Lehal Library

who, like me, questioned reality yet never seemed to find any answers. Dissatisfied and disenchanted by philosophy, religion, and disgruntled by science, I still felt somewhat hollow. I knew so much about the surface layer of perception and reality, but if I was honest, I still lacked some sort of fulfilling substance. I could develop attractive philosophical thoughts about the world. However, deep down, I still knew something was missing. What was the point in continuing to live if I could not find the meaning behind the mundaneness of life that I had felt so strongly as a child? I reclused myself into depression throughout this stage of life. I continued to persevere with meditation, and I eventually came to the realisation that I lived within the self-created illusion of my own mind. Through this realisation, I came to understand that I was missing one essential ingredient: actively expanding consciousness, which has the ability to help us let go and free ourselves of perceptions that no longer serve us. Consciousness is the intelligent awareness that observes our thoughts, which is beyond all the ideas and labels of ourselves and the world. Thus, since it is greater than all that, it provides a space to transcend them. Once one's awareness is submerged within consciousness rather than the labyrinth of the mind, one begins to have liberating and enlightening shifts in awareness. That's when I conveniently found out about astral projection. I got my first book on the matter, ‘The Art & Practice of Astral Projection by Ophiel’. I practised what the book told me to religiously with nothing better to do in my empty life. I put all of my depression to one side and gave my all into giving life the benefit of the doubt that there was more to it than what speculating philosophers and unenlightened sciences imply so often. Through diligent practice, I found the instinctual 'way of Being' needed for astral projection. That is, to gain control over my mind through peaceful silence and stop dreaming, in other words, to stop constantly projecting my own illusions of the world into my