Questions about OOBEs

[Alexander]

Thank you. A few more questions:

1 Why would we crave incarnation, if the spirit world is infinite and available to us? Ie, couldn’t we explore Infinity as a discarnate person? Why come to the physical world?

2 Is it true the dead can visit us in dreams? Is this why we often dream of recently passed loved ones?

3 Is it true people can “get stuck”? For example, I once heard a tale of a Chinese ghost who kept doing his job, going to work each day, coming home, eating his noodles- it was basically a duplicate of his physical life (as a ghost).

[Jhanananda]

Thank you. A few more questions:

1 Why would we crave incarnation, if the spirit world is infinite and available to us? Ie, couldn’t we explore Infinity as a discarnate person? Why come to the physical world?

There is no outside force that causes us to crave. There is no "the devil made me do it." We have to own our craving

2 Is it true the dead can visit us in dreams? Is this why we often dream of recently passed loved ones?

Yes, when we dream we are in the immaterial domains, but most of us are not self-aware enough to know that we are Out-of-Body.

3 Is it true people can “get stuck”? For example, I once heard a tale of a Chinese ghost who kept doing his job, going to work each day, coming home, eating his noodles- it was basically a duplicate of his physical life (as a ghost).

Yes, in some sense people who are not self-aware often get stuck repeating their daily activities, which I believe is why Asian cultures have a shrine to dead relatives, but it typically doesn't take long for the typical craving individual to reincarnate.

[Alexander]

Great answers, thank you. Another set:

So Madame Blavatsky had the idea of the “ascended masters,” a universal term for saints and mystics in the afterlife. Have you encountered any of the following? They are certainly the ones I would want to reach out to first in the post-death state, to comprehend that world and the true nature of the universe.

Did they teach you anything/communicate with you? What is one thing you learned from each in your interactions in the spirit world?

1 Siddhartha

2 Christ

3 John of the Cross

4 Teresa of Avila

[Jhanananda]

Great answers, thank you. Another set:

So Madame Blavatsky had the idea of the “ascended masters,” a universal term for saints and mystics in the afterlife. Have you encountered any of the following? They are certainly the ones I would want to reach out to first in the post-death state, to comprehend that world and the true nature of the universe.

Did they teach you anything/communicate with you? What is one thing you learned from each in your interactions in the spirit world?

1 Siddhartha

2 Christ

3 John of the Cross

4 Teresa of Avila

Yes. I encountered these ascended masters and many more while Out-of-Body. My experiences of encountering ascended masters was more like a direct transmission in which they downloaded their entire history into my consciousness while "communicating" with them while Out-of-Body. It is quite some experience.

[Alexander]

Yes. I encountered these ascended masters and many more while Out-of-Body. My experiences of encountering ascended masters was more like a direct transmission in which they downloaded their entire history into my consciousness while "communicating" with them while Out-of-Body. It is quite some experience.

Hi Jeffrey,
Sounds really spectacular--

So what did you learn from each? Or is there a reason for not sharing those meetings?

[Jhanananda]

Hi Jeffrey,
Sounds really spectacular--

So what did you learn from each? Or is there a reason for not sharing those meetings?

It is a little fantastic a claim to publicly report them, so I have focused upon building a community of dedicated contemplatives who have similar experiences.

[Alexander]

Got it. Makes sense. A couple more questions:

1 Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia created a record of early childhood memories– allegedly of previous lifetimes. Have you found phenomena like this exists– that some young children remember? Or have you found that the amnesia/forgetfulness of birth is complete?

2 Some OOBE writers reference “soul groups,” friends/relatives we reincarnate with over many lives– ie, that your brother in this life may have been your best friend in your last life, or your wife in this life may have been your sister in your last life, etc– have you found any truth to this in your experience?

[Jhanananda]

Got it. Makes sense. A couple more questions:

1 Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia created a record of early childhood memories– allegedly of previous lifetimes. Have you found phenomena like this exists– that some young children remember? Or have you found that the amnesia/forgetfulness of birth is complete?

