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I would like to encourage you to be cautious as you explore. I have been told that certain methods of astral projection can cause damage, such as where the higher bodies anchor into the lower body. I believe that Robert Monroe's technique may have been one of those that I was warned against. I believe that it is safer to start with lucid dreaming as a foundation for astral projection. "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep" by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche may be a good place to start if you want to try that route.

I've been writing a lot lately. Here is something I want to share: Window The window to beyond opens up unexpectedly, and yet… at the right moment. For how long did you gaze outward, thru the geometric glass? Awestruck by the mysterious grace of changing seasons and dancing elements, Enchanted by its infinite depth of ecological diversity woven to raw wilderness, Touched by the subtleties of the sacred, the poetry in nature, the music of life. Seeing this beauty, it fills you with joy and inspiration. Still… as you look across the glass, There is a longing for more- A beautiful dream abruptly shattered by the ringing of an alarm clock. Then one day, you wake up and find the window to beyond is open. Its breeze will guide you, whisper to you, Fill you with peace, blow away your fears and doubts. When you smell the blossoming fragrance, Your senses will awaken the heart, Who knows where it might take you? You will taste the fruit of your gifts destined to ripen. Seeds and fruit we must let go of, so that they may slumber in the frozen dark Winter, only to awaken with gusto in Spring’s fresh emerald renaissance.

When the existent and the non-existent have become the same, it does not mean that everything is no unreal. It means that everything is now the same. So the car is understood to be on the same level of reality as the dream. This does not relegate the car as much as you might think. Nor is the dream promoted as much as you think. But this is the vision of idealism. It is as old as the hills. And like I said, it is the paradgim you use to understand your mental life, and that of others. So perhaps we can appraoh the question of the premise from another angle. If you and your interlocutor, both keen logicians, disagree on the premises you should adopt. How, logically, should you determine whose is the correct premise?

The important point about idealims is that it is monistic. What you call matter and what you call thought is the same thing. Each are just monentary flashes in a stream. Rather like individual frames on a movie reel. So illusion doesn't really apply to this vision. The thought of the spgahetti monster is as real as the sight of the badger. Materialism can be monistic, but it is mostly dualistic. There is a difference between thought and matter. Thought behaves exactly like the idealist says, but matter endures regardless of any perceiving consciousness. Only the dualist can think about the world logically because only the duallist belives that there is a separate world to think about. The idealist says this separation is illusory. The big clue that the materialist should see is that their is a mjor component of the syllogism that has nothing to do with the world and that is the premise. The premise is a fiction, no different to the materialists dream. Or, to put it another way, if the materialist believes in fantasy dreams then he has to accept that the premise is of the same nature.

But like you've said, your rationality only allows you to know what your rationality will let you know. If something happens and you have a strange uncanny feeling about it, like you dreamt of it the day before. Your mind will simply interpret the feeling according to its own ways: 1) The mystic has no doubt that they have been clairvoyant. 2) The rationalist has no doubt that it is either a coincidence, or that the dream never happened - it is a confabulation. My question still is, do you not see the resemblance here? You likened them each to a kind of faith - like the relative faiths of the atheist and the theist. Can you imagine a way of life that avoids this kind of faith?

An unrelated premonition you mean ? If I'm about to go on holiday and I dream I shall be boarding a plane with some hand luggage then it's impossible to claim some degree of foreknowledge had not helped towards the premonition. It's possible to analyse similar events through the light of pre knowledge. We all create history. We are all at cause and effect. As Einstein said, there is no past, present and future, it's an illusion. It's a continuous movement of objects through time. I think you might be alluding to the thing I have talked about previously. An atheist is someone who does not 'believe' God exists, a religious person is someone who believes God does exist. I observe that similarity.

