Astral Flying | Practical Meditation Tips – by Iswar Puri

Welcome, friends, for this final session of our meditation workshop. As I promised to you, we’re going to do some astral flying today through meditation. When we meditate and put our attention behind the eyes and locate ourselves in the middle of the head, many images start appearing. These images are created by memories, they’re created by biological reasons in the body. Depending on how tightly you close your eyes, you can create negative and positive effect of black and white/red and white images. Sometimes, without doing anything, just by closing your eyes, you’ll see colors, you’ll see forms, shapes. During meditation some of these experiences get heightened, and you can see images of different kinds, but if you’re looking for an image it can come up.

Today in this session we’re going to have now, the exercise we’re going to do now, we’re going to look for a window. It may be a large window, it may be small window. When you are in the center of your head with your eyes closed, you’d be able to see a window that has more light outside than is inside. What you will feel inside—the window will be bright—that means there’s more light outside that window than inside. When you come across that window, with whatever form you think you’re in, you can look into the window, even fly out of that window, and you will not fall anywhere. Because the form in which you will go out does not have any gravity or weight. It is not pulled down. And you will have an experience like you’re flying.

And if you concentrated enough in this exercise, you’ll be able to see part of this very world below you while you’re flying above it.

So, how many of you will like to try this experiment? Very good, thank you. Close your eyes. Close your eyes and locate yourself in the center of the head behind the eyes at the third eye center. The third eye center is between and behind the two physical eyes.

[Video paused for meditation practice]

How many of you could fly? Oh, I’m very happy. That’s a very good number. How many of you could not fly? That’s a minority now. Next time. You will get a chance next time. How many of you were able to control your flight? Very good. How many of you were able to see the sky, the color of the sky? Very Good. How many of you had problem finding the window? How many of you saw colors in this experience? Very good. You’re all—who are raising your hands are—on the right track.

What you experienced was an experience with your astral body. You thought it was your imaginary body. Imaginary body is the astral body. There is no other astral body. The imagination comes from the astral plane. All imagination comes from there; all inspiration comes from there. So therefore, while you were flying, were you also conscious of this body sitting here? How many of you were still conscious that you have a body here? How many of you forgot that you had a body, you were just flying? That’s a beautiful experience. It’s only when we withdraw our attention from this body that the astral plane becomes real. While we’re still aware of this system, the physical system here, it’s the amount of attention that can give you those experiences.

Supposing eighty percent of your experience is that you’re still here—physical is real—then only twenty percent will be looking like an imaginary flight. If you raise it to above fifty percent, that’ll become more real than the physical body. What makes one level real compared to the other is the amount of attention we place on it. So, this is something that I’m very happy that so many of you could do it. Because it takes some effort, but many of you have been meditating for a while, so that’s why it wasn’t very difficult for you to have the experience of flying. One of the advantages in meditation is that you can control your flying when you’re in the physical-astral overlap, which is what you visited right now. When you are in the physical-astral overlap, which means where the disembodied and the embodied both work together, there you can explore this universe from the astral plane. That means you can even see far off distant galaxies, and so on, of this universe—of the physical universe, by travel, astral travel through the astral body. Many people enjoy that. There is so much adventure in meditation. This is one of the points of adventure that you can explore so much of the created part of…created beings, created worlds, different worlds created differently.

One day you’ll be able to see that there are many universes like ours have been created, and they follow different laws. Even laws of nature are different there, and you will be able to experience that. How many of you saw somebody else along with? Yes, so many had companions already. The best flight is when you fly with your Master, and that comes up automatically after you see the radiant form of the Master. Then whenever you fly, the Master is with you. That’s very enjoyable. Once I was telling you it suddenly occurred that if I and Great Master used to fly I never looked at him, I knew he was there next to me. I didn’t look at him, but sometime back, I don’t know what made me turn my head to look at him—he had such a beautiful white beard, but I always saw the beard flowing like this. It looked like the beard was flowing this way. I had never seen that before. But there is no fun like

flying to different places, different regions, different levels with your Master. That’s the best flight. You will get it—those who are initiated by Perfect Living Masters. You have to reach a certain point. And before you reach that point, very often you will have some spectacular views of the earthly bodies like the moon, the sun, the stars. They come up on your pathway. And the strange feature about that experience is that if you see the moon, the moon becomes larger because you’re approaching it, but then instead of landing on the moon, you crash through the moon. When you go through the moon, it opens up another sky. And then you go through the stars and the sun, and you go through them the same way. It’s a very different experience.

