To Induce Spiritual Travel
The methods of leaving the physical body are varied, and different methods work for different individuals based on the person's temperament. The ones below have worked for myself to different degrees. However, it is important to be creative and feel comfortable with the method used. The most important thing is to get interested in the technique and play with it. Play is characterized by relaxed concentration. Generally, the thing to avoid is tension and struggle since this usually rivets the soul to the body.
Maintaining a strong sense of expectation during the day that one is capable of leaving the body or waking up in a dream is helpful. It also helps to get extra sleep since it seems that most individuals require a certain amount of time to dream in a normal or semi-conscious fashion in order to purify the unconscious and process the day's events. Getting additional sleep beyond the minimum required makes additional time for more conscious or lucid dreaming to occur.
It is also important to remember that seeking out-of-body experience is part of a spiritual search and a stepping stone to spiritual awareness. Therefore any religious activity or practice which sharpens awareness and draws the attention away from material goals or objects such as meditation, prayer, devotion, service to others, going to church, mosque, or temple, reading spiritual books, or doing yoga will improve the probability of having a spiritual travel experience.
Doing practices that are intended to induce out-of-body experience are meant to supplement other more conventional spiritual practices. The time and effort spent doing such practices can be very worthwhile because having out-of-body experiences can provide vivid evidence of a spiritual or supernatural world that is distinct from the physical world. Personal experience is many times more convincing than relying on the experiences of others. Such experience can therefore serve as a counterweight to the overwhelming materialism of the present age.
An interest in spiritual travel experience need not be the primary focus of one's spiritual path. As mentioned in the introduction, spiritual travel is a tool for the spiritual seeker. Efforts to induce spiritual travel experience can be an important component of a larger set of spiritual practices because having just a few spiritual travel experiences can provide a powerful justification for living a spiritual life and added motivation for adopting a regular spiritual practice. There can be a "link" synergy between spiritual travel practices and more traditional religious activities
where each supports and reinforces the other.
Spiritual travel also makes the spiritual quest into a dynamic, interesting, and adventuresome process that helps overcome the dullness and repetition that can be associated with both traditional religious ritual and many secular activities.
The following practices are generic in the sense that they belong to no one religious tradition.
Methods
Visualization of Environments on the Way into Sleep
Taking Advantage of the Space between Waking and Sleeping
The experience below resulted from attempting to stay conscious on the way into sleep. If the practitioner is able to stay conscious and become aware during this transition, the kind of dynamic visualization used below can be a means of leaving the body from this intermediate state. Note that running was the method used but any activity that the practitioner is familiar with and finds easy to visualize would be appropriate.
I had been thinking about spiritual travel and reinforcing the expectation that it would happen. I was in the early stages of sleep somewhere between waking and sleeping. I became conscious that I was lying on my back but feeling very little sensory input from my body. I became aware that I might be able to leave the body from this state.
I then imagined myself running and immediately found myself outside the body running towards a bright white marble wall made of large tile-like square sections with a black sky in the background. After a few moments of running, another transition occurred. I found myself soaring high in the air towards a beautiful large city on the banks of a dark lake. The city was constructed of this same white marble in square sections. The place was built up with larger rectangular buildings towards the centre and smaller ones along the edges. It had an ethereal quality due to the lighting which appeared to come from the buildings themselves or from some invisible light source. The background was was very dark as was the lake before it. The feeling of flying was exhilarating and the city was majestic.
The decisions to try running was a method of doing a "dynamic" visualization involving movement which had the desired effect of blotting out other physical sensations and precipitating spiritual travel.
Awareness of the Inner Blue Light can be an Invitation to do Spiritual Travel.
Contemplating inner lights can be a method of leaving the body.
Those who are familiar with meditation on the energy centre usually known as the spiritual eye located between the eyebrows may be familiar with the cobalt blue light that sometimes appears in the inner field of vision. It usually appears as a amorphous blob of light slowly changing shape with blue concentric circles emanating from it slowly. The circles expand hypnotically resembling something akin to broad smoke rings expanding from a central source.
This kind of light (whether blue or another colour) can serve as a focus of meditation either while sitting in disciplined meditation or while dosing off to sleep.
On occasion, the light can draw the traveller out of the body and he or she will be instantaneously flying at a fantastic rate of speed through a powerful force field following the light. It seems that the light recedes as the traveller moves towards it with its centre still radiating the rings. Such experience demands a tenacity to hold on to the centre of concentration since the powerful forces can be distracting. If the traveller is able to maintain concentration, the scene will tend to shift to a stable environment like a dream environment. However, unlike a dream, the traveller will be fully conscious and able to direct the experience from that point.
