by Michael Turner:
This state is what Kirpal refers to as being "above body consciousness." As we
unite ourselves with the Spiritual [Sound] Current, It gradually lifts our
inner awareness up - initially above our physical consciousness. People over
the last 30 years have become very familiar, overall, with terms like
"out-of-body experience," "near-death experience" or "astral projection." This
is one aspect of pure, above-body consciousness.
It's rather like the river lifting boats up off the banks as it rises. You
learn to be lifted up with this Wave of Spirit and, on a very tangible basis,
we discover that we are not our physical bodies.
This is the most dramatic experience that most people have on an initial level,
and the most valuable. Because, even though many or most of us on this planet
have some religious background - or even some metaphysical background - and say
"Oh well, I'm not my body. There's Heaven after I die. I will exist." - it's
hard to really believe this unless we can prove it to ourselves.
"Meditation makes it possible for the disciple to die while still living in the
material body, before the time comes for him to actually die. This is the
`dying daily' referred to by St. Paul; the ascending each day to the higher
spiritual worlds during the time of meditation. The soul rises to these worlds
while one is engaged in contemplation in the same way as it rises to them at
the time of death."
- Sawan Singh ("Discourses on Sant Mat," p. 266)
Until we can prove this to ourselves, that we exist beyond the body - until we
learn to die daily, to leave the physical body through the meditation -all talk
of the eternality of the self, and eternality of God, is just that - talk. It's
just a bunch of words, a bunch of books, a bunch of lectures. And it sounds
really good. But you need to prove it to yourself.