Like there are many skies within skies, there are many skies above skies, and the colors of the skies are different, and you will notice those also. So anyway, that’s a long description. I will not lead you into those descriptions now. Because sometimes I feel that the mind being what it is, maybe the power of suggestion can make you see these things. Maybe if I make a strong power of suggestion (“You are going to fly, and you going to see a window”), the mind is affected by the suggestion and begins to see the window and begins to see.

But I have been corrected again and again to dismiss this assumption, because what they saw was not what I suggested. They saw something else. So, I knew that the experience was not being created by my suggestion. It was a genuine experience of the astral plane. Just like when we had the experiment yesterday with the flowers. So many people saw flowers. They didn’t want to see it, they didn’t think of seeing it. Some of them saw flowers which they’d never seen in their life. Some of them had a smell they’d never had in their life. So, we heard those reports. That means that what is happening in the astral world is happening by itself, independently, like it’s happening here. They’re just different universes.

Q. Ishwar, when I was flying I was doing the simran, and I felt like I could do anything. Like, is this good to let your imagination or the astral depth be ventured into during your meditation?

A. Yes, because this is happening at the astro-physical overlap. In the astro-physical overlap you always feel you can do whatever you want. When you will go above that, that will disappear, and you can’t do whatever you want. Then you go with the flow, and you go with what the Master is taking you, and the initiative goes away from you to the Master. But in this physical and astral—astro-physical overlap—you retain the feeling of free will that you can do what you want.

Q. So, do the simran and almost feel or see your Master flying with you…? A. Yes.
Q. Flying with you?
A. That’s right.

Q. So you have fun with that? A. That’s right. It works.

Okay, I made another promise to you yesterday that I’ll request Great Master to place some gifts on top of this building. Now, some astral gifts have been picked up. I’m very happy they were astral gifts—I didn’t have to pay for them. But they’re very valuable. Some of them are very valuable, and they’ve been placed on top of this building. Now, many of you are entitled to pick up those gifts, and we’ll have this— now a new experiment—how to reach the top of this building through your imaginary or astral body and go and see if there’s a gift waiting for you. If you find a gift, most likely it’ll be packed up in a package. Then you can open the package, either up on the roof or you can bring it down and open it here. But open it and see what it contains and see if what it contains has a special significance for you, or a special message for you. How many of you are ready for this experiment of receiving gifts? Okay, how many of you don’t want to do this experiment? Okay, all right, now the gifts are all ready, and they are individual. It’s not a group of gifts that you can pick up. That means if you have a gift for you, it’ll be only one gift for you, and that’ll be only meant for you. So, they’re so designed that one person can only see his or her own gift, not everybody’s gift. So, if you go up—if you find a gift—if you cannot find a gift, maybe the time is not there. If you can find a gift, then you take it, open the package, see what it contains.

Okay, close your eyes and center yourself behind the eyes at the third eye center. [Pause in the video for astral flying practice]

How many of you found your gifts? How many of you could not? How many of you could not reach the roof? Next time, you’ll get your chance next time. Those who received the gifts, did anybody get surprised by the gift?

[Pointing at someone in the audience]: What did you get?

Astral gift recipient 1: “I didn’t open it yet, because you didn’t say to open the present.”

Ishwar: Okay, I’m sorry. Your present is still closed. Keep it like that and open it later.

“It’s circular though. I kind of cheated and started to open it.” Ishwar: You cheated? Okay, what did you see?

“Like colored lights in a circle at the top of…I don’t even know what it was exactly— glass in a circle.”

Ishwar: That’s a very astral stuff. There’s lot of things in the astral plane which we don’t have. For example, there lot of crystal or crystalline things there, and they have the lights and very shiny things, which are very common there. And many people pick up those as a gift. And sometimes those gifts are packed well, and you can see—sometimes light come out of them also. Did you see lights, colors coming?

“A different colored blue and red—like a burgundy color. But I think maybe it could spin or something, I don’t know. Kind of like a top.”

Ishwar: I see.

“I want to see the rest of it.”

Ishwar: Okay, who else was surprised? Anybody else? Yes?

Astral gift recipient 2: “I got an arrow. Crystal.”

Ishwar: You didn’t think about it? A bit surprised? Did you know what it meant? You know how to use an arrow and a bow?

“I do.”

Ishwar: Oh, very good, you got the—[Laughs]—you got the means of doing it. All right, who else? Yes? Your turn.

Astral gift recipient 3: “I got a…I got a [unintelligible word], and I went in. I was very small on the roof. I went into the box, and it was kind of dark in there, and there was a dragon spinning around a ball, and I…I ate it. [Laughter]

Ishwar: I don’t know if it surprised you, or if it surprises me. [Laughs] Who else had an unusual experience? Yes?

