Physical Body Mimics Distant Astral Form

Meditationtime Forum Post

Date:  Posted 5 years before Jan 03, 2019

MiBeloved 5 years ago

Last night I had an experience which sheds some light on the heaviness of the physical body in reference to the astral form. The fused experience of the astral and physical is the given experience at birth, where one feels as if one is the physical body. Society in turn tags one as the physical body and holds it responsible for its activities.

Here is the experience:

I was at someone’s house on the astral side in Trinidad. Somehow by virtue of having a relationship with this person around 1967, this person was able to attract my subtle body to the location. This person is deceased but lives on the astral side at the same residence as before. On the physical side, this person is dead and no longer lives at that address but on the astral side this person is the resident of that house at the address.

When I realized myself there as the astral body, this person called me. However my astral body was at the top of the stair which led to the house entrance. The house was on a lower hill side and the road was higher than the entrance, which meant that one had to go down about 12 steps to get to the entrance. The astral body functioned as a physical form which would have to walk down step by step. This is because this astral dimension is adjacent to the physical earth dimension. In that case what happens is that everything astral usually functions as if it is physical even though it is not.

Deceased people usually construct residences which are similar to the place where they resided before leaving the physical body. They stay in an adjacent astral place which is very similar to the earth level until they procure new parents. Usually however these astral places lack electricity and technology. For instance if there is a car there, it will operate without an engine sound as it travels down a road. There will be no steering and the driver’s willpower cause the car to operate.

When I reached the third step, suddenly my astral body became very heavy and I could only step down to the fourth step with great effort feeling a slight pain in all parts of the body. I strained to make that fourth step. It was so difficult to act that I crouched down to do it, almost sitting on the third step.

After this I took two more steps but I found that I had to breathe with a strong pull making a noise as I deliberately inhaled. Each step I took, involved exerting tremendous energy as the astral body felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds.

I could hear my deliberate breathing as I inhaled and exhaled with tremendous effort, and just then I heard someone from somewhere else calling my name. Then I woke up on the physical side. There, my physical body was in the same crouched pose of the astral body with both feet forward with one foot ahead of the other.

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This is an example of the physical body picking up the action of the astral body when the astral body was thousands of miles away in another location and was performing a certain action which the physical one detected and mimicked.

Someone on the physical side, viewing the action of the sleeping physical body, sitting up and then moving in a crouched posture, would naturally assume that I was in an action dream or that I was in the process of sleep walking.

However in this case, I was not present with these mimicked actions of the physical body. These actions were being carried out by the kundalini life force alone without any part of the will power of the person. That will power was absent in the physical body and was present in the separated remote astral body.

Alfredo 5 years ago

Very interesting. You have described this astral plane several times, that I recall usually associated with Trinidad and/or Guyana. This astral realm so close to the physical was described exactly like you by Sri Aurobindo. He called it the "subtle physical". He also said that it was vaster and more colorful than the physical plane.

Here is a quote from Sri Aurobindo on it, from a letter to a disciple:

"...the subtle physical has a freedom, plasticity, intensity, power, colour, wide and manifold play (there are thousands of things there that are not here) of which, as yet, we have no possibility on earth."

MiBeloved 5 years ago

I concur that his description tallies with my observations of the place.

What is subtle physical in his vocabulary is adjacent astral in mine.

unlimitedsun 5 years ago

MiBeloved wrote:

However in this case, I was not present with these mimicked actions of the physical body. These actions were being carried out by the kundalini life force alone without any part of the will power of the person. That will power was absent in the physical body and was present in the separated remote astral body.

unlimitedsun's query:

So they are two "doers" in the body-systems, the self and the kundalini?

MiBeloved 5 years ago

There are more than two doers because you also have the buddhi intellect orb, the sense of identity and the senses.

Itemized it looks like this:

Any of these may be the cause of an activity. Without the presence of the core-self, these cannot act but all the same without their presence the core-self cannot act either. So it is a tit for tat sort of thing. Even though the core-self is the hinge pin for the rest, still that self cannot do anything in the subtle or gross material world without some or all of these psychic accessories.

There is a popular saying that damn if you do and damn if you don’t. So if the core-self is not in touch with these adjuncts it cannot act in the subtle or gross material world, and if the core–self hooks up with these adjuncts it has to take the responsibility for the influence of these over it.

This is why the core-self has no choice but to bring these adjuncts to order in the core-self’s interest.

Patanjali has hinted that at first for liberation the core-self has to break away from, has to segregate itself from the adjuncts but people say that this causes problems for the core self because it causes a disturbing fission or dichotomy when the core-self really needs the security of unity. But it so happens that there is no other way to get these adjuncts under control, because Nature has awarded the core-self a unity under dominance, not a unity with absolute control over the adjuncts.