Hahahahahahah...my dear Karl...hahahahahaha...in my past life, one of my immediate past lives, I was from the WWII period. I dream of the rise of the Nazi regime. I was in the Holocaust. I dream of Mao and the Chinese revolution. Only recently, I witnessed and experienced the Israeli existential threat.....and closely associated with the Holocaust. Part of my fate is tied to the Israelis and the Jews. I witnessed myself as Aaron, Moses's brother. Of course, forgot to mention that the dream led me to experience the MCO was seeing myself as a Han warrior/scholar standing in front of my 2 Han brothers. You do know that that the Han Chinese culture and the dynasty dated back more than 2000 years ago. The past is me. I am the past, the past is I. The world you are living in now....it has been the result of these monumental historical events. Logically, you would have been living in caves and hunting for food to survive if it wasn't for history. You think you exist in isolation of history???? Hahahahahaha...surely you jested.

I've seen many ghosts. Inundated by them. I've been there TI. I have been a mystic for virtually my entire life. I've been out of body, past life, ghosts, clairvoyance and what not. It was all, perfectly real at the time. My brother once had a dream that my Dads office had been broken into and water was pouring down the stairs from a broken pipe. Next day we went across at his insistence and found that to be exactly as he predicted. The problem is not an open mind to mysticism, but a closed mind to reality. Mysticism is the more attractive, just as we enjoy a story, the cinema or the theatre. Truth is not always as palatable as imagination. We run from things we cannot face, from emotions that make us unhappy, from the reality of our lives and our death. We wrap it around us like a defensive cloak and believe in it absolutely.

That wasn't proof of anything. I had a dream where I saw a passenger aircraft crash into a mountainside and burst into flame. After the recent crash in the Alps I began to match the memory of the dream with the pictures I had seen. Before long I was convinced that this was exactly what I had seen. The mind is very susceptible to error. Most of us can't remember where we put the car keys and yet we don't go intuiting those- which would frankly be a lot more useful than seeing someone's face.

Me and Buddah would be bezzy mates. :-) you could maybe have a drink with us if we weren't too busy.;-) I've read about Dukkha from the link you gave and it accords precisely with what I'm saying. No difference what so ever. BC was more formulaic saying 'do this get that'. Neither do I propose that anyone follow what I'm doing, or have done. I don't believe there is one solution to suffering, we are all individuals, so it follows that those experiences and actions will necessarily be different. However I see many commonalities with Buddhism now you have pointed me towards it. I don't know what you think you are seeking a way out of ? There is nowhere to go unless you count death as a destination. Loving reality isn't 'loving what is'. There is a subtle, but very important distinction. BK is-I think-like a dream solution, it's effective in that state. You follow the Buddhist route the way you interpret it if it's right for you. Nowt to do with me. We are just talking.

Logic is not intellectualism. Logic exits to free us from illusions. With the good premices, that is taking perceptions as face value, and working from there. The mystical and the intellectual both dream about things that can not be perceived, and assume their are because he/she is inspired to think them (mysticism), or infers that its right to to think them (intellectualism). In both cases they work on non-evident things. This is not the way to be in the Now, because you dream of things that possibly were, are, or will be; instead of percieving perceptions, and so percieving how the mind works. It's easy to see that Rality has apparences, and that if we focus only on them we are deluded, because there is "something else" beyond, too. But it we chose to focus instead only on the "something", because we can feel or think it, we are equally deluded. We live only with one half of Reality. By direct use of the perceptions we can experience that 1) there are apparences, 2) they are illusory, so 3) there should be something else too, but 4) the apparences are still here. That's logic. Not the apparences, Not the truth beyond, not both, not neither. The only path left is what you'll call "Emptiness", because the mind needs a label. That is logic, but that is not something the mind can grasp intellectually. The mind wants distinctions, rules, dualities, it does not satisfy with the tetralemna. We think that the intellect is rational, but it is not, it hates logic, because it craves for dinstinctions, it is dying to know what to fear, and what to desire. So back to my points: distinctions Some people love the apparences, and fear the infigurable beyond, often because for them it represents void, darkness, death. But both mystic and intellectual persons feel safe with the beyond they believe they can figure, and try to avoid being deluded. But it is the nature of Reality to have deceiving apparences, so we have to be deluded, and just not feel good or bad about that.

