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An Audio interview with bob monroe where he talks about some of the deeper parts of his jouney

I searched the forum to see if this one had been posted already, but I don't see it here. It's one of my favorites.

He speaks among other things about his longing for "home," and how he came to the realization that he had left that home because it was boring. Very interesting lens. I found the quality of discussion uplifting.

Thanks OmCasey


I appreciate the depth and brightness of your response. I hear you, like I say, I am here to learn as well - so touting any of my old knowledge is counterproductive - I want to absorb instead. I like that the frustration of the "failure" is causing friction, resistance, something to push against - so I think I get what you are saying. But I will test it in soul, energy and bodyI will ponder it more, and more importantly, use it going forward. I too feel more like a Jnani than a bhakti, but in the end they are one. I don't feel locked or imprisoned here anymore. I think this life is quite inexplicably marvelous! It's the blink of an eye, and I don't want to miss it either. I know it goes infinitely deeper, so i'm happy to persist in standing at the door, turning the handle, pushing, trying to slip through the keyhole, knocking, rattling it on the hinges, all the while knowing there is no door! Ha ha ha.

Bless you. Thank you. Right now I'm in the phase of restoring balance, giving it a break to get on with real life. I will return and return, in an open and energetic way.

Can we fly ourselves with resolve into this?



I am super interested in the conscious shift, too!

It is possible we ALL return to experience in more depth and detail the precise experience territory we call the Astral, and what, I, myself refer to as Galactic Space. In fact, I quite literally came back for it. I was on my way out. Out, out, out. This window did open for me. And what did I do?, I turned around for a last look. Man oh man. I saw all the fun all the awakening one's were having with preparing the collective for first contact, how much everyone was growing in their experience base, and I just couldn't resist. I wanted to help, I also wanted that growth-potential for myself. NOW -while it very much is still possible. I would be calling it close, I knew, but the prospects were so exciting. What more is possible still to experience in this once in an Eon event of the ages. So, here I am, going for it. Alongside everyone here in this room. We have much to exchange with-and-within ourselves. Somehow, we are all the exact torque needed by the others of us.

.


That sounds almost like an NDE? I assume you're talking about seeing your path on the astral though?

I can relate, in a way. When I was little, I had this lucid dream. A pirate ship appeared in the pool, and this being of light swung over on a rope and cut my head open with a cutlass. That should have scared the excrement out of me, but I was calm. He showed me both sides of my brain (mind), like a watermelon halved. He showed my tiny villages of moss growing on the side of the pool. Tiny humans were pushing wheelbarrows, leading village life. "help them" he said. I really wanted to, but didn't know how. That dream stuck because of that being - he glowed, radiated joy. I saw him/her/it again when I had my own NDE like experience in a coma. It took many years to connect the dots. I've asked it to help me get out of body, and I feel it there, chuckling at my foolish struggling . During those times I also got this feeling of having wanted  to come back to share in all this earth drama. It's glorious!

I don't think of any of this in a literal way. It's not actually another "being" necessarily, for there is only  being. It is another aspect of me - of the one. I'm not special, as this vehicle, o no, not at all, it is temporary, being is infinite, and it is in my centre, the depth of my own conscious being, as it is for yours, for we are joined in heart and mind ultimately. Here we're quite "separate." I see only one reflected in all of this, including your words of experience to me.

Let me leave it there for now.

Thanks again.

Thank you Omcasey and kodemaster for your kind input. Your desire to help other beings is wonderful. It makes my heart happy to feel your genuine engagement.

Let me see... how can I do justice to your pointers? Hmmm.

Like matter, energy and light in the sun that is falling to its own center of gravity, gaining energy, and then shooting back out to the surface, losing momentum, falling back in and then shooting out, to finally escape into space; so all beings are walking the "spiritual" path, whether they know it or not. Even the ones who behave in the most vile and unconscious ways. The real difference is whether we are completely unconscious and mechanical, living in the illusion, maya, samsara, or the cave of Socrates (platos cave) - or fully awake to our true nature, walking outside in the sunlight. Here, now, awake, real.

 Once a human being realizes their true nature, by grace, by accident, through a brush with death or an astral experience, LSD or some other means, the see their nature as a stich in the living fabric of eternity, as part of one life, one love - how could they possibly hate, fear, grab, destroy or pretend to own? That nonsense falls away. It does take time to fall away - strangely enough. The old ego shadow is a rut in stone, carved by centuries of water. It doesn't go away instantly, much as we would like it to, or believe that it has. It takes many people decades, lifetimes maybe, to let go. i get it. I know it. I live it. I'm in that too, just like you.

This became viscerally and existentially clear to me in the moment of awakening. It has never once left me - but as you so correctly say, good kodemaster, a desire seems to arise - an irresistible interest to return there, to go home, to get back. Mystics have known this thing forever. Gurus (IRL) exist because of this desire to return. Without it they wouldn't have a job. That unexplainable yearning within grows strong, overpowering, and now gets a definite goal - "I want to be enlightened/liberated/(add your descriptor here)."

