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Seen It All

Hello friends. I'm back. Did ya miss me? No, huh? Well, I missed you anyway. I'm glad to be back with another new article on traveling beyond your body. As you know, I've been on retreat in Sri Lanka. Well, I was not in Sri Lanka actually. That's an Arthur C. Clarke pun.

Actually, I was on retreat in my office. Well, not an office actually. It's more like a bunch of uncomfortable chairs surrounded by scraps of things I'm working on. So there you have it. Now, where was I before I interrupted myself? Oh yes, Sri Lanka. No, that's not it. I think I was getting to the new article. I wonder which scrap I wrote that on. Ahh, there it is. It's on the floor in the corner, next to my paperclips and disks. And say, what's That? I never noticed That before. I wonder how long That has been there? I better get a closer look at That right this second. (Alan leans over to look.) Well, look at That. It's an itsy bitsy spider. Dang, he's tiny. And look, he's waving. He's holding up a sign. It says: "Stop staring at me. Go look in another corner, you two-legger." Hmm. Surly spider. But he's right. It's important to pay attention to the details of your surroundings. At least I think that's what he means. Maybe he's just telling me to bug off. (That's a spider's favorite pun.)

It's our nature of course, to selectively ignore one part of our surroundings while paying close attention to another. That's how perception works. Right now, I'm blocking out the sounds of a lawn mower and my ac unit. I'm also ignoring our little spider pal. These parts that surround me have been muted, so that I may focus exclusively on writing this article. In short (way late for that), the parts are still there but I'm not. And it's the same with you. You are presently reading this article and blocking out the office chatter or the dish washer or the boss or a distant corner of the room. Those parts are still there but you are not. At other times, when you do think of those parts, they may be filtered or toned-down, or receive your full attention. It's all up to your agenda of importance. And (as everything leads back to traveling!), you utilize the exact same agenda when you get out of your physical body.

You might recall one small part of your travel in intricate detail while spacing on how you even got out in the first place. Sometimes your travel is crystal clear and sometimes it is a tad foggy. Again, it's all up to your agenda of importance. You decide what you want to see and recall. You control your level of awareness while traveling. You might one night need some sleep (duh), so you blearily stroll through your travel, and recall only a few pieces of the event. On another night, you might be full of pep and determination. On that night you could experience the whole of the travel, from awesome lift-out to way-cool return. Or you might pinpoint any part of the travel that meets your (say it with me) agenda of importance.

Disclaimer:
As usual, the following method comes complete with:
A lack of jargon.
A correlation to your physical body.
A snappy joke or two.
-batteries not included-

The A.G. Get Off Your Butt And Investigate Method

The trick my friends, to recalling more details beyond the traveling fog, is as simple as spying a surly spider in a selected spot. As a matter o' some fact (not much, but some), that's exactly what I want you to do. Well, maybe not spy a spider (as that ticks them off), but do pick a corner, any corner. Pick one and position yourself to look at it from a different angle than you could normally view it at a glance. Get right up on that corner from a different vantage. This is good, for two reasons. One, it allows you a break from your physical perspective. In other words, you might not observe this corner in this way, during your normal physical walk-about, but you might while nonphysical. Later, you can use that detail and others to initiate a travel. And two, it's funny to watch you get into that silly position. You are such a card.

Okay. To show you how serious I am about this, I am going to get up outta my chair and take my palmtop pc with me to a corner of this room that I never-ever investigate. It could get ugly. You do the same. Ready? The aim of this exercise is to observe your corner in sub-atomic detail. That's a joke. But get as much detail as possible. Commit the detail to your memory. And don't hurt yourself. You ain't no spring chicken. (That's a chicken's favorite pun. It ain't much but it makes them laugh.)

I spy in my corner:
I lucked out. This corner of the room seems mostly clean. Let's take a closer look. Yes. It looks fine except for a few cat hairs. Thank you very much Chakra (he meows). The baseboard here is colored with an off-white paint that gives way to brown wood as it meets the carpet. The carpet kind of squooshes under the baseboard. Many of the carpet fibers stick out in all sorts of size and direction. The phone cord, answering-machine phone-out cord, answering-machine electrical cord and some other cord (I have no idea what it does) all hang here. As the cords meet over the corner, they touch one particular carpet fiber that is longer than all the rest. It curves up from the carpet at a 30 degree angle. The fiber has thin, vertical support-lines in it, like those found in packing tape. The top of the fiber is serrated. I am now focusing on those thin, jagged edges, at the top of that carpet fiber. Now, I'm right there on one of the peaks and looking into the valley before the next peak. Hey, look at that. Surly Spider is skiing over on that other peak. Yeah, I made that last part up. But all the rest is entirely true. We have just taken a journey down to one centimeter of my home. (The whole tour could take awhile at this pace.) And hopefully, you have taken a close look at your corner.

Later, if we chose to (agenda of importance), we might use this extreme attention to detail as a way to initiate a lift-out from our physicals. We might allow our physicals to relax completely and move our thoughts into the detail of that centimeter, to pull us out. I can see mine now. The cat hairs and the baseboard as it meets the carpet. I can see the cords and the fiber. I see the edges and the valleys of that fiber and the skiing spider. No, scratch that last part.

In a very specific and micro-focus manner, you can pull yourself to that centimeter of previously ignored space. You can re-detail the event of being there before at that precise spot. You can forcibly yank you out, to meet your thoughts over in the corner. You can do it! Woo hoo! Of course, as a side effect, you might slam into your kitchen counter. But hey, it doesn't hurt even a little and it will wake your butt up. You may then investigate the next step of being nonphysical.

The next step would be to control your level of awareness in the nonphysical. Happily, if you just have paid heed to the above exercise, you now have an excellent grasp of observing the fine details of your surroundings, and that increases your awareness.

For this bit of awareness and detail increase, start with a general location and fine tune as you goo. (That's a baby's favorite pun.) Perhaps, begin with the garden and pick certain flowers to visit. Investigate the flower and its surroundings. Or check out the roof. Spy the spot where your frisbee landed. It's just like going to the corner. Focus on a desire to observe the intricate. Spy what interests you. This will quickly boost your awareness and increase the details of your travels beyond the physical.