2019 Journal Entries
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A troubled mind leads to trouble dreams.
​Until a strangely soft white light enters.

Reflection 19-01
Since a little before the beginning of 2019, I have been on a distracting detour. For about six months, I have wandered into the world of Astral Projection. This is not the first time. 
When I was about eleven or twelve years old I had dreams of falling through blackness. Never landed, crashed or “died”. I just kept falling until I woke up in a sweat. Yet intermixed with those were dreams of flying, soaring higher and zooming through the air. They lasted maybe a year and then ended. The dreams were vivid and profound since I remember them sixty plus years later. 
In my teens I remember reading a book for school entitled “The Man In The Iron Mask”. It contained all sorts of adventures that would appeal to a teenage boy. But what I remembered from the book, before seeing it as a movie much later in life, was an episode of the prisoner shackled in a dark dungeon. In total captivity and darkness the character had an out of body experience. 
In the 1980’s I renewed my interest in this out of body experience and read everything I could find on the subject, which wasn’t much. This was also about the time that I slowly started to remember all my dreams from the night upon wakening. If I sat in bed and reviewed my dreams before getting up, I could remember them for a while during the day.
This continued and I discovered that I could change scary dreams and dispense with frightening images more and more easily.  It seemed that I had some degree of control. Then after the year 2000 I starting having very lucid dreams on occasion. I mean real feeling dreams. This was amazing but I could not control it. 
As my dreams became clearer, I started to see patterns in them and I thought, oh well, just having the same dream over and over with slight variations. Yet as time went on I began to feel that it was a scenario to illustrate something to me and was presented repeated until “I got it!
So in my explorations in the last ten years and especially my training in Hypnotherapy I gradually started to circle around this Astral Projection stuff. I wondered if I was projecting during dream time. I imagined it might be happening during my deep self hypnosis sessions. I got hooked again on the subject. 
I started focusing on deeper meditation practices that would take me to a “body asleep, mind awake” level of consciousness. And then on to an “expanded consciousness” level or experience. It was all working well. But no out of body experience happened and yet I did become unaware of my body and drifted into realms or imaginings of my mind, essence, higher self. My concern was just what was I chasing and why. Intention is important. And I know full well from hypnosis and cognitive reality how easily we can fool ourselves or even lie to ourselves. 
I have most of my adult life followed a neo-hybrid of Buddha and Christ. Their basic teachings, before their followers took those over, of eliminating suffering and bringing love into the world have been the touchstone I always return to.
So my question to myself was what was I chasing with this Astral Projection. It came down to an exploration and entertainment just for me. A distraction from the teachings of Buddha and Christ. Instead of focusing on bringing a release from suffering and a blossoming of love for others, I was distracted by the coolness, excitement, adventure and spiritual confirmation that I thought I would get from Astral Projection. But, as the Buddha said, this is not the path but only a distraction and yet another illusion.
This conclusion came to me yesterday in a flash of realization. I should just let go of it. If projection happens, then no big deal, just get back to work on the path. It’s only an ice cream stand on the side of the path, a delay.
I must remember that Buddha’s realizations are sourced from thought and the empty mind and basically follow from the refined mind and essential logic. While Christ’s teaching came from the heart. Between the two you have teachings from the spiritual mind and the divine heart. Of the living triad of mind, heart, and body, what you have remaining is the body, the doing aspect. The doing aspect is the experience and expression of the head and heart. This is what we are here for, to provide, not teaching, but an example to others of what life can be and, only if they are interested, a pathway for them to achieve these ways of living.
So I have come full circle yet again. So many times I have wandered off course. Each, on reflection, has been a reaffirmation and a learning experience. On a higher level these zig zigs of the path have strengthened me and refocused me on what is important. 
Now, to get back to work!

Reflection 19-02
Awareness – The depth of this experience yields expanded presence, peace, and compassion. The depths of perception during your daily life varies constantly. With practice variance reduces. An amoeba perceives at a fundamental level, yet it does perceive. It senses its environment and responds within a limited set of choices. Rarely, I suppose, with creative new choices. It’s limited by its biology and level of consciousness. As biology and consciousness evolves the choices from these limited responses expands and creative conscious choices start appearing. It moves from being auto responses to being real choices at some level. Thus proceeds the evolution of primary consciousness.

Reflection 19-03
As we become more complex beings, perception begins to connect with memories, formulations of related memories, and newly learned responses that work. Awareness is a conscious noticing of perceptions, linked perceptions, and perceptions linked to memories. From sensing we move into active perception. We “sense” what is in our visual field fo view. Perception is the focus, the “singling out”, of one thing in your field of vision. Becoming aware of the “manifested” world. You notice something out of the world of manifested, which means you exclude, miss, or don’t notice all the other parts of the world.

Reflection 19-04
As we evolve and grow awareness we can start to absorb new dimensions. We become aware of the nuance of the external world, the subtlety. This awareness expands to a wider field of view as you are now using a wide angle lens to see the world, instead of a telephoto lens. Now you practice taking it all in at once, not trying to focus on any one object. Your eyes are so trained to focus constantly and jump from one object to the next.
Expanding your field of view is the first step. Now the fun part is that when in this expanded field of view we “notice” objects and manifestations that are non-central to your field of view. Push this noticing to the edges of your view. It’s important to not name the things you see and not try to separate out objects and foreground/background. Think of it as a visual two dimensional tapestry that is moving in some places and not in others. You begin to see what has always been there, but missed. You are being here, now in this moment.

Reflection 19-05
Previously, the attention has all been towards the external world. Hopefully it was with little internal interpretation, analysis, or memory associations. And even more hopefully, without “I”ness interjecting its fantasy. The “I” twists what it is aware of into its needs and formulated response to protect itself and love itself. We are seeking to have pure awareness without associations, analysis, fear or need. 
Mindfulness starts with being aware and then mindful of our internal world. It perhaps starts with mindfulness of our heart beating, our breathing, subtle moments and tensions in body and out. Next comes the important step of mindfulness of thinking, feelings, love, fear, memories being recalled and inner noises.
With inner mindfulness comes an exploration of a greater expansiveness than the external world. A more subtle world, a more influential world to your every day life. This is the un-manifested world entry point. To explore the inner mindfulness is to discover the doorway to the un-manifested. Through that door is more than imagined. The roots of mind, the core of feelings, the infinite and enduring presence. We spent a life time adjusting and discovering the external, manifested world. To discover and explore the inner un-manifested is as though we are reborn as a child and need to learn everything all over again.