DeMythifying Astral Projection13
The next blog, the last in the series on De-Mythifying Astral
Travel, is actually an open-ended topic that has not seen a resolution. I crave
your indulgence and time, for it is a much longer blog-article.
Myth 20:
Astral projection doesn't prove life after death.
Truth: Well, on scientifically
measured parameters, astral travel or projection or out of Body Experience
neither proves nor disproves that there is life after death. Well, people who
have experienced proper conscious OBEs even once start to strongly believe in
life after death. Finding themselves outside their physical bodies and still
functioning, still able to see, hear, touch, even smell and taste, still able
to do everything and more, how can anyone deny that life goes on?
To learn more about what it is, let us look at
what other people have experienced, and say about it .
Where
does the soul go when you die? It’s a very short-sighted question, given that
the premise is false. Imagine a discussion between a refrigerator and
electricity. The refrigerator is plugged in and it’s doing its job, cooling
food. Suddenly the plug is pulled and the refrigerator says to electricity,
“Where do you go when the plug is pulled?” Electricity says, “What do you mean,
‘where did I go’? Where did you come from? You’re a little box that was just
created in the last century; I’ve been around from the beginning of time and
I’m everywhere. They created a box to hold me. You’ve contained me. You’ve
confined me in your box and you’ve become a cooling agent.”
What Astral Travelers say
Many people have remembered some previous
existences so they can attest to the reality of the life after death cycle. But
then, there are others who do not remember anything. It’s only logical that
they do not believe it to be true.
One traveller says: ‘ I know the Astral is real
dimension from multiple investigations and experiments that I have been able to
verify through checking locations of physical objects. However, for people who
have not done anything like that they would probably find it hard to accept
even believe in such higher dimensions.
Another
Astral traveller says: ‘After hundreds of experiences I can honestly say that
it's either all in my mind (as in daily physical life) or all equally real.
Just the very nature of experiencing them begs the thought that questions the
reality of your physical life. It isn't much different, you still see you still
feel, etc. Just the nature of what you are aware of changes, but the awareness
itself is the same in all states.’
In Dr.
Andrew Newberg’s Teaching Co. course The
Spiritual Brain, he cites the impact these experiences have on
those who go through them: “People come away from a near-death experience with
a radically altered set of beliefs about themselves, the meaning of life,
relationships—everything. They no longer fear death and are more spiritual…one
said that the experience was ‘bigger’ than religion, which was not sufficient
to help encapsulate the NDE.”
The truth is that there are a multitude of
higher components, complexities and existences as part of the universe. People
can believe in this or that to their heart’s content but unless they actively
look into and investigate such things any position they take is only going to
be just another idea.
People want
to rely on science to tell them what is real and what is not. However, science
is based on observations in the physical world and therefore cannot study what
is happening outside of it. The only vehicle that humanity has to access the
Astral and spiritual experiences is ourselves. This is why spiritual knowledge
and investigations are always referred to as personal quests.
Out-of-Body
Experiences
The
phenomenon known as an out-of-body experience (OBE) may be a spontaneous
occurrence or it could be something the individual wills. Often, it was first
triggered by a Neear Death Experience (NDE), but not always.
While this
is not a direct indicator of survival of death, it does provide evidence that
humans consist of something other than a body: a “spirit” that can separate
from it under certain conditions while the body remains alive.
Such
experiences have been recorded around the world throughout history, often by
shamans who claim to have gone into the “spirit world” to receive guidance. In
a study of 70 non-Western groups by D.
Shiels for the Journal of
Psychical Research in 1978, the core experiences of being able
to leave the body voluntarily were very similar, despite major cultural differences.
Scott Rogo, the highly-regarded parapsychologist, had
a hard-headed approach to the field. He
was always skeptical about easy explanations for so-called paranormal
phenomena. His first book was published at 19 and by the time of his death at
40, he had written 29 others.
One of these
was Leaving the Body: A Complete
Guide to Astral Projection (OBEs). In addition to recounting
many credible experiences of people able to describe distant events as they
hovered over them, Rogo had lots of personal knowledge. He had trained himself
to leave his body and once while out of town, returned in spirit to his home to
find his roommate had someone visiting. He confirmed this when he came back
from the trip.
Jerry Gross, a leader in the field of
out-of-body explorations, began having spontaneous out-of-body experiences in
early childhood. As he grew older, he developed ways to court these
experiences, to invite them with greater frequency. So powerful was their
impact on his life that he founded Search and Prove, an organization dedicated to bringing the out-of-body
experience to mass consciousness. Jerry has proven conclusively, under
scientifically controlled conditions that he has been able to astral project
himself to a distant location, observe a situation, move an object, and then
return to his body with total recall of these events. Jerry teaches that astral
projection is a beautiful, fulfilling, enlightening experience that anyone can
learn. He believes the out-of-body experience allows all of us to leave our
cumbersome bodies and travel in the spirit world ... our true home. Jerry feels
that the ability to leave the body is "one of the gifts we are all given
at birth, but most of us have forgotten about."
It
is hard not to, with all this background, go back to the roots of our own
spiritual heritage in India. Our spiritual teachings have always told us that
the body is only a vehicle for the soul or atman.
The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, Text 20, says:
na jayate mriyate va kadacin nayam bhutva bhavita va na bhuyah
ajo nityah sasvato 'yam
purano na
hanyate hanyamane sarire
For the soul there is never birth nor death. Nor,
having once been, does he ever cease to be. He is unborn, eternal,
ever-existing, undying and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain.
In
the Katha
Upanisad (Katha 1.2.18), also we find a similar passage
which reads:
na jayate mriyate va vipascin nayam kutascin
na vibhuva kascit
ajo nityah sasvato 'yam purano na hanyate hanyamane sarire.
The
meaning of this verse is the same as in the Bhagavad-gita.
The question ‘Is there life after
death?’, thus seems to get subsumed in much larger questions of existence and
spirituality, that need much in-depth study.
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