First off, this topic concerns "how the world works" so it is not derailing the topic as you suggest.The world, for the most part works on a system of reward and punishment. We have laws, and police whom enforce them. We have natural laws which function the same way. You put your hand in the fire, it gets burned. It hurts. That is a form of punishment. Secondly, I see you've judged me. You yourself are a Judge. In the Buddhist sub forum you stated this: In that quote you have called the Christian system of reward and punishment "childish and incorrect" Why do Reward, Punishment and Judgement stop in the physical plane? Are not the same concepts and practices found in the other planes? Yes they are. You of all people, who frequent the other planes, should have known that. You should have met beings whom could have explained it to you or demonstrated it to you experientially. That is the part that leads me to thinking that you dwell in an imaginary dream world and have no practical experience of the other planes. The other planes have their laws too, don't they? It is a wonderful opportunity to discuss this aspect of reality, isn't it? Instead, you cast a few aspersions (cut and paste, a to b ), refuse to discus the topic at hand and run away. Never mind, there was another member in this forum whom had experience in the other planes. His name is Dawg. He would just explain it as he saw it, not run away and hide. For example, this is what he said: http://thedaobums.com/topic/30012-a-path-to-enlightenment/ But still, I have to say... There are gatekeepers whom will judge you. You seem to think you can fly between the cracks..

Pain is not everything nor imagination. Pain is like a dream, a wrong seeing or bad eyesight.

There are 100's of great threads made up over the years. This thread on Dream Yoga is great- http://thedaobums.com/topic/38953-dream-yoga/?p=637462 I look forward to this one involving studying the work of famed taoist Wang Li Ping work will be be a long deep thread- Yin Xian Fa and beyond http://thedaobums.com/topic/39020-yin-xian-fa-and-beyond/?p=638696 Many great insights from all the threads in the Interview section http://thedaobums.com/forum/356-interviews/ This has many interesting answers What Results Have People Had Here http://thedaobums.com/topic/38454-what-results-do-people-here-have-from-training/?p=626644 Here's an old one The Secret of Conscious Cocreation http://thedaobums.com/topic/1701-the-secret-of-conscious-co-creation/?p=15538 Here's a long informative thread on an important subject Opening the Third Eye- http://thedaobums.com/topic/27001-opening-of-the-third-eye-and-other-byproducts-along-the-way/?p=402840

Is not that you choose to fear but it was this internal fear you have an ego. What is this internal fear? Your past and your life history give rise to this ego and its defense mechanism. What if this fear is being played out in your dreams? Good luck trying not to fear. A fearful dream about your past can linger on throughout your entire daily existence. It makes you feel like you are living in the past again.

I am not going to read the entire thread but the entire thread can be shortened by asking one simple question.....did he have a clear light dream? Has he ever entered into a Samadhi? You can't fool and trick a Samadhi.

What would be so bad about things being exactly what they are Dream Bliss ? I shall stay away from pontification as it wouldn't be helpful. Where you are is quite a fragile place and is on the edge of 'everything is subjective'. I would suggest that you should do a lot of grounding activity at this point. Walking, gardening or whatever. Cut back on practices or stop all together. The universe can come back in gradually and you can spend your time at a lower state of subjectivity. At this stage it is habitual to fly off into the world of Neti Neti and it's unpleasant and depressing-as you have found. You will hit the buffers many times, but as long as you ground and self pace the practices you can keep at state of equilibrium. Relax it isn't a race. :-)

