As fire strengthens steel, so suffering strengthens the human soul.

In my 90th year, before I leave Earth as empty-handed as I was when I was born, I offer my unusual experiences in the land of my exile, some of my speculations arising therefrom, and some interesting memories. I remain positive in my perspective. Why? Because I am a ‘dragon’; that is, one born in the (Chinese) Year of the Dragon.

We dragons soar into the sky of solitude, while we simultaneously sink into the sea of humanity, as we sing the songs of significance about our true home, that Ocean of Consciousness which unites all existence and non-existence.

A Yogi ensured my exile (Part 1)

Why would a yogi leave his meditation cave in the Himalayas to knock on the front door of a small home in British Malaya? He asked the recently widowed mother and her 18-year old son if he could come in, explaining that he was a yogi; and that, every 3 years, he was required to mix with people. He did not offer, and neither was he asked for, an explanation as to why he had sought us. As Hindus, we accepted him.

I was surprised that my mother had allowed entry to a total stranger. Yet, there was something about him that engendered trust. He was certainly unlike the sunyasins, wearing appropriate robes, who sought food or money. Indeed, his features, demeanour and clothing somehow led us to trust him.

He sat on the chair indicated by my mother, then asked me to sit next to him, and suggested that my mother sit opposite us. He then took my right hand, looked into my eyes, and spoke.

What he said to us in an apparently casual conversation led eventually, osmotically, to my destruction, to tragedy for my mother, with flow-on deleterious effects for my sisters.

A yogi ensured my exile (Part 2)

Holding my right hand, almost feeling it, while looking into my eyes, the yogi (who had invited himself into our home) told my recently widowed mother and I about my personality, and what had happened in my life. It was remarkably accurate.

Already a sceptic, I suspected that he had been talking to my aunt, who lived down the street. I knew that I was her favourite nephew; but that might have been because I was the first-born offspring in our extended and close family.

Every statement he made was correct. That led to my mother asking him about my future. Did she wonder why a yogi had suddenly appeared at our door? To our great surprise, he said that I would travel south to study.

No one in British Malaya was known to go south for their tertiary studies. The British government did send to Britain students selected to become engineers, teachers, physiotherapists, and so on; as part of an official plan to build up a necessary infrastructure of skills.

These were not, however, preferred careers for ambitious families in our clan with ‘bright’ sons. These would study medicine in Singapore, Dublin (a focal point for colonial students), Hong Kong, or India. Even dentistry was not respected. Of course, producing doctors was then seemingly a shared ambition by families in almost every culture in the world.

I was required to become a doctor. My ridiculous capacity for memory endorsed that decision by my parents. I was to bring status and wealth to the family. I could have no thoughts about my career. Would my ‘stars’ have a say?

A yogi ensured my exile (Part 3)

My mother’s willingness to converse with the yogi who had invited himself into our home was not surprising. Our cultural tradition was to seek information about the future from those who seemed to be able to so advise us. We had faith in fortune tellers; those who were apparently able to speak about each of our futures by charting the path of the planets from the date of birth; and wandering gurus. An immigrant’s life was far more perilous than that of one who stayed at home.

My mother’s next question to the yogi was strange. I was to go south (to study medicine over six years). Yet, she asked when I would return. Late in life, I speculated whether there are subliminal influences from beyond the material realm to take us humans onto pathways which lead to quagmires.

The yogi’s unexpected reply was – 4 years! When she then asked whether I would be a doctor by then (such, unfortunately, was her ambition), the yogi shook his head in the negative. Almost immediately he added that I would be overseas much of the time. Would that be because of my work, she asked. He nodded.

Soon after, he left. Only he knew the disasters to befall us. We had been warned (foretold), but the message was obviously not clear. How could mere mortals grasp the import of what had been foretold, and how it had been told?

His role was clearly to have me sent to Australia. What was so important about that to warrant the ‘despatch’ of a yogi from the Himalayas to Malaya?

A yogi ensured my exile (Part 4)

What was foretold by the yogi was disaster upon disaster – for the whole family. While seemingly born gifted (evidenced by exam results and musical talent), I was to be destroyed. Looking back after a considerable period, I wondered why I had been selected.

I would lose my confidence academically. I would be a failure with no future. The whole Jaffna Tamil tribe in Malaya would look down, not only at me, but also at my mother’s plight. I was abused on a bus. Even when I was 70 years of age, it was made clear to me in a social gathering that I remained a pariah.

Senior relatives ignored my plea for help when I needed a job immediately after my downfall. I obviously must have chosen to fail. For the next 25 years I suffered nightmares for letting down my poor mother and sisters; I did not dare show my face to my people.

Why had the yogi come to us all the way from the Himalayas? Was it only for me to be sent to Australia? To what end? Who or what powers had sent him to do that? Why did I have to go to Australia?

Was the yogi sent to ensure that my personal destiny path (shaped by my previous lives) would be implemented? Had the spirit realm been responsible for his role?

As foretold, I went south, came home a failure after 4 years. Then strangely, I went back to Australia, to stay! (I was overseas much of the time, as spoken by the yogi.) What was expected of me?