Astral gift recipient 4: “I thought…I was surprised because I thought I’m gonna get one gift, and I got something else.

Ishwar: Well, lot of people wanted something else, and they got something else.

“So, it was like a crystal and it shined so much, and it shined even more…such beautiful colors, and then the Master’s face appeared, then it came out, those lights came out.”

Ishwar: Did you like it?
“Yes.”
Ishwar: Okay, very good, very good. “Thank you from my heart.”

Ishwar: Very good. Keep it like that. Save these gifts, because these gifts remain with you for a long time. And as you keep these gifts, every now and then you’ll find they mean more than you thought at one time—all these gifts mean more. Okay, any other unusual. Yes?

Astral gift recipient 5: “I got a blue box, and there was golden orb in the sun that was reflecting the skyline.”

Ishwar: That’s a beautiful standard gift, and I’m glad you got it. Congratulations. Okay. Yes?

Astral gift recipient 6: “I got this package, and I brought it out. and it’s—well, I thought it was glass—it looks like glass, but it’s still sort of in its molten form in a way, but it was a spout. And when I got it out of the box, it was much bigger than the box! And so, the spout…I got it here, and I’m like trying to trace down the spout to whatever, you know, it was coming from, but it kept on moving, and it turned into a treble clef, but it’s like this sort of 3-D treble clef.”

Ishwar: Wow! Where you surprised? “Yeah!”
Ishwar: Me…me too. [Laughs] Very good.

Okay, you…I congratulate all of you who got the gifts. And for others there will be another occasion, but you will get. There are plenty of gifts in Great Master’s store, and he places lots of them in these programs that we have. And the idea of—again, the idea of this experiment with gifts is not only to give you the gifts, but also to show you that what you get is not created by imagination, nor by suggestion. You cannot get that by autosuggestion, by imagination, by subconscious, uploading of something from the subconscious, because they’re so different from any of the material available there. And that is the proof that they’re coming from another

dimension, another place. And that’s how we find out that these are just insignias— just simple samples from the astral plane. And they normally carry some message with us, which we’ll discover more and more as time goes on. Yes?

Astral gift recipient 7: “Mine was very similar to _______________’s, except mine was not in a package. I saw it immediately and it was spinning. It was coming out of total darkness above half, and it was lights, almost like a flying saucer, and it was accelerating into a lighter atmosphere. And the top you can tell it was spinning, the lights weren’t glaring, they were like “whipping cream,” you know, it was surrounding the…

Ishwar: Did you like—do you like it? “Well, yeah.”

Ishwar: That’s beautiful. What you’re describing is so beautiful. I can even see it. [Laughs] So, very good. Congratulations. That’s a very good gift. There is significance in some of these colors—I will sometime talk to you about them. Yes?

Astral gift recipient 8: “Yes, I can think I got a present, but listening to everybody else I wonder. So, there was no present there, but I kept getting the words “peace,” “love,” “trust,” “faith,” “hope,” and all these things. So, was that a present?”

Ishwar: Well, it’s up to you to accept it.
“I accept it. But I didn’t think of it as a gift.
Ishwar: No, it’s not a gift of the type that they’re referring to. “Yeah.”

Ishwar: It’s still a gift. It’s still an experience. Sometimes a gift is just an experience. Sometimes a gift is just a glimpse of something, and sometimes it looks like a solid thing that you can hold, and look at it, and so on. Doesn’t matter. They’re all gifts. Congratulations.

Okay, these are some real good surprises that you’re sharing with me, and with others here. Yesterday we did meditation in stages, and at the end I said that the composite meditation should be where you first of all figure yourself to be in the center of the head behind the eyes at the third eye center. Feel that way—feel that you’re there. Then, locating yourself there, then you begin to do your repetition of the words—the simran, the mantra. And once the mantra’s started, listen to it carefully what you’re saying, and say deliberately—if necessary loudly.

I did not mention yesterday that while you’re doing that simran, repetition of words, the mind can be thinking of other things. And very often, very often our tendency is to fight the mind, stop the simran, and say, “Don’t think like that,” come back and start the simran again. That can be a very tiring battle with the mind. People who fight the mind while doing simran end up tired after the meditation session, because they’re fighting. Therefore, my suggestion is that if you find that while you’re doing the simran another voice is speaking something else, don’t stop the simran. Make that other voice join in the simran. So, you hear two voices doing the same simran. Not only that, if the mind brings up somebody’s image in front of you—your child, your wife, your husband, your friend, somebody who’s image comes up—instead of fighting the image, ask the image to join in the simran at the same time as you’re doing it.

