Should we be trying to have extrasensory experiences?.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
“Do you think it is important to try and develop abilities such as astral projection?
Or seeing auras, spirit guides, etc.?
I feel that I’ve gotten great benefits from my meditation practice and I enjoy teaching meditation to others, but I don’t have visions and I don’t feel drawn to learn to do healing like in Reiki, etc.
But sometimes I wonder if I’d be a better meditation teacher if I was more aware of those subtle experiences.
Actually, to be honest, when people tell me of those kinds of experiences I sometimes think it’s more their imagination than anything else.
It’s not that I don’t believe in those things.
It’s just that my experience isn’t normally like that.
I have had what I’d call extraordinary experiences that have impacted me significantly, but I don’t go looking for them.
My question really is – do you think I should be looking?
I have a friend who talks to Krishna and Jesus and all sorts of spirit guides.
The way she describes it, she actually sees them.
And a lot of people see auras or experiment with astral projection.
And some people say your meditation practice is going really well if you have certain experiences.
And even at SOS, some people spend time doing the flying sutra, which frankly to me is kind of hokey.
I mean I believe some people can actually levitate, but jumping around like that you can do even if you don’t meditate.
Now if I actually started to levitate – that would be something!
But if I can’t do it all the way, it seems silly.
And even if I could levitate there would be no benefit to it except a temporary thrill unless it transformed me and thus my life and people around me in some significant way.
Do you understand what I am saying?
If it’s important I want to pay attention and learn to develop those things.
I want to fully realize who I am and yet I want to be grounded in my everyday life too.”
Response:
No, I don’t think it is important to try to have visions or special experiences or to look for them.
Those types of experiences do not necessarily make one a better teacher either.
It’s important to let one’s spiritual development unfold naturally and innocently without expectations.
Otherwise, your experiences are likely to be reflections of your hopes instead of the organic process itself.
If these celestial experiences come unbidden, then fine, that is part of your journey.
But in my experience, the significant growth that occurs with most serious spiritual seekers is not associated with flashy experiences.
The flying sutra may seem like a practice geared toward an exceptional experience, but that’s not entirely true.
It is a powerful tool to awaken the powerful mind-body connection that characterizes what should be normal full human potential.
The great Vedic seer Patanjali associated it with flying because when that particular channel of mind-body connection is mastered, it opens the possibility of the physical body having a different experience with the element of space.
This sutra allows the holistic natural development of human potential.
It is not hokey at all.
And just because you can’t do it perfectly is not a reason to feel silly.
If everyone who felt they couldn’t write music as well as Mozart thought then they shouldn’t bother at all, then the world wouldn’t have developed all the other wonderful music that it has.
Love,
Deepak
