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 or city, where there is not a voice continually going on - a voice which was once engraved upon it and which since then has continued. No doubt every such voice has its limit: one voice may continue for thousands of years, another voice for several months, another for some days, another for some hours or moments. For 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, that there was a house, 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 aloud who lived in the town and how they lived, what was their life. 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. But there is no house, there is no place which has not got its own voice: the voice that 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 which he had just received from the ancient esoteric school of Egypt, and 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 Ka'ba. This continued and is still going on.

A place like Mecca, a desert with nothing of interest: the ground not fertile, the people not very evolved, no business or industry flourishing, no science nor art developed - 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 which 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 he has been sitting on while thinking and many persons, by sitting in that place, begin to feel it. Sometimes, the moment he sits on a certain seat, a person may feel a thought quite foreign to him, a feeling which does not belong to him, because on that seat there was that thought 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, where one rejoices, or where one 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. But 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 thought 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, make up the volume of sound, but there is always one instrument which 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 Ka'ba 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 for ever as a temple." He was not a king, nor a rich man; he could not build a temple, he could only put up this one stone. But this stone has remained for a much longer time than many temples built with riches.

This is only one example, but there are numberless examples to be found. There is the atmosphere of Benares, and there are the vibrations of Ajmer where Khwaja Moinud-Din 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 for ever. 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 Saut-e-Sarmad, the cosmic symphony. And 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, music was going on, and 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 which 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 which is most uplifting. And if some travellers 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, 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 at one with nature. Therefore his predisposition which is nature and truth and which is 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 the 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 which 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.