Stacy asked: “I’ve seen videos online where people talk about flying out of their bodies and moving to places after immersing in deep breathing & body scanning meditations. This is often referred to as “Astral Projection.” Is it recommended to try something like this?”
- No. The Buddha did not ask people to practice “astral projection” or “astral travel.”
- However, there are times when the “mental body” (or the gandhabba) can separate from the physical body and come out of the physical body. (i) Some people have the natural ability to do that. (ii) When cultivating the Noble Path or even mundane jhana, some develop the ability to come out of the physical body. Once out of the physical body, the gandhabba can travel at high speed and reach far-away places instantly.
In the post “Out-of-Body Experience (OBE) and Manōmaya Kāya,” I gave examples of (i) in #10.
- The other possibility is also discussed there.
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Stacy wrote: “What made me curious is that this is often recommended online for people who think consciousness is limited to the physical body. They contend that it is not a hallucination and there is only one way of figuring that out for yourself.”
- Both physical and mental bodies are not hallucinations.
- But in the Brahma realms, the physical body is absent, and they have only the mental body.