The point here is to illustrate the importance of meditation on these inner lights and to know that the appearance of imagery of this sort can be a form of "inner invitation" to do spiritual travel.
Meditation on the Blank Visual Field on the Way into Sleep
This author recommends persons doing this exercise wake themselves up by alarm clock or other means in the middle of the night or early in the morning. At this point, the person should splash some water on the face to bring some mental clarity. The following exercise can be practiced anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour while laying on one's back. The author had considerable success in leaving the body on the way into sleep when using this method. Note that the same exercise can be done at the beginning of a night's sleep but is more likely to result in just passing into sleep due to tiredness.
With eyes closed, take a couple of minutes to relax the whole body, then rotate the eyeballs upward, far enough to cause a slight strain on the muscles around the eyes. This points the inner vision towards the forehead; then focus it upon the black inner screen. Do not try to drift into sleep at this point, just try to keep the attention focused in this manner. Whenever the mind wanders, simply retrieve it and start over again. Listen to the faint high whistle in the top of the head, and place a secondary attention on listening to it.
Think of the high whistle as a sound current flowing upward through the physical body and out the top of the head at a certain spot about two inches just in back of the top centre. Let the sound lift the inner vision upward in a relatively natural way. Gently stop focusing on the inner vision on the blackness of the inner screen; doing this any longer can prevent sleep. Instead just keep a peripheral awareness at about the location of the spiritual eye in the inside of the forehead, in order to keep the black screen close to the inner point of vision. Eventually, you will slip unsuspectingly into sleep.
Visualizing a Work (or Play) Activity from Start to Finish
Visualization plays a large part in the variety of methods used to induce spiritual travel. Improving one's ability to visualize will tend to improve the likelihood of spiritual travel.
However it can be a difficult practice especially for westerners who are used to constant physical activity. Attempts to perform the inner practice of visualization are often interrupted by a variety of distractions.
The following practice can be effectively used to take advantage of the goal oriented nature of westerners. Those who are "task oriented" and are most able to concentrate when there is a specific job to perform.
This visualization involves choosing a job and visualizing all the subtasks required to complete it, one by one. It is best to choose some activity that one is familiar with which can be completed in a period of fifteen to thirty minutes. It should be a neutral or enjoyable job, easy to visualize, and have enough variation to stave off boredom.
One somewhat neutral example is painting the side of a house.
The worker first visualizes getting the paint, ladder, brushes, roller and drop-cloth from a tool shed. The drop-cloth and ladder are positioned. The paint is opened and placed in the rolling pan. The worker climbs the ladder and begins painting, moving the ladder, and repositioning it as necessary as the work progresses. The process continues until one side of the house is painted. Then the tools are cleaned and put away, and the visualization is complete.
Any activity is possible such as playing a song on an instrument, painting a picture, or mowing the lawn. Visualizing less goal oriented "play" activities is also possible such as skiing, or hitting a tennis ball against a wall but in these examples, the lack of a clear goal can sometimes lead to boredom and a loss of concentration.
The key here is to improve one's ability at visualization and do it in a relaxed and concentrated fashion. The act of visualizing a created world so clearly and completely that it replaces all other physical sensations is one method of inducing a spiritual travel experience.
A Method for Increasing Consciousness in Dreams
Many of the techniques mentioned at this site revolve around increased consciousness in dreams. A very effective way of breathing life into the dream world is adopting the discipline of writing down dreams.
Dreams are valuable because they permit the dreamer to examine the contents of his or her personal unconscious and interpret dream symbols to discover hidden conflicts that can then be exposed to the light of waking awareness. They reveal to us our personal weaknesses, our blind spots, and our unacknowledged pain from the past. Thus, dream analysis can be a form of spiritual purification.
However, apart from this psychological function, dreams also represent an entrance to the vast realms of the human unconscious that are accessible through spiritual travel. This consists of both the personal unconsciousness with its layers of conflict and unfulfilled need, as well as the deeper layers of the self which contain a broad variety of transpersonal psychic and spiritual states. To direct attention towards dreams is to focus the waking awareness on these areas and give them value and importance.
Writing down dreams informs the deeper self that the dreamer cares about the unconscious and the variety of states it contains. It enlivens the unconscious contents and increases awareness in dreams. Increased awareness in dreams can lead to lucid dreaming and spiritual travel.
Writing down dreams draws the dreamer's attention to the subtle elements in dream experience that permit the individual to recognize what his or her dreams are like. To become familiar with the contents of one's dreams also increases the probability that a dream will be recognized as such, and the dreamer will wake up.
