Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Interesting. If OOBE can be triggered, they can be studied. I wonder what kind of work has been done on this?
For research, see the Monroe Institute in Virginia for more on that. They have admittedly made a business out of it over the years, but the techniques they teach are valid and produce results, much as with many other personal growth paths.
These states take different forms...
1. regular dreaming (no self-awareness as distinct from the dream content -- we do not know that we are dreaming)
2. lucid dreaming (knowing that one is dreaming, while in the dream)
3. OOBE (knowing that one is conscious and "outside" of one's body. This is very distinct from a lucid dream, more vivid)
The esoteric explanation for how the OOBE "works" goes something like this...(can be found in esoteric teachings from Hinduism, Gnosticism, Kabbalah, Hermeticism, Christian mystics, etc., though these teachings are rarely talked about openly in mainstream religion).
We have more than just a physical body. We also have subtle energy bodies that coincide with our physical forms. These "energy bodies" -- given various names in esoteric teachings such as "astral body", "etheric body", "dream body", "kesjan body", "resurrection body" and so forth -- are thought to vibrate at a much faster rate than physical matter, and hence to be very difficult to detect via normal sensory means. Some argument for the existence of such "matter" can be made via modern astrophysics, which postulates the existence of "dark matter" (for example) in the universe, enormous quantities of matter that
must be there according to their calculations but which elude detection. This is not to suggest that human subtle bodies are comprised of "dark matter", but it does suggest the possibility that there are levels of energy not yet detected by our sciences. This is in fact a certainty.
When the human body sleeps at night, the subtle bodies (astral, etc) are thought to exteriorize and move off into other dimensions, on occasion. When the physical body eventually dies, the subtle bodies continue on into these other dimensions, their link to the physical body being severed at that point. Our consciousness, being associated with these subtle bodies, moves on with them, vacating the physical body. This idea is sometimes suggested as the most likely explanation for the distinct, curious feeling many people report around corpses, being the sense that the body is literally "empty", that something has clearly departed it, much more than just a biological light switch being turned off.
When the subtle body and the consciousness associated with it experiences confusion after death, or inability to relinquish attachment to the physical world, it literally "hangs about", sometimes for a long time. This is supposedly the explanation behind the phenomenon known to most cultures as the "ghost". Hindu teachings in particular explain this as being the result of "samskaras", personality impurities that were never "ironed out" during one's life.
A way to ensure safe, comfortable passage to the higher dimensions after death is to be linked with a higher dimensional "beacon". This "beacon", functioning like a homing signal, may take the form of a spiritual master like Christ, Buddha, Krishna, or some internalized symbol of the divine. According to esoteric teachings, however, this "homing device" will not work if one's allegiance to it has been merely lip-service. It needs to be embodied in one's heart, in one's spiritual make up, in such a fashion that it actually effected the quality of one's person during one's life, thus effected one's overall energy-field. Otherwise, confusion after death reigns. This is a possible esoteric meaning behind Christ's famous words about those who preached in his name but did not follow his example in their life, "I never knew them".
In Tibetan Buddhism, they made a prolonged study of the subtle bodies and the ability to consciously induce exteriorization from the physical form prior to the death of the physical body. Part of the idea there is that facility learned with this prior to death makes the transition after death much easier, and in general reduces fear in one's life an in one's overall disposition and how this affects one's character in life (an idea there being that the fear of death lies behind many psychological issues, the root of which is the fear of the "unknown" and everything that that entails).
There is a strange scene in the Bible where Christ "transfigures" his body and appears to three of the disciples on a mountain in a form that is difficult for them to comprehend. The esoteric view there is that he has appeared in his subtle body, or his "body of light" as it's sometimes referred to in other teachings. Ditto with the "resurrection" scenes.
In terms of OOBEs, the idea is that by applying the methods for inducing an OOBE one can have a direct experience of oneself as an energy body that is not physical matter as we typically know it to be. This need not be a religious experience, though it is likely to be experienced as profoundly spiritual.
Of course, there is the argument that all this is merely a result of the brain's capacity to produce altered states of consciousness, and is nothing more than that.
Personally, I think both are true. I think there is an enormous amount of psychic distortion, religious hallucinating, and projected wish-fulfillment going on during such experiences, and I also think that there is a "background" reality behind all the mental noise in which there does indeed exist a higher order of things. I also believe that our consciousness is indeed continuous after the death of the physical body, and that it does indeed enter a higher dimension currently beyond our means of detecting.
Life after death
21 Aug '05 05:48
Back to Top