To change the equation or tip the balance in favor of the core-self, one has to first be alone without the adjuncts, and then when the adjuncts get the message, that they would be subordinate, one can then again become unified with them, since such unity seems to be a dire necessity for the self.

Read Patanjali carefully about these two terms:

Kevalam

Kaivalyam

unlimitedsun 5 years ago

Yes, thank you!

At times I wonder, when it is said to turn the core-self towards naad!

I ask myself; am I myself that core-self that I turn toward the naad?

And, since the core-self is not a sense organ how could it turn?

Also, I ask myself where does the volition come from?

What is willing me to act one way or the other?

These questions are more so rhetorical...

MiBeloved 5 years ago

unlimitedsun wrote:

At times I wonder, when it is said to turn the core-self towards naad!

I ask myself; am I myself that core-self that I turn toward the naad?

And, since the core-self is not a sense organ how could it turn?

MiBeloved's Response:

Core-self may not be a sense organ but it is a limited individual unit object. It is not a material object. It is not a subtle material object like a ray of light for instance, but it is still an object, a spiritual object and it is limited in terms of location and influence. Whatever is an object can be located and turned.

One other way of looking at this is that the core-self (atma) may be regarded as a sense of the supreme self (paramatma), just as a minister of a government functions as an agent of the President.

Initially the student cannot know what the core self is, otherwise Patanjali would have listed the segregation of the core-self from its adjuncts as the ultimate accomplishment in yoga practice, as kevalam and kaivalyam.

How to turn the core-self towards naad if the core-self is not a sense organ?

The answer to this is that you must first realize the core-self as you are which is a forward facing subject in the head of the subtle body. There is this forward facing subject which is there. That should attempt to turn about, so that it faces the back of the body. To master this you have to do the exercises which are given with many mind diagrams in the Meditation Pictorial book. Question is not if you read that book but rather if you ever spend the time doing the practices which are in that book particularly in Chapter one of that book.

At first one has to try to turn the subtle body’s head about so that while the physical head is facing a certain direction, the subtle body’s head faces the opposite direction.

By doing these practices you will eventually get some direct insight into the core-self.

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unlimitedsun wrote:

Also, I ask myself where does the volition come from?

What is willing me to act one way or the other?

MiBeloved's Response:

Volition (willpower) comes from the sense of identity which is an energy which surrounds the core-self spherically. All by itself this volition cannot do anything. It has to attach itself to the buddhi intellect orb and to the kundalini life force mechanism, and then it functions. However this attachment occurs with such rapid speed as to be instantaneous and so the core-self has some difficulty perceiving how this operates.

Willpower is not the material body, because we experience that in some cases when we wish to operate the body it does not respond to the will power. This happens in sleep paralysis experiences. During such experiences you can definitely know that your will power is inoperative as it is not synchronized into the nervous system of the physical body.

In meditation practice you can come to understand that the willpower cannot operate mentally even if it is not connected to the buddhi intellect orb. Willpower is a sensing apparatus of the sense of identity. As soon as the core-self makes any indication of interest in the subtle or gross material energy, willpower comes into being and operates to procure the interest.

You need to get it between your ears that you have to do much more meditation before you can really realize these realities. Questions are great as a way to stimulate your interest in this but for real insight you have to do much more meditation and be very meticulous in subtle observations. When your interest in these matters deepens and becomes your priority, then you will get the required insights.

This is all about doing meditation, rather than about thinking it all out. To do meditation you have to practice with a keen interest based on the fact that meditation has become your most dear activity. When meditation becomes the person you love, the person you are crazy about, the person you would do anything for, the person whom you think of day and night, then you will begin to get the required insights from it.

Jettins 5 years ago

Alfredo wrote:

This astral realm so close to the physical was described exactly like you by Sri Aurobindo. He called it the "subtle physical". He also said that it was vaster and more colorful than the physical plane.

Jettins' reply:

I like dimensions that have an intense color and brightness to them. It feels as if they are glowing and you’re part of it. Those are very nice. Is there anything special about these places other than looking pretty?

Alfredo 5 years ago

This "subtle physical" or "adjacent astral" as Michael calls it, is nothing else than the "astral realms", just part of it, but by virtue of being so close to the physical plane, it resembles it in many aspects. Again, as Sri Aurobindo defined it:

[...the subtle physical has a freedom, plasticity, intensity, power, colour, wide and manifold play (there are thousands of things there that are not here) of which, as yet, we have no possibility on earth.]

This quote is from "Letters on Yoga", Volume I, Section V "Planes and Parts of the Being". These were letters between him and close disciples spanning years, cataloged per topic. It is interesting that he wrote "of which, as yet, we have no possibility on earth". This is very telling, if one knows his philosophy and proposition as to the solution to the human conundrum.

For Sri Aurobindo, there are 3 occult sources of our actions; namely, the super-conscient, the subliminal, and the subconscient. Then, the whole "astral realms" for him = the subliminal.