The Mystic Journey

Here are a couple more of my dreams that became reality soon after:  Last night I dreamed that I had decorated my mandir, home-temple, with a lot of marigold garlands and white flowers. I had gone to the market and bought sugarcane, sugarcane juice, some green grass, and white flowers. I am inviting everyone, saying that we have a puja for Shivji Bhagwan at home. There is so much joy around, with the aromas of flowers and sweet incense. I am so happy because never before have I seen a Shivji Puja in my dreams. So when I woke up this morning, I called up my Panditji and asked him to do just such a puja on Mahashivratri Day, which was approaching. Pujas at home became a big part of my day-to-day life now. My mother-in-law was a firm believer in doing all kinds of Puja. My Mom too used to do a lot of pujas as did my grandma, but they did not really make it a rule that I should follow their rituals. But I wanted to please my in-laws and so I too got into the spirit of dev...

I have had a number of astral experiences involving my dear dog Dino. Many seemed to warn me of his illness to come. I learnt to take them seriously and take care of Dino's health, going for a health check-up to his vet, immediately...the one I'm going to tell you about now was particularly scary: My Dino is unwell. I see a lot of patches of green pus all over his body. There’s a particular powder that gives him relief. I look for it and remember that it is in the factory. So I tell Andy that I’m going to the factory.  I reach the factory and open the main gate. It's in the middle of the night, and stray dogs are howling. I’m not scared, but I feel some apprehension. I’m about to step in and suddenly I see that I am about to fall into a deep pit. I’ve stopped just in time. I go over to the other gate and enter. I see that there is black mud on one side of the compound, and some dirty water in-between. There are debris of some construction work on the other side....

Not all my astral experiences are strange or frightening. Some of them make me very, very happy. Like that time when I had this lovely dream. There’s this large, lovely garden with lots and lots of coloured flowers – pink, yellow, orange, and there were tall palm trees. There's a gentle breeze blowing , and birds are singing in the bushes.  And there’s this very cute-looking little girl about five or six years of age, wearing a pale pink dress and playing all by herself, just going round and round and round. She seems very content playing on her own, and there's a beatific  smile on her face. She looked like a sufi dancer, a whirling dervish, in touch with the divine. She goes to a large bunch of red flowers and stands there, caressing them. A couple of butterflies flit by, and she looks up and smiles at them.  I keep wondering who she is, and then suddenly it strikes me … this little girl is me! Gosh, what a wonderful sight, what a beautiful way to see my...

I do have a number of pleasant #astralexperiences, they are like something that had actually happened to me. So in time, these experiences merge into my overall memory or consciousness too, they become a part of who I am. Has anyone of you experienced this, even as dreams? Do share in the comments section below.  Let me relate one of these experiences on the #astralplane to you now: Andy has got this amazing new, red sports car. He drives up to me as I walk out on to the Marriott portico, and gallantly stops and picks me up. I’m thrilled, and we drive off in it. I roll down the window and put our my hand. The cool breeze is pleasant on my face, and my hair is flying in all directions. Then I slowly open out my arms, and feel myself flying. I want to keep flying all my life. This feeling is so beautiful that I don’t want it to go.  Every time Andy says let’s turn back and go home, I am like, ‘No please, just keep driving!’.  Finally he just turns back...

I see ghosts everywhere. I feel I connect with them so deeply that I become a ghost too. A ghost who can see all the spirits and ghosts.  I walk to the loo and see my mother. She reaches out and tries to touch me and I stand still. At first I am scared, but after a while I let her touch me. I have not felt her touch in thirty years, so it feels beautiful. She speaks and her voice is calm. I love her voice, I love the memory that her voice brings, it’s so serene. Let it ring dear, just let it ring, like Christmas carols, the sweet voice, the innocent voice of my mother ringing a bell in my ear, oh, how wonderful it is to hear the bells ring after thirty years, let it be, just let it stay so that I can sway to the music and become her child again. Then the bell ringing gets louder. Is someone at the door? Is Andy doing his ten-second pooja at the Mandir?  I can’t go now...

This #Astral #Experience is one of my more pleasant ones, so I thought I'd share it first with you. I am sound asleep after a tiring and busy day. It’s a kind of happy tiredness, a slowing of my  whole self, in happiness at a day well-spent, doing a whole lot of stuff that demanded my  perennially hassled attention.  I’m on a sail boat, it’s a long wooden sail boat. And it seems  to be floating gently along on auto. The pristine white sails seem to soar straight into the  sky. Did I go to to a boat and fall asleep, I ask myself. I look around at the beautiful,  turquoise-blue Mediterranean Sea. Its beautiful. The sky seems to meet the sea,  seamlessly, I can’t seem to make out the horizon line at all, it seems as though it has  united with its Love, the beautiful, azure sea. I am alone on the boat. Me and the silence. Besides the sound of the waves lapping  against the hull, there is no other sound. I love silence, it’s so pea...

I felt good embarking on that journey where I shared commonly held beliefs and myths about #AstralTravel or #AstralProjection, as it is called, and discussed them. I hope you found it as interesting as it was for me to share them with you. Should you have any questions to do with this general area of the Astral Plane, do ask. I also invite you to share any experiences that you too might have had. This is precisely what I intend to do as well. Starting from my next blog which will be uploaded on Thursday, I shall be relating some of my experiences, but without comment. This exercise will be of interest not only to you, but to me as well, when I shall be looking at them with fresh eyes. For while I have been able to decipher many of these experiences, many still remain a mystery to me, for they are from the depths of my sub-conscious.  I invite comments, inputs, and your take on these accounts of my travels in the #astralplane.

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 disc...