New to meditation/Astral Projection

Hi, I am new to astral projection / Meditation. I was so happy to have found this forum and I hope that I could have some of my questions.

When I was younger, 5yrs - 10yrs I would have sleep paralysis, I am almost sure that I would AP then, but I cant be certain. I remember being terrified because I couldn't move when sleep paralyzed. I'm in my 20's now and can't remember clearly what happened back then. Since that time I've had random experiences that I didn't understand that induced great fear, I'm not sure If it was AP or something else.

I grew up in the Caribbean, surrounded by religion. I never liked church and many of the religious people I interacted with weren't very nice and I developed a negative perspective on religion. Additionally, I am very Scientifically oriented so It shouldn't be a surprise for me to say that I became more or less Atheist.

During this time, with no belief system to keep me in check, I developed many bad habits that I have found difficult to shake. As I get older and more experienced I realize the religion and spirituality plays a significant role in everyone lives and is deeply integrated into the world and the experience of life. I always asked myself, "if there are so many religions and they have so many different beliefs how can any be right" Its still a question that baffles me.

Now that I am more open minded to spirituality, I feel like I don't know where to start, or what to believe. How do I achieve piece of mind so that I can begin to break bad habits and begin to enjoy my life. I know what I need is inside me, but I have difficulty discovering where to look. I don't have an established belief system, I've looked around the forums and saw posts including "spirit guide", "your divine masters" Things I don't quite understand.

I began meditating a few weeks ago, and I'm starting to get into it, even though I don't fully understand it, and there's still a part of me that cant fully grasp the concept. But Now that I am beginning to understand it and memories from the past of when I think I AP'd a cloud of fear surrounds me. I know when attempting AP, this is not the frame of mind I should be in. It still does intrigue me.

How can I overcome this? Where do I start?

"I always asked myself, "if there are so many religions and they have so many different beliefs how can any be right"

The purpose of this is to keep us all divided.

Is it AP in general that scares you or is is something more specific?

[Xan]

I always asked myself, "if there are so many religions and they have so many different beliefs how can any be right?"


No beliefs are right, Runsko, because they are just ideas we think are true.

If you want to know what is truly true you can discover this experientially in the open silent space of your being, beyond the mind and all ideas.

The way is through true meditation, which is not an astral projection practice but keeping those at separate times.


Xan

Thanks for all the responses,
I've been feeling a lot better and have been working on straightening out my life. I'm still far from being where I want to be but being able to talk about this is extremely helpful.

On an exciting note, I tried AP last night and was unsuccessful, I fell asleep. However, this morning I woke up at around 5:30 and i tried again and i was able to fall into a conscious dream. It was unbelievable. I immediately told mysef to project and i began separating from my body. I became nervous and within about 5 seconds I called to go back to my body. It was such a shock that I may have panicked a little. I was pretty excited when i woke up.

Now that i know I'm capable, and i really hope i can achieve this state again and that this wasn't a fluke, is there any advice? What to expect, where to go?.

Additionally, I'm surprised I could experience this, but still have yet to adjust the meditative state. I would think it to be easier than AP.

What's the difference?

Originally Posted by Xan

I always asked myself, "if there are so many religions and they have so many different beliefs how can any be right?"


No beliefs are right, Runsko, because they are just ideas we think are true.

If you want to know what is truly true you can discover this experientially in the open silent space of your being, beyond the mind and all ideas.

The way is through true meditation, which is not an astral projection practice but keeping those at separate times.


Xan

A lot of problems come from interpretation. With Christianity, there are many ways one can interpret the texts of the Bible. If you look at the morals and values of all religions, you'll see that they can be nearly identical in most aspects.
There have been way more Christians involved in wars than Tibetan Buddhists...yet they both teach love and compassion.

It's a mess.

[Astral Explorer]

Originally Posted by Runsko

Hi, I am new to astral projection / Meditation. I was so happy to have found this forum and I hope that I could have some of my questions.

When I was younger, 5yrs - 10yrs I would have sleep paralysis, I am almost sure that I would AP then, but I cant be certain. I remember being terrified because I couldn't move when sleep paralyzed. I'm in my 20's now and can't remember clearly what happened back then. Since that time I've had random experiences that I didn't understand that induced great fear, I'm not sure If it was AP or something else.

I grew up in the Caribbean, surrounded by religion. I never liked church and many of the religious people I interacted with weren't very nice and I developed a negative perspective on religion. Additionally, I am very Scientifically oriented so It shouldn't be a surprise for me to say that I became more or less Atheist.

During this time, with no belief system to keep me in check, I developed many bad habits that I have found difficult to shake. As I get older and more experienced I realize the religion and spirituality plays a significant role in everyone lives and is deeply integrated into the world and the experience of life. I always asked myself, "if there are so many religions and they have so many different beliefs how can any be right" Its still a question that baffles me.

Now that I am more open minded to spirituality, I feel like I don't know where to start, or what to believe. How do I achieve piece of mind so that I can begin to break bad habits and begin to enjoy my life. I know what I need is inside me, but I have difficulty discovering where to look. I don't have an established belief system, I've looked around the forums and saw posts including "spirit guide", "your divine masters" Things I don't quite understand.

I began meditating a few weeks ago, and I'm starting to get into it, even though I don't fully understand it, and there's still a part of me that cant fully grasp the concept. But Now that I am beginning to understand it and memories from the past of when I think I AP'd a cloud of fear surrounds me. I know when attempting AP, this is not the frame of mind I should be in. It still does intrigue me.

How can I overcome this? Where do I start?

Sleep Paralysis CAN be a side-effect of Astral Projection but never always is. Nor is Astral Projection always a symptom of Sleep Paralysis. You can experience Sleep Paralysis and never Astral Project. Astral Projection is when you leave your physical body and enter the astral planes, just leaving your body and remaining in the RTZ (Real Time Zone) would be an OOBE. This is what most NDE's (Near Death Experiences) are. They leave their body and see their physical body because they are in the RTZ and not in the astral planes. Most likely most NDE's are inside of their etheric body because you can only go a couple feet away from your physical body while in your etheric, your astral body can go much further.

So basically just because you were paralyzed does not mean you astral projected or even had an OOBE, unless you were outside of your body. Now from my own experiences of Sleep Paralysis I can say this. Almost 99% of the time I experienced Sleep Paralysis my physical body was not the one that was paralyzed, it was one of my subtle bodies. Meaning either my etheric or astral body was paralyzed for one reason or another and my consciousness was inside of that body making it seem like my physical body was paralyzed since I held no knowledge or belief of subtle bodies at the time. Now that I have educated myself I know my physical body was rarely if not never actually paralyzed, it was a subtle body.

Subtle bodies are the vehicles for Astral Projection/OOBE but just because one's consciousness is inside of them does not necessarily mean you are astral projecting or having an OOBE, to do so one must leave their physical body. Hopefully that has helped explain how all of this works to you a little better and you can have a clearer understanding on the subtle bodies, astral projection, and OOBE's.

Now with that out of the way I would like to ask you a personal question related to your post. When you say you developed some bad habits, by any chance were those habits addiction? The way that you worded it that is what I believe you meant. Perhaps addictions to drugs or alcohol? And if that is the case are those addictions active? If they are you do not want to delve into any spiritual matters until you have those long in check. Otherwise you will be opening doors you do not wish to.

[astralsuzy]

I used to look forward to sleep paralysis as I knew I could ap. If I did my technique successfully I would ap. I ap a lot that way. I do not get sp anymore.