Just before one is about to start on the Path and enter the first stage or plane, the following three experiences, which are the standard of the initial subtle realization, are experienced:

1. A faintly audible but unimaginably rich musical sound is heard.

2. An almost suppressed yet indescribably sweet scent is smelt.

3. Unsteady but clear flashes of extremely dazzling lights are seen.

These experiences of hearing, smelling and seeing have nothing to do with the gross organs of the human body. One may be completely void of physical olfaction and totally blind and deaf, yet when one is about to start on the inner life, one is bound to hear, smell and see. Yet this is not the experience of the subtle in full consciousness, as the hearing is faint, smelling is half-suppressed and the seeing in flashes, owing to the non-development of the organs of sense. The subtle organs become developed when one actually starts on the Journey.

The individual souls of the world are within the limits of the gross sphere, which includes all the gross worlds, suns, moons, stars, space, ether, etc. An uncultured savage unaware of the most elementary laws of worldly knowledge, of science, and of right and wrong, and a great philosopher-scientist are both within the bounds of the gross sphere. The philosopher may in theory be quite familiar and at home with subjects beyond the gross, and a scientist may be a master of electrons and ether, but all the same, from the viewpoint of the subtle, they and the savage come under the same category of the gross sphere. Unless and until the subtle sphere is experienced, Gnosis remains a subject for intellectual gymnastics for all those who are in the gross sphere; because, by the subtle, we do not mean it to be the finest form of the gross. In the gross sense, it is right to call very fine substances as ether, space, atoms, vibrations, light, etc., subtle, yet all these are unquestionably matter though in very, very fine form. In the spiritual sense, the subtle is absolutely and completely something quite different from the material and the physical, however fine and faint this matter may be.

Although the gross is the outcome of the subtle and is dependent on the latter, the subtle is completely independent of the gross. For example, gross action like eating is the outcome of the thought about eating and is dependent on that, but still the thought is completely independent of the gross action, because in spite of getting the thought about eating, one may not eat at all. In other words, the action is the outcome of the thought and is dependent on it, but thought is quite [sic] dependent of the action.*

To begin experiencing gradually but with full consciousness the subtle universe means getting initiated into the first mystical Journey. In other words, when a soul through the media of the mind and the subtle organs, begins to experience in full consciousness the subtle sphere, just as a man of the world experiences, through the media of the mind and the gross organs, the gross sphere in full consciousness, he can be said to have entered the Path and acquired some Gnosis. Of the seven stages or planes of the first Journey, the first four belong to the subtle sphere. But this does not mean that communications with and glimpses of the spirits of the dead amount to an experience of the subtle sphere.

In a way, even an ordinary dream is also a subconscious experience of the subtle, because everyone necessarily makes an actual use of one's subtle body in the dreaming state; but, be it noted, through that body, one experiences different sensations and happenings pertaining to the gross only. In other words, the ordinary dreaming state is the experience of the gross, through the subtle means, in the subconscious state. Of course, the case regarding communications with the spirits of the dead is not the same as that of the dreaming state. Just as a man in the ordinary dreaming state uses his subtle body subconsciously and thereby

* In Volume 2 Number 2 page 26 last paragraph of the Awakener Magazine, Shri Meher Baba: His Philosophy and Teachings it says  "independent of the action". -webmaster JK