While I haven't spent a great deal of time analyzing childhood dreams, because I haven't had a lot of contact with children; nonetheless, I fathered 2 children who I noticed would awake crying in their first few years, often in their pre-verbal age, so I had nothing but their sudden terror to go on, and I was aware of some of the claims that some children recall their previous lifetimes, so I figured their night terrors were due to recalling previous lifetime traumas. As they got older there was no content in their dialog to suggest a recollection of previous lifetimes, and we had dialog regarding dreams around the breakfast table every morning. Yes, they had dreams, but I didn't hear anything that I could reasonably associate with a previous lifetime.

However, since I have been traveling Out-of-Body every night for 50 years I have traveled backwards in time to previous lifetimes many, many times. Often the point of entry into a previous lifetime would be the moment of death, so some of those recollections were traumatic. In the 80s I had repeating sequences of being tortured to death. Over time I gained more content to recognize the period and scene. I was tortured in a Nazi concentration camp because I was a German working with the resistance, and my wife was Jewish and in hiding, and she brought me into the resistance. I was tortured by the SS because they wanted to extract information from me regarding my cell of resistance. I never gave it to them before the SS officer lost his temper and kicked me to death in his torture chamber in a concentration camp.

In another OOBE-based previous lifetime recollection I was a poor farmer in India and she was my wife then, and bore me a few children. We lived in a very primitive mud hut. I recalled everything from that lifetime, as I relived thee entirety of it from birth to death, and I recalled sitting by her side as she took her last breathe, and I wept for her loss. Then my death some years later. I came back to my body in this lifetime as I died in that lifetime. When I became aware of this lifetime, after reliving the entirety of a lifetime, the experience of time-space dilation just about broke my psychological sense of self.

2 Some OOBE writers reference “soul groups,” friends/relatives we reincarnate with over many lives– ie, that your brother in this life may have been your best friend in your last life, or your wife in this life may have been your sister in your last life, etc– have you found any truth to this in your experience?

Yes, I have over the decades occasionally met someone who I had an instant rapport with who I came to realize was someone I knew in a previous lifetime. An example of this is I met a woman in Tucson who belonged to a sangha that I belonged to who I had an instant attraction to. In my recollections of previous lifetimes described above, this woman was my wife in that previous lifetime. In this lifetime she had no interest in me.

[Alexander]

Thank you, excellent and remarkable answers as usual.

Re: your experiences— When I was in my 20s I went through the moral reasoning of whether the world was just or not, and I concluded that what you claim to experience (reliving past lives, in addition to religious ecstasies, reincarnation, and OOBEs) needed to exist for us to be in a just cosmos. It’s interesting Darren Aronofsky represented a similar concept in his movie The Fountain— it shows other people go through that line of reasoning too. But, it’s unfortunate the experience seems limited to only a tiny, .01% of the great mystics.

A few more questions:

1 What do you think of the cosmos being “just”? Is it just? We see its arbitrary and cruel character every day, but allegedly an afterlife and karma should make it just in the long term.

2 Do you believe in karma? Perhaps a strange question, given it’s a Buddhist forum; but we do see every day the extraordinary *injustice* and arbitrary nature of the world— other than that imposed by humans.

3 Similarly: what is your opinion of the soul? Are the Hindus and Christians more right in saying the soul is the ultimate reality of the self? Or, what do you make of the Buddhist “not self” theory? (And what does that mean, exactly, if it is the perspective you subscribe to?)

[Jhanananda]

Thank you, excellent and remarkable answers as usual.

Re: your experiences— When I was in my 20s I went through the moral reasoning of whether the world was just or not, and I concluded that what you claim to experience (reliving past lives, in addition to religious ecstasies, reincarnation, and OOBEs) needed to exist for us to be in a just cosmos. It’s interesting Darren Aronofsky represented a similar concept in his movie The Fountain— it shows other people go through that line of reasoning too. But, it’s unfortunate the experience seems limited to only a tiny, .01% of the great mystics.