Long after retirement, I intuited the pattern set for my personal destiny. I was only a tool.

The determinants of personal destinies (Part 1)

The personality of a child is influenced by inherited genes; at least initially. Later, socialisation and life experiences will modify that inherited pattern. Strangely, as I have observed, a child may display, undeniably, a certain personality characteristic of an uncle or aunt – although the genetic pathway cannot be traced.

There may well be a non-genetic inheritance pathway (epigenetic) – akin to the inheritance of acquired characteristics or attributes. (Refer Lysenko, whose theory is reportedly acceptable to Russian scientists.)

Those of us who travel on one of the tributaries of the great river of Hinduism (comparable perhaps to the River Indus) believe – or even know – of the accumulated impact of past lives contained within our soul. Past-life memories of children aged 3 to about 6 all over the globe attest to the reality of the reincarnation process.

It is my serious belief, after nearly 90 years of a questing Earthly life, that my soul has permitted me, through my evolving intuition, to obtain an inkling – from time to time – of not only my immediate past life, but also of a few other past lives.

My personality, my reaction potential, and my perspective of life on Earth (and elsewhere) was thereby changed.

The determinants of personal destinies (Part 2)

Intimations of my immediate past life came initially from a certain instinct (the feel of a scimitar in my right hand) whenever I experienced an unwarranted and unfair racial or religious discrimination. During my 70 years of a highly interactive and contributory life in Australia, beginning from the racist White Australia period, I have had to cope with uncivilised behaviour.

Combined with certain other insights, and a vision by a reliable clairvoyant, I am now satisfied that I was a Muslim warrior in my last past life. What a jolt for a Seeker of understanding, who is now a metaphysical Hindu. The lesson for me in this life has been clear!

I had taken early retirement to avoid any further discrimination (based on me not belonging to ‘the faith’ – Catholicism). During the following period of great stress, I found myself able to meditate – and thereby achieve mental peace in time. Spiritual peace would come later.

I then tried auto-hypnosis in order to ‘peer’ into my past lives. Lo and behold, repeatedly there appeared scenes of red sand. Digressing a little, from early boyhood, I had repeatedly studied the atlas, examining the topography of Central Asia. Later, I sought its history. For example, was the Gobi Desert once a massive ocean? Did the Universal Flood, attested to by more than 90 global cultures, empty it? I can understand how all that happened.

I now believe that the red sand of my subconscious is around the Aral Sea. I have another subconscious experience to support that belief. Yet, I am known to be an instinctive sceptic.

My interest in Central Asia may have been through my soul throwing a little light into where I have been. Such knowledge guides both behaviour and upheld values in one’s current life.

The determinants of personal destinies (Part 3)

In one of my ‘visions’ under auto-hypnosis, I was in an underground room cut into rock, with a grating above allowing light and air to enter. Was that in Palestine? Strangely, after that experience, I lost my anxiety about being closed into a limited space. A past life-originating fear dispelled?

Or, did this reflect a link with the Jewish people while living in their terrain? Would this experience explain my close friendships with Jewish people in Australia? Was not the first girl to befriend me in campus in Australia Jewish? She had, as she told me, experienced life in a Nazi concentration camp. A couple of years later, did I not go out for more than a year with another Jewish fellow-student who had a number on her arm?

Was it similarly significant that I had been born into the land of peaceful and tolerant Muslim Malays? That is, were past lives surfacing? Only my soul could do that.

Comparably, could this explain why I am comfortable with the Christians of Australia? And that, while I am anti-colonial, many of my friends are English immigrants? Indeed, my blood-sister (now deceased) was an English girl. We met when we were in our early twenties. For the record, another ‘vision’ under auto-hypnosis depicted this lass as my twin brother in (obviously) a past life. We supported each other the rest of our troubled lives.

My troubled life began when I was 14, but I have adapted; and done so by being stoic. A propensity for fortitude and resilience can be useful. What has to happen will happen, will it not?

I have achieved spiritual peace through my exposure to the spirit realm. That has led to a deeper understanding of humanity, and its strengths and foibles. Meaningful patterns of significance may be discerned through perusing the complex mesh of inter-twined destinies.

My reality now involves 3 dimensions: the physical, the mental, and the spiritual. While the mental can throw light upon the physical, it is the spiritual, the ephemeral, the ethereal realm which illuminates the totality of existence.

The spirit realm and I (Part 1)

A mattress, with a man lying on it, had risen about 5 feet behind a curtain held up by 4 men, each holding a pole. I did not see the mattress rise. This act was accomplished by the rhythmic beat of a drum and the beguiling wail of a clarinet. I had experienced the grip of this ‘combo’ on a number of occasions in one of the temples my family attended. While this act of levitation did not implicate the spirit realm, it certainly challenged normal human understanding of the material realm.

Observing some devotees of yoga bouncing across the stage in a circle while sitting cross-legged, in a large town hall filled with followers and observers, is an example of the mental realm overcoming the normal limitations of the physical realm, is it not?

Then there was an experience I do not want replicated. At age 18, I had a dream. In my dream, my father,