Sorry it took so long to respond -- I had evil capitalism to tend to. I left the office (where I run a division with a multi-million dollar operating budget and several dozen employees (PT, FT, hourly, salaried, with benefits, without benefits, you name it) which clearly makes me a greedy bastard responsible for all the world's woes) in order to hurry to my hometown. Why, you might ask? Well, because it was the 38th Annual Sourwood Festival! A three-day street fair in downtown Black Mountain in celebration of the wonderful local sourwood honey, it draws about 30,000 people over the weekend and is populated by over 200 vendors. That's right -- evil, greedy bastards from all over the area who have the temerity to call themselves artisans, craftsmen and merchants instead of properly identifying themselves as heartless oppressors of their fellow humans. These sub-human creatures drove for miles to set up booths from which they would trick passers-by into perusing or sampling (and perhaps -- aack! -- purchasing?!?) handmade local soaps and jewelry and birdhouses and ice-cream and free music and funnel cakes and... and... and... gosh! Oh, and honey. Some of these so-called "vendors" even brought their slaves to work in the hot sun hawking their wares -- like the members of the local high school marching band who sell BBQ from under a couple of big tents loaned by one of the town's funeral homes. The BBQ is donated by a local BBQ joint (another evil greedy bastard who probably doesn't give the workers their God-givengovernment-given rightsbenefits) and all benefits go to the band to help pay for uniforms and instruments and trips and such. So, why was I in such a hurry to get there Friday evening? You see, after more than two decades as a public mental health social worker, my wife is fulfilling a bucket-list dream of being a shop owner. That's right -- she's a proprietor of a business, she actually runs a business!!! (Can you imagine such a heartless thing???) She buys stuff and sells it at a profit (hopefully) and she occasionally employs local townspeople to work part-time in her shop, too. Gack! Her shop, as fate would have it, is located inside the barricaded area (they either close the streets to allow guests to wander safely or they do it in order to establish clear fields of fire in case it is decided to gun them down -- I forget which...) and is actually right next to the stage where the Friday evening talent show is held. (Actually, that's not quite true -- between her shop and the parking lot where the stage is located is the booth run each year by a local ministry which enables inmates from the nearby women's prison to come and sell donated books as a fundraiser.) With the amount of traffic through the shop, she really couldn't run it alone. On the way in, though, I stopped at a neighborhood Chinese restaurant for some take-out. While I love the street fair fare (if you follow me), my wife's medical condition makes it generally off-limits (and just plain bad for you) so I picked up some steamed rice and an order of steamed shrimp and snow peas for her. That place is run by a whole bunch of evil, greedy bastards who accidentally emigrated, legally, from The People's Paradise of China and who, apparently, are working hard to save enough money for the boat ride back, or whatever. Must be an expensive boat ride, though, because they have been here for years -- their now-teenaged kids work in the shop, too, and speak English fluently and with a Southern accent. Anyhow, after the festival started winding down for the night, we went around the corner to The Town Pump for a beer. Another evil capitalistic establishment run by a nice young lady who clearly is responsible for many of the world's woes which cannot be hung directly around my wife's neck. This place hires several bartenders who work part-time and who therefore are cheated out of their Godgovernment-given rights as well. They seem blissfully unaware of how oppressed they are, though, and it is always a pleasant place to visit. The Pump had a guy that night who was trying to break a guitar for tips, though, and doing it loudly -- so we went to another evil capitalistic establishment across the street, instead, and had a cold draft IPA brewed by a local greedy business. Saturday morning, we were back in the shop, watching all the poor unfortunate visitors being unwittingly oppressed by all the evil capitalists who tricked them into buying fresh bread and letting their kids ride the Ferris wheel and such. Lather, rinse, repeat. If your worn-out Marxist rhetoric wasn't so clichéd and predictable, I would demand an apology for what you are saying about my wife. Oh! As to the thing about 1-in-3 children living in poverty, I would encourage you to (but have no expectation that you will) read that link I posted earlier. It thoroughly destroys that fallacy so I don't need to. I will point out that I have personal knowledge of where that 1-in-3 number comes from -- it is actually the number of children who report having gone to bed hungry. That's right -- the government sends agents into public elementary schools (like the ones my son attended) to survey children. One of the questions asked is whether the child has ever gone to bed hungry; if the kid recently was told he couldn't have one more cookie and glass of milk at bedtime, he might answer "yes" (sniffle) and would therefore be counted as not having enough to eat. That's not to say that there aren't children in America living in true poverty or living on the streets or not getting enough food -- of course there are! But the problem is significantly overstated by those who have a vested interest in increased redistribution and in growing the roles of government dependency. BTW, the US federal minimum wage has been in existence sine 1938 and has been adjusted 28 times since then. Not counting the $22 trillion spent on the War Against Poverty through redistributive federal programs in the last 50 years, one would think three-quarters of a century of mandatory wage requirements would have solved the problem by now, if it were able to do so. Almost makes one wonder whether the stated objective is as it appears...