My take on the material world is it is hell, where we all suffer at one point or another, and the only way out is to have no craving or covetousness for any aspect of this hellish domain.

A few more questions:

1 What do you think of the cosmos being “just”? Is it just? We see its arbitrary and cruel character every day, but allegedly an afterlife and karma should make it just in the long term.

There is no benevolent creator god. There is no justice here, because this is hell. The only way out is following the Noble Eightfold Path.

2 Do you believe in karma? Perhaps a strange question, given it’s a Buddhist forum; but we do see every day the extraordinary *injustice* and arbitrary nature of the world— other than that imposed by humans.

When we consider that the material plane is hell, and the only way out is overcoming our craving, then craving in the form of "karma" causes us to return to this hell.

3 Similarly: what is your opinion of the soul? Are the Hindus and Christians more right in saying the soul is the ultimate reality of the self? Or, what do you make of the Buddhist “not self” theory? (And what does that mean, exactly, if it is the perspective you subscribe to?)

It depends upon how you define "self." If you mean self to mean soul, then we have to dump all of the concepts of identity, which are self. When we arrive at the second jhana, then the mind is still, which is a shedding of much of the individual concept of self, but the 8 stages of samadhi all represent 8 sages of shedding self.

[bodhimind]

I just want to say that I appreciate the questions asked and the answers in this thread, and they aspire me to practice more diligently.

I wish to ask more about the various planes of existence during an OOBE. I remember Jhanananda mentioned 5th jhana as post transition through kasina into infinite space (literal outer space).

I revisited the GWV's writeup on samadhi stages and it says the 6th jhana is infinite time - which is not correct, as the 6th Buddhist jhana is infinite consciousness. I was wondering what the experience of infinite consciousness is like?

Also, what is no-thingness and no perception nor non-perception?

[Jhanananda]

I just want to say that I appreciate the questions asked and the answers in this thread, and they aspire me to practice more diligently.

Good to hear from you again, bodhimind. I am glad that the dialog here is giving you some inspiration to practice more intensely, and providing you guidance.

I wish to ask more about the various planes of existence during an OOBE. I remember Jhanananda mentioned 5th jhana as post transition through kasina into infinite space (literal outer space).

Yes, or more precisely, the fifth stage of samma-samadhi is the OOBE, and the first stage of the OOBE is really experienced being Out-of-Body on the material plane, but can include traveling anywhere in space to other planets, etc, so, I am OK with 'infinite space' as a translation of the 5th stage of samma-samadhi.

I revisited the GWV's writeup on samadhi stages and it says the 6th jhana is infinite time - which is not correct, as the 6th Buddhist jhana is infinite consciousness. I was wondering what the experience of infinite consciousness is like?

The problem with translation is most translators don't even meditate, and most of them were just scholars, and of those who are monks, they generally put the robes on and pretend to be holy, so none of them have any experience at all with the 8 stages of samadhi. Whereas, I have a degree in linguistic anthropology, and I have been a rigorous contemplative for 50 years, and I have had consistent depth in meditation for over 50 years, which has included daily Out-of-Body experiences. So, I try to map my experiences in samma-samadhi.

So, back to infinite consciousness as a definition of the 6th stage of samma-samadhi. I'm OK with infinite consciousness as a definition, but what does that mean? In my experience of being Out-of-Body in space and looking out at the vastness of space, which is full of stars, but I felt each point of light was a being which emitted immense love. So, infinite consciousness and love is OK with me.

Also, what is no-thingness and no perception nor non-perception?

This is a good question. I find these definitions are confusing because they don't map onto my experience. The definitions suggest unconsciousness; however, that has not been my experience. Instead my experience was becoming one with all of that infinite field of light and love so that I was all of that. This definition fits the larger description of experience of mystics.

Sources:
Jhana as defined in the Buddha's Discourses

[Tad]

Thank you, excellent and remarkable answers as usual.