There are many difficulties and challenges to be confronted when keeping a dream journal. A first step is choosing a place to sleep one or two nights a week where the dreamer can do writing upon awakening without disturbing anyone else.
The person keeping a dream journal should go to bed early with the journal at the bedside. The mental reminder that the dreamer will remember and write down the dreams upon awakening should be given before going to sleep. A small nightlight is helpful to see enough to write in the journal but not so powerful as to shock the journal writer into consciousness so he or she cannot go back to sleep after adding an entry to the journal.
Keeping a dream journal represents a quantitive shift of attention from the outer to the inner life. It can be a useful tool in improving the dreamers ability to do spiritual travel. As dreams become clearer, the person can extend the reminder to include the directive that the dreamer will awaken in the dream and do some activity that will lead to an altered state of consciousness (spiritual travel).
A Visualization for Gaining Guidance on the Spiritual Path
Visualize a dim room containing a large blue sapphire, its facets gleaming and shining cobalt blue light which bounces off the walls of the room. In your mind's eye, see yourself walking towards the sapphire and as you near it, you perceive it as a transparent three dimensional blue doorway. You walk through the doorway and within the facets you see a chrome ladder reflecting the blue colour around it.
You step up to the ladder, and begin climbing it rung by rung. As you near the top, you see that it opens into a snowy night time mountain scene. When your eye level reaches the top rung, you see a mountain landscape with a crisp but not cold breeze blowing through the pine trees. You continue to climb and step out into the snowy terrain gazing down the slope of the mountain. The whole environment is lit by a blue sun that sheds its light across the landscape giving it a grey-blue cast.
You walk up a small hill and notice a bench which looks down over a partially cleared snowy slope. You sit down gazing at the blue sun shining rays overhead against a blue-black sky causing shadows where the pines grow. You listen to the sound of the breeze amidst the pine needles and feel the freshness of the air.
Next you issue a invitation to your spiritual guide to join you. You may see, him or her, or perhaps just feel the guide sit down next to you on the bench. Strike up a conversation asking the guide for advice or assistance on the spiritual path. Ask for guidance and protection in dreams or talk about whatever concerns you spiritually. Ask for guidance in spiritual travel and write down any suggestion you receive. If the guide gives you a name or spiritual word (mantra), remember it and use it in future sessions to get in touch with him or her .
Setting Up the Expectation of a Spiritual Travel Experience
This exercise involves counting as one goes to sleep. The first step is to choose a number based on how sleepy you feel and decide that you will be asleep by the time you get to that number. If you are sleepy, choose the number twenty but if you feel more awake, you can choose a higher number like fifty.
The next step is to tell yourself that you will wake up as soon as you enter the sleep state as the number is reached. You can suggest an environment that you will wake in and visualize it , or simply choose to be standing in the room next to your bed out side of your body.
Then begin counting your way into sleep. Some may prefer to count backwards down to zero since it takes a bit more concentration whereas counting forward is automatic and does not require much attention. But counting in either direction will work.
Visualization of Fast Movements Involving Strong Gravitational Forces
Much of the problem with meditation based on Eastern techniques is that it does not appeal to Westerners who tend to have active minds. Methods which focus on, for instance, counting the breath tend to produce sleep and boredom in such people.
Visualizing movement is one active method of visualization which may help avoid the problem of boredom. Try the following method to improve visualization skills:
Visualize a bobsled like the ones in the Olympics at the gate at the top of a bobsled run. Note its colour, the steering wheel, and the view from the cockpit as you look down the steep slide of snow that leads down the mountain. Now feel yourself being pushed and the bobsled starts careening down the track. Feel the vibration as it picks up speed and steer into the turns as they present themselves. The feeling of gravity rivets you as the turns appear in front of you, and the sled alternately goes sideways on the left and right walls of the track. To vary the ride, you can see the track as a wormhole and ride the sled upside-down for a time and make 360 degree rotations on the track. Try doing this for ten or fifteen minutes feeling the power and dynamic movement of the sled as it barrels down the track to the bottom of the mountain.
As an alternative, you can also visualize a roller-coaster or a sliding board that goes for miles with twists, turns, loops, and dramatic rises and falls which you ride at great speed.
The goal is involve the mediator fully using the powerful sensations of movement and gravitational forces to avoid boredom and disinterest. As always with visualization exercises, the mediator wants to take himself out of the physical world and activate the inner senses in order to induce an experience of spiritual travel. Though such exercises may not produce an experience at the time, they also prepare the individual for controlling his or her movements should a spiritual travel experience occur at a future time.
More to follow.................
Click the banner to return to
page listings!
design from made by mel