This monkey example is cool. These kinds of moments sustains our modified functioning and brings this primal which is given, seems we dont learn it, were equiped in some pure knowledge needed to sustain our living. Usually strong emotional things like that can also trigger awakening or partial awakening of some regions . And about your dream it seems happening this way. I dont know this terminology, but seems that the first shot of awakening happends this way, you kind of cross the critical mass and kind of "see" behind the patterns and then, since there is this recognition of your self - of what is true all what isnt the true self has to be purified but it goes on its own from now on, taking of the fixations on different chakras , for some it lasts long, for others quicker. With time you just experience these ego patterns less and less, and conflicted inner dialogues are gone too. It is preceived like dissolving of these pieces of personality and it can be called transcending too, than the energy is no longer involved into inner conflict and you also preceive this as a quality change in your being.

This is a really interesting breakdown of 'minds', thanks Kubba. Interesting information on the fast and slow minds. This made me think of a time when I was out on a bush track with my two children who were very young at the time, the oldest would have been about two, and he had walked off the track a couple of steps right into the path of a venomous tiger snake which had reared up, flared out its neck and was facing him. I was a few steps away from him holding the baby, and all I could do was make a primal sound which reminded me at the time of what I imagined a howler monkey would sound like, a 'hoo hoo hoo' noise, it was decidedly pre verbal and dealing directly with the danger at hand, surely an occasion when I used what you describe as 'lower' mind. Amazingly my two year old looked at me and started walking towards me, exactly the response I would have wanted if I had been thinking or talking, and the snake quietly slithered away. I understand ego as being fixated on 'unconscious' mind (lower manas) that is driven by persona, and lower manas simultaneously as being fixated on ego. Ego ingratiatingly agrees with everything lower manas thinks regardless of reality. Information I received in a dream showed me that lower manas needs to raise itself through awareness of its contrived persona to upper manas, where it is no longer driven by unconscious persona and can open to the higher senses, and in this way upper manas can see through ego's 'madness', ignore her 'ego stroking' words, and bring her to ajna to be 'healed'. Perhaps this answers an earlier question I had, and suggests that ego needs to be transcended and transformed, but not killed.

Heaven and Hell Concepts of heaven and hell are but fantasies that arise from a foolish mind. If you open the Eye and realize true wisdom, such fantasies disappear by themselves. You will see that everything is Buddha and everything is tranquil, and that even the concepts of "heaven" and "hell" disappear completely. But if you don't wake up from a sleep, you continue to dream. Thus, if you don't open the Eye, then, unfortunately, you continue on the endless cycles as sentient beings. And since this world of sentient beings is boundless, Buddhas continue traversing the realms until all sentient beings are liberated from suffering. ~ Zen master Tong Songchol (1912~1993)

Aahhh yes, the kindness of free market capitalism. It must be the dream of millions to be cared for by the tender mercies of companies like Monsanto, Shell Oil, McDonald's, Kraft Foods, etc., etc. I take it your statement about a system like this providing for the needs of others, was so thickly coated with irony that the only truth in it was the full stop at the end ?