Re: your experiences— When I was in my 20s I went through the moral reasoning of whether the world was just or not, and I concluded that what you claim to experience (reliving past lives, in addition to religious ecstasies, reincarnation, and OOBEs) needed to exist for us to be in a just cosmos. It’s interesting Darren Aronofsky represented a similar concept in his movie The Fountain— it shows other people go through that line of reasoning too. But, it’s unfortunate the experience seems limited to only a tiny, .01% of the great mystics.

My take on the material world is it is hell, where we all suffer at one point or another, and the only way out is to have no craving or covetousness for any aspect of this hellish domain.

A few more questions:

1 What do you think of the cosmos being “just”? Is it just? We see its arbitrary and cruel character every day, but allegedly an afterlife and karma should make it just in the long term.

There is no benevolent creator god. There is no justice here, because this is hell. The only way out is following the Noble Eightfold Path.

2 Do you believe in karma? Perhaps a strange question, given it’s a Buddhist forum; but we do see every day the extraordinary *injustice* and arbitrary nature of the world— other than that imposed by humans.

When we consider that the material plane is hell, and the only way out is overcoming our craving, then craving in the form of "karma" causes us to return to this hell.

3 Similarly: what is your opinion of the soul? Are the Hindus and Christians more right in saying the soul is the ultimate reality of the self? Or, what do you make of the Buddhist “not self” theory? (And what does that mean, exactly, if it is the perspective you subscribe to?)

It depends upon how you define "self." If you mean self to mean soul, then we have to dump all of the concepts of identity, which are self. When we arrive at the second jhana, then the mind is still, which is a shedding of much of the individual concept of self, but the 8 stages of samadhi all represent 8 sages of shedding self.

I think Jhananda's answer to Alexander's question is in line with Pali canon. The problem is that the material world runs on what Buddha called greed, hatred, and delusion. So how can we talk about the world being just or unjust when the reason the material world exists is layers upon layers of delusions? However, while in this world we are not completely separated from higher aspects of life and they can be experienced here as well.

[Jhanananda]

I think Jhananda's answer to Alexander's question is in line with Pali canon. The problem is that the material world runs on what Buddha called greed, hatred, and delusion. So how can we talk about the world being just or unjust when the reason the material world exists is layers upon layers of delusions? However, while in this world we are not completely separated from higher aspects of life and they can be experienced here as well.

Fortunately, the superior fruit are also manifested in various ways, which include wisdom, kindness and generosity, etc. So, by moving away from ignorance, delusion, cruelty, greed, craving and covetousness, and manifesting kindness and generosity, wisdom, etc., then we move away from the hellish nature of the material word and toward the heavenly domains; and back to the central premise which is fallowing the Noble Eightfold Path, which isn't 5 folds, it is 8, which includes jhana. So, when you follow a branch of Buddhism that does not recognize jhana, then you are following a delusional form of Buddhism which is run by clowns who put the robes on and pretend to be holy.

[Tad]

I think Jhananda's answer to Alexander's question is in line with Pali canon. The problem is that the material world runs on what Buddha called greed, hatred, and delusion. So how can we talk about the world being just or unjust when the reason the material world exists is layers upon layers of delusions? However, while in this world we are not completely separated from higher aspects of life and they can be experienced here as well.

Fortunately, the superior fruit are also manifested in various ways, which include wisdom, kindness and generosity, etc. So, by moving away from ignorance, delusion, cruelty, greed, craving and covetousness, and manifesting kindness and generosity, wisdom, etc., then we move away from the hellish nature of the material word and toward the heavenly domains; and back to the central premise which is fallowing the Noble Eightfold Path, which isn't 5 folds, it is 8, which includes jhana. So, when you follow a branch of Buddhism that does not recognize jhana, then you are following a delusional form of Buddhism which is run by clowns who put the robes on and pretend to be holy.

Thanks, Jhananda for further explanation.

Would you agree that as we develop more goodness in our mind, it sooner or later reflects in the external life in some form such as accidentally meeting kind people or finding teachings that one has been looking for, etc.?