The drive that keeps you going

[SiriusTraveler]

Just finished reading Robert Monroe's Ultimate Journey. What a book! I'd like to recommend it to everyone not having read it yet. For me it worked like a catalyst, it makes me want to Ap even more. It brings up alot of answers, but also alot of questions and it makes me tick.

Now.. I have this issue with beeing to content in the physicall. Its hard to explain but I often feel as if my motivation lacks, and I know this is keeping me from AP. My will to AP is there but my beeing content is hindering me so I try and get through this barrier by reading books, sinking into trance, willing myself to do affirmations, cinvicing myself that I want to AP and so on.
Am I fooling myself here? My question is, do I really want to AP? I know that the answer to this only I know for a fact but Im saying here that I really want to project.
But why the content feeling then? Am I to lazy to do all the training needed for AP? It feels as if I need constant motivation, constant effects brought about by alternate states of consciousness, constant feedback.. so that I get something in return fro my efforts. I think I want to much to fast and need to learn to be patient and wait for the ultimate gift. To be able to AP.

Any toughts about this? What was/is your drive in all of this?

[CFTraveler]

Well, I don't see why it's got to be 'one' way or the 'other'. In other words, if we're here to experience, we're here to experience all of it- inner as well as outer, but neither should take precedence over the other, unless there is a desire to focus on only one way of being, which is ok too.
If you're content then that's good, if you want to project you should practice it, but it's perfectly ok to be content in either form of existence- it's a personal thing.
BTW, I don't project due to a specific motivation- I have been projecting all my life, spontaneously as well as deliberately, and although I feel I've been 'pointed at' this way by Providence, I consider my path to be one of study, and that's why I like to read and learn about everything I can wrap my head around, including esoteric subjects.

[SoulSail]

Hey Sirius,

I understand your point here as it describes my overall pulse as well. AP has been a tough but rewarding road for me, at least on the surface. Yesterday was my first attempt to exit in months--I got vibrations (yay!) + a wicked backache from lying on the floor wrong. No exit, and one can only laugh. Now, work has had a hand my sputtering out, but I've also come to a steady life balance where once I was 99.9% interested and squeezing in AP practice and attempts at every turn. I suffered for that on a few fronts. And fact is, life must go on here in physical first and foremost. I believe we all chose to be here now, for this rough and lowly experience. Nobody is skipping class by not projecting, quite the contrary: you're in class now, like it nor not. And you're in the most important class for YOU no matter what else is or isn't going down.

Now the closer I've looked at my life from a comprehensive view, I see all sorts of little providences and gifts and promptings from the "other side" that all tie in to my spiritual development as a whole, and I think that's the most important picture anyone can look at. In short, how's Sirius's evolution coming along on all fronts, not just AP? If you're snagged on some aspect that your higher-self keeps bringing to your awareness, go there first. Deal with those things first. If nothing's there, super!

I like CFT's response better than my own, and I don't have much more to add here. But I encourage you to also read Frederick Aardema's new book CFT posted. I'm almost done and it's fantastic. It also presented a major shift in thinking and approach from other methods you're likely more familiar with. I think the points he makes are just as valid as other pioneers--and we have all of them to thank for what they've contributed. Check it out.

So go with it, all of it. Don't judge yourself or your current experience. Being content or even apathetic can teach you plenty, and just finding beauty and good in simple things is every bit as valuable as finding awe in the transcendental.


Soul

[ButterflyWoman]

I started to write this yesterday, but got distracted by various things and didn't finish it. Came back now and read this thread and was interested to see what people had said. Here's my $0.02.

I don't actively seek AP. It sometimes happens spontaneously (even when I'm entirely awake and alert, but as I generally tend to split consciousness easily, it's not usually a problem when it happens, though it can be kinda weird). Occasionally, I will intend to go and see something or, more likely, someone, and I find myself phased to wherever they are. But that's about it. I don't really long for astral projection or actively seek it.

I've actually kind of lost a lot of my interest in stuff like AP and other experiential mysticism. I'm not knocking it, or saying there's anything wrong with pursuing it, but for me, all that sort of stuff (visions, AP, various samhadis and epiphanies and suchlike and so on) is just another kind of experience for Self to have, through me. I spent most of my life being a "natural mystic" and the last few years have been really intense with reality dropping away and sharp, deep shifts in perception, and so forth, and... well, it just seems like a roller coaster I'm not interested in being on any more, at least, not right now, no matter how much I might like roller coasters. Maybe later I might take up mystical-ness again, but I feel like I've been in that particular amusement park for 40+ years and that's enough for now.

I do still have occasional dips into the mystical pool, and that's fine, when it happens. I don't reject it or anything. I just don't seek it now.

BUT... there are other things, other experiences which I DO want to experience, and most of them are, maybe surprisingly, experiences in material reality. This seems like a perfectly natural, normal thing to me. The division between "spiritual" and "material" is pretty much arbitrary, anyway, and I really don't see or experience that division any more (drinking a cup of tea is just as spiritual as having a conversation with God, so to speak).

My thought is that if you want to experience some particular thing, you can, and you should, whether it's material/physical or spiritual/mystical, or neither or both. (Okay, I would argue that there could be moral and/or ethical boundaries, but those are so intangible and they vary so much from person to person that it's difficult to draw the line. I just don't want to seem to be encouraging people to commit crimes and so forth just for the sake of experiencing it. ;)).

[dreaming90]

Excellent posts...

AP was a big battle for me. I am, unfortunately, firmly stuck in waking consciousness. I had not even had a lucid dream when I heard of AP. I found I was reasonably successful at giving "psychic" readings and contacting the deceased, but that was all done in ordinary consciousness. I practiced for over a year before I wondered if maybe AP just wasn't for me. Yet, I felt that I had stumbled into AP for a reason, and so I kept at it. It got to the point where I was just laying there, miserable, and begging my Higher Self to give me an experience.

The ironic thing is, once I had my first experience in the astral, I was in no hurry to get back. There's a sense that it will be there forever, serenely waiting.

[ButterflyWoman]

I found I was reasonably successful at giving "psychic" readings and contacting the deceased, but that was all done in ordinary consciousness.
You might be able to phase in ordinary consciousness, too. Some of us can. I can't explain "how" it's done, but it's certainly do-able.

[IA56]

I have bean projecting also my whole life, and I have read the book "Ultimate journey" by Robert Monroe...It was a blessing to read it because all my life I have tried to know or to be confirmed... That IT is possible to project and to be out of your body, and that we are not our bodies...So through the Monroe Institut I got to know about "our" Robert Bruce...Instantly my self confidence rose..

It is for me now difference to project by will, and I have not yet started the real "practis" because it is some how "hard work" if the paralyses sets in....I am happy to know I can project and are so doing spontaneously, but to be aware and total awake in projection scare me still...mostly I float in air those few time´s I have projected by will, I do not count them as projctions...I have to say I was dissapointed when my astral-body only floated and I did get so confused what or how to do, I am sure this also keep´s me from starting my practis for consiously projections by will, My astral/energybody seam to not know or does loose focus ....I have also noticed this in real life situations...I get scared to...when understanding I have done something extra ordinary and I did not know mostly people think it is impossible, but when not knowing just doing it have worked....I know we are limitless, but old memories or sayings are still keeping me from trying even.