Question:What is the difference between astral travel and out of body experience (OOBE)?

Answer: During an out-of-body experience the mind is alert.  During astral travel, the mind is subject to the soul. In traveling, the soul leaves the body.  In expansion or what is called OOBE, the mind actually expands inward into itself, so an expansion or OOBE is used to examine your self or aspects of your mind, or thoughts, or feelings.  So as you focus the bounds or limits, you focus them on an aspect you wish to examine.

Question:         What do you do once you obtain an expansion?
Answer:            You enjoy it an experience the feelings.

Question:         Is there anything past the expansion?
Answer:            No.  Recall that an expansion is an expansion of the mind.  It is not travel, therefore, an expansion is limited only to the minds ability to generate thoughts, ideas, and feelings, but the conscious mind can not escape or go past itself.   Therefore, you experience only what the mind can imaging.  This is why travel is needed to gain further insight.

Question:         Then what good is an expansion?
Answer:            The mind needs to practice for travel and it is a pleasant, although unusual experience.

Question:         Do all people experience expansion in meditation?
Answer:            No.  Many try to obtain this experience and fail.  For some this is the highlight and culmination of their lives.  Many books have been written on the experience and many books are in error on the experience, for they are written without understanding.

The ability to expand is a gift.

Question         During an expansion I had a very confining, heavy feeling.  What was that?  Why did I feel that way?
Answer:          The answer is that you expanded beyond your comfort limits and your mind lost control of the meditation.  This caused the heavy feeling or the lack of bodily control.  Because you passed beyond your minds accepted limits, the mind says this is too far.

Question:       Is this dangerous?
Answer:          No.  It will not cause you physical or mental harm.

Question:       Why and how does this happen?
Answer:          Energies were high an allowed you to expand beyond the minds comfort limits allowing the mind to become out-of-control of the meditation.

Question:         How do you then control an expansion?
Answer:           The conscious mind needs to realize the limits that the expansion is at.  Once its comfort limits are reached, then allow no further expansion.  At first, this may be done by withdrawing from the meditation, but with experience, you may learn to control the area or mass of expansion or the space enclosed by the expansion.  One technique to do this is by visualizing a path or road or perhaps a string, or a line, or something that connects with the beginning of the meditation.  Therefore, realizing that you may follow this back to the beginning, and therefore not become lost.  Or expand beyond a set limit.  If a line or string or ribbon is used, a predetermined amount can be chosen and that will stop the expansion once the end is reached.  Or if a path or road or a visible object that you follow is used, then a landmark may be selected at which point you will return or not past beyond.  After each successive meditation, the length of line or landmark may be comfortably extended.  The basic concept is that your mind should control the situation.

If you expand beyond the mind, then it may become possible after many trials, to then examine the mind from beyond the mind.  The benefit of this type of meditation is that you obtain a true picture of yourself.  There are aspects of ourselves that we hide from ourselves, both good and bad.  The problem with this type of exercise is that the negative aspects of our personality generally have greater emphasis or focus that the positive and this may cause one to become discouraged.  But if you realize that negative thoughts are generally stronger than the positive, and balance the information received accordingly, there can be some benefit.

You obtain the outside view of yourself through trial and error.  Because you are beyond your conscious mind, you have no control and therefore may seem to wander, by eventually you will stumble upon your conscious mind and examine it.  The way you extract yourself from this type of mediation is to have a partner who is watching you and able to awake you, or by consciously willing yourself to end the meditation.  The first two are somewhat easier, although more jolting.  The later is of course a fail safe method to return, but requires tremendous concentration and energy expenditure.  So it is generally good practice that if you desire such a meditation to have sufficient spiritual reserves to accomplish your pursuit. 

The same situation can occur with travel, that is you extend beyond the bounds that your soul feels comfortable with.  As you may recall, there are three aspects or steps of travel that we have discussed before. 

1. is the desire to have the soul leave the body,

2. is to recall the experience, and

3. is to have a destination.

By visiting the higher self, the soul feels comfortable.  It is in familiar surrounding, and therefore memory is maximized.  Limit the desires for travel, but emphasize meeting your higher self.  This will do two things; first, it gives clear destination, but secondly and perhaps more subtly, you can not meet your higher self without traveling, therefore, by concentrating on meeting your higher self, you are actually reinforcing the concept of travel.  If you also concentrate on travel, in addition to this, you may find yourself traveling beyond your higher self. 

Question:         What is beyond the higher self?
Answer:            The unknown.  Actually, it is known, but not by your soul.  And therefore it does not understand it.  Once the experience is recalled to memory and the mind and soul analyze the travel to the higher self, the unknown becomes less frightening or perhaps abrasive or perhaps unacceptable to the soul, and exploration is then possible. But as you travel, it is generally good practice to first seek the higher self and then allow your higher self to lead you to other points of the astral plane.  This gives you a guide.  Also, you may access your other guides and do the same later.  But first, the higher self is perhaps the best.

Question:         Can one become lost in the astral and not able to return?
Answer:            No, you may always return.  Through the exercise of your minds control, the mind is refreshed through sleep, it wakes and astral travel will cease.

Question:         But during this time of sleep, which may be as long as 8 hours, could not the soul be off in many terrifying experiences, or at least unknown experiences?
Answer:            Yes, this is why it is important to access the proper guides.

Question:         If one misses the connection with a guide, does that cause harm?
Answer:            No, what will happen will that the mind will not comprehend the experience that the soul has and will simply not be remembered.

You may have had a grand time and learned extensively and discovered much, but the effort would have been misused because of the lack of recall.  Later, as you gain experience, perhaps the recall could be improved, but at the beginning stages, it is best to seek the guides.