Here is an extract about ghosts/spirits from the website below:
http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/science-mysteries/questions-on-ghosts.html
•Generally there are many types of hungry ghosts or just ghosts. They travel at the speed of thought and also can live hundreds of years almost like some sort of mini titan. So it is possible for people of many generations to see the same being after many generations. Even seven or eight generations and so on.
•The amount of beings existing in the realm of spirits/ghost far far far exceeds that of humans. Their population is huge.
•Spirits have various personalities just like animals and humans. You can generalize them. Like people from the North will be generally taller than of the South. That is very general with many exceptions of course.
•You have the bitter, nasty, harmless, weak, powerful, quiet, noisy, dysfunctional, sneaky, kind, helpful ghosts and with many more personalities. Because ghosts have the ability to travel superfast they have a sort of clairvoyance. They can reak havoc with their clairvoyance because it is limited and hence can give advice that turns out wrong in the long run. But seemingly the advice is ok in the short run with or without knowing it from their side.
•The ghosts can change shapes and forms to appear to you in the form you find comfortable to communicate with you or to frighten you. They wish to communicate for many reasons such as loneliness, anger, expressing their sorrows, or some wish to assist in their own way for something in return.
•Some spirits can even appear to the untrained as Tara!!! (female Bodhisattva in Mahayana Buddhism who appears as a female Buddha in Vajrayana Buddhism) Zong Rinpoche told us, some appear as Tara to people!!! So we have to be extremely careful when dealing with them. Better not to deal with them but be aware of their presence.
•To elicit favours from them like asking for lottery number, eliminating an enemy, or getting information from them could be dangerous in the long run depending on their characters. Should be avoided. Being careful to not simply do binding rituals or order them here or there. They can get you back in a way you least suspect. Better to leave them alone.
•Basically if they are in this form, it does not arise from positive karma. So the results cannot be generally positive.
•If they are in the ghost realm, something definitely went wrong. To take rebirth in that realm generally requires one’s mind to have extreme great attachment to a place, person, thing, idea or the such. That attachment is what binds them to their situation until karma is ‘finished’. When they go into the light, it could be another realm, or rebirth. It is not going into a ‘heaven’ as we know it.