I thought I should comment here since I literally received my transmission in my dreams....hehehehehe.... There are there levels of dream meditations you must overcome or at least to proceed in stages...dreams of samsara, dreams of clarity, and clear light dreams. Don't expect to have clear light dreams if your mind is plagued by your own daily karma. Worst, plagued by your past life karma. First, resolve your daily karma and issues you have so that you could no longer have bad dreams. You know those repeated nightmares about your past and childhood? Yeah, those dreams.... This would require more conscious efforts to deal with your daily suffering and struggles. Once you have a handle of your own self generated karma, it would get carried over to your dreams. Here, you will begin to experience lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is not the dreams of clarity. Is just lucid dreaming. In the dreams of clarity, you will receive information and teaching from higher beings. The clear light dreams won't appear until you have advanced enough in your meditation and cultivation level. I think I have experienced ONCE a clear light dream and the duration of being in a clear light is only less than 10s. I am talking about 15 years after my dream transmission to experience the MCO. Is basically a state of deep samadhi but experienced in a dream state. I only woke up from it because I worry about my parents. Dream yoga is suited for people who aren't involved with the Buddhist community but somewhat caught up with the daily karma. Only in dreams can the conscious mind be calm enough to meditate in sleep.

Continuing, Chuang Tzu said: The Useless Tree A certain carpenter and his apprentice were traveling to another state. On reaching a place called Shady Circle, they saw a sacred tree in the temple of the Spirit of Earth. It was so large that its shade could cover a herd of several hundred cattle. It was a hundred spans in girth, towering up eighty feet over the hilltop before it branched out. A dozen boats could be cut out of it. Crowds stood gazing at it, but the carpenter took no notice, and went on his way without even casting a look behind. His apprentice, however, took a good look at it, and when he caught up with his master, said, “Ever since I have handled an adze in your service, I have never seen such a splendid piece of timber. How was it that you, Master, did not care to stop and look at it?” “Forget about it. It’s not worth talking about.” replied his master. “It’s good for nothing. Made into a boat, it would sink; into a coffin, it would rot; into furniture, it would break easily; into a door, it would sweat; into a pillar, it would be worm-eaten. It is wood of no quality, and of no use. That is why it has attained its present age and size.” When the carpenter reached home and went to sleep he dreamt that the spirit of the tree appeared to him and spoke to him as follows: “What is it you intend to compare me with? Is it with fine-grained wood? Look at the cherry-apple, the pear, the orange, the pumelo, and other fruitbearers. As soon as their fruit ripens they are stripped and treated with indignity. The great boughs are snapped off, the small ones scattered abroad. Thus do these trees by their own value injure their own lives. They cannot fulfill their allotted span of years, but perish prematurely because they destroy themselves for the admiration of the world. Thus it is with all things. Moreover, I tried for a long period to be useless. Many times I was in danger of being cut down, but at length I have succeeded, and so have become exceedingly useful to myself. Had I indeed been of use to others, I should not have been able to grow to this height. Moreover, you and I are both created things. Have done then with this criticism of each other. Is a good-for-nothing fellow in imminent danger of death a fit person to talk of a good-for-nothing tree?” When the carpenter awaked and told his dream, his apprentice said, “If the tree aimed at uselessness, how was it that it became a sacred tree?” “Hush!” replied his master. “Keep quiet. It merely took refuge in the temple to escape from the abuse of those who do not appreciate it. Had it not become sacred, how many would have wanted to cut it down? Moreover, the means it adopts for safety is different from that of others, and to criticize it by ordinary standards would be far wide of the mark.”

Find the one to whom 'me' occurs. You are creating an imaginary entity with which to do battle. That which you create can be uncreated, there is no 'removal' because there is nothing existent. See, there are not two minds. There is not one mind called 'ego' and another which is 'non ego'. It's just lumpy mind stew. If you create a dream wall, then you will have to create a dream hammer to break it down, but see, you remain just the same. Nothing changes. Will you create and endless supply of walls and hammers like the reflection between two mirrors ? You are as you are, accept that you are, do not seek to find what was never lost, or try break the thing that remains unbuilt.