You will notice that the mind thinks in several channels, but if you allow each channel, whether visual or audio, to join in the simran, you will have a simran like a big chorus, that the head will have a chorus—lot of voices doing the simran—and that simran works better than even if you fight. And you won’t be tired at the end of the meditation. So that’s one tip I wanted to give you from practical experience.

And the second is that after you have done the simran, and listened to it, your attention will be drawn, and sounds will start appearing. When a sound is sufficiently large, sufficiently loud, for you to hear, you can stop the simran and just listen to the sound. If the sound fades, becomes less, restart the simran, and if the sound changes, then you look for the change. If you hear more than one sound, then look for the sound that resembles a bell sound the most. If you have a number of sounds coming up—sound of thunder, sound of roaring of trains and so on, sound of a waterfall and so on, sound of chirping birds, sound of crickets, and then there’s sounds of small bells—when you can hear multiple sounds, then you put your attention on the sound that resembles the sound of bells the most. If the sound of bells is a small tinkling, tinkling sounds, then listen to that. If you can hear an echo of the sound behind it, which is sounding like a big bell sound, shift from the little sounds into the big sound. Even though it starts as an echo from a distance, you’ll find it’s an echo of a big sound that comes closer to you if you start listening to it.

These are some practical tips I’m sharing with you, because sometimes we can get trapped at one level of experience and don’t move forward. Keep your attention ready to move from one step to another. Now after that, if you see images, replace the image with the image of the Master by employing dhyan—contemplation of the Master. Even if it requires you to suspend your simran or suspend your listening to the sound to sustain that image, you do that. Hold the image, then repeat the five words to make sure the image is not a distraction being made up by your mind but

is actually the image of the Master. And once it stabilizes, you can continue with the simran in the presence of the image. Then even if the image disappears, you can continue with simran and also with the sound that you can hear. If in the course of that, other images appear, bring back the image of the Master again.

These are very practical tips to make you advance further and faster on the spiritual meditation. Now would you like to try all this that I’m speaking about? Close your eyes! Locate yourself behind the eyes at the third eye center. Feel that you’re in the center of the head.

[Pause in the video for meditation practice]

Welcome back. Did any of you find the tips I gave helpful in this session? Thank you, Thank you.

Now, one more exercise. I won’t try your patience too long. This is a composite meditation in which you use all this that you’ve learned about proper location at the third eye center—the proper way to repeat the words of mantra, the proper way to adjust yourself between different options of listening to your simran or listening to the sound, the proper way to introduce the dhyan of the Master, and finally, not to do this exercise without Love and Devotion, that think of the Master and your Love and Devotion for the Master and express it along with your meditation. Even if you interrupt your meditation for a feeling—sometimes the feelings of Love are expressed in an emotional way, sometimes they’re expressed simply by saying something, sometimes they’re…the expression is simply of appreciation, that you can appreciate what’s going on. And that is shown up—sometimes tears flow in our eyes, inner eyes also tears can flow, and all those are expressions of Love and Devotion for the Master. So, experience some of them—you’ll find that all the value of the meditation goes up and you get much better results. So, let’s have one composite meditation session where you will use all these things, but do it with Love and Devotion. And intensify your concentration at the third eye center— intensify your love of the Master in this session. Close your eyes and begin.

[Pause in the video for meditation practice]

How many of you enjoyed this last session? How many of you wished we had continued this for a little while longer? [Laughs] Very good—I’m very happy. Now I want to get some feedback.

Overall during these two days—two and a half days—of this meditation workshop, how many of you thought it was a good experience? How many of you were disappointed with it? How many of you expected something else?

Ishwar: A little more?
Audience member: Yeah.
Ishwar: Okay, next time. I’ll keep it in mind. Thank you.

Friends, we have come to the conclusion of our Meditation Workshop, and I will be distributing to those of you who want parshad. Parshad is a small gift, normally candy, for those who don’t take sugar, puffed rice. In the Dera in Great Master’s time, used to give puffed rice, but sometimes he would put some laddus in it. Laddus means rolled sweet bits—sweets—round sweets made up and added them to the [parshad]. Especially on holidays he used to add those, so we used to enjoy them. We used to look around if his…because he gave the parshad with his hands from a big basket…he would give the parshad with his hands. We who were kids were waiting when that laddu would show up, so we were…then went forward to make sure that particular serving the laddu comes.

But now we have an American version of parshad, which is either candy or puffed rice already pre-packed, and I don’t have to give it with my hands—I just hand over the pre-packed package to you. So those of you who would like to have that…remember parshad is a means to remember the Master. Parshad is not a magical thing. It’s not a magical food or something. It’s something that makes you think of the Master. Therefore, it has a value.

-Ishwarji