Dedication and training are certainly part of that return journey - I concur. However, it is a deep and subtle thing. In another way, it's the simplest, most blatantly obvious thing of all. The effort itself eventually becomes the obstacle. Yet we have to live this to get through this. Paradox! Bother! Behold - spiritual teachings are sprouting throughout the ages as a result! 


As you so rightly point out, namesake of the beloved eternal sound of Om, a formal practice does have its sustained benefits. The ego needs this to dissolve itself. For a long, long time, perhaps. I speak from painful, sustained experience here. I too spent many years longing for that ecstasy, that honey gold, devouring every spiritual book and teaching I could lay my hands on. It all began to clarify, more and more and more and more over the years. It became simpler. For many years I walked mindfully, ate mindfully, slept mindfully, scratched my nose mindfully, farted mindfully, had mindful sex, worked mindfully, and watched my every single body posture, inner chi sensation, thought and feeling like a cat watching a mousehole. In a sense, I still do, but it is effortless now, simple, natural, not painful. I chose a work path that lent itself to immersing myself even more deeply into spiritual thought.

Of course, normal, real, grounded life comes and challenges all our "spiritual" bovine excrement. I say bovine excrement with the greatest of respect and awe, don't get me wrong. It's sublime bovine excrement - but in the end - it's what it is.

The living is the real, this very moment is the real, we are the real living moment, and the spiritual concepts are more shadows on the wall, more dream stuff to which we can so easily attach our fragile spiritual egos. I had so many visions, spiritual experiences, vibrations, lightning bolt insights, ecstasies, shadow challenges, failures, successes and waves of energy peaking and receding. They all come, and they all go. Every single one. I AM remains - as you remind us at the bottom of your page. Delightful

Ha ha ha - It's a process, and it isn't. The paradox of being. 

It has helped me tremendously to relax about the whole thing. The very effort to reach, to seek, to achieve - is ultimately the thing that prevents us from seeing that we are that. Isn't AP just the same? Of course it is. We are home. We never left. The last attachment we let go of is the spiritual quest attachment. We let go of enlightenment too. We become absolute zero. We die, in other words. So be it. Let it dissolve. Here I am anyway.

Here's part of a childlike poem I wrote that expresses it better:

"The 'Nuff-Ink was not lonely, the Nuff-Ink wasn't sad,
You couldn't call it good, nor could you call it bad,
For it populated nowhere
with everything it thought,
And what it thought was not a thing,
Neither aught, nor naught.

Lack was not a word it used,
Neither was despair,
For everything it needed, it breathed in with the air,
And air of airs was everywhere, yet never stirred a hair,
For Nuff-Ink didn't breathe, so 'Nuff-Ink didn't care.

It had no need to visit friends, for friends where all in Orl,
And whatever message needed knowing
Didn't need a call.
As soon as thought
Was thought by thought,
That thought was thought by Orl,
So Every One who lived there
Didn't think at all."

Some years ago I began to make friends with the spiritual path in a new way. It's now just a wonderful part of the same old eternal journey to nowhere, from nowhere. I have nothing to sell, nobody to convince, and nowhere to get.

I am super interested in AP, because I skipped that whole thing along the way. As a creative writer, and a teacher of sorts, (more of a supporter to teachers in the background), it has always been a blind spot for me. It's like I know it. I touch it every time a story comes. Every poem comes straight from there. Every deep meditative state is there - here - this. It has bled right into waking reality, and I see the gold on the leaves of trees, in the air, in the wood, everywhere. However, i can't write or talk about it from direct experience. A blind spot. I just want to explore the NPR as well. It's like this door that never got opened, and I'm curious. I'm still learning, even after all these years of spiritual binge-watching, and I think I will always be learning more. Being consciousness is endless. Vast. Vast!

For me Focus 4, the centerpoint, Nirvana, or the final samadhi - whatyoumucallit - is the simplest, most obvious thing in the world. It's me. "I" - this. Just this. All our talk just obscures it. Here's a paragraph from what I've written elsewhere:

"Little children see it all the time, but they have no way to tell you what they see. So they just laugh, and jump on the bed. Maybe they make this funny sounding melody of whoops and woos and spin around and around, completely happy. If you ask them why, they just shrug their shoulders."

As you say, kodester, we get these freebies - then we have to walk the walk. The walk is grueling.

For me its not about effort or discipline. Of course, it takes a high degree of mental discipline to make space around our thinking - that part is super tricky and slippery, and requires the utmost discipline for years, and unflinching self confrontation - agreed, unavoidable and totally valid. The moment we slip, we fall asleep, caught in the dream drama spiderweb again.

For me it's all about in-seeing. Insight. Understanding. Once I can see how I am muddying the waters, how I am overcomplicating reality, it just falls away and resolves itself. I return to the center, again, again and again. Forever maybe.

After a time the cloud of unknowing becomes so dense around a person that the slightest discomfort rings a loud bell. Instantly the cause is searched out, identified, and encountered. For instance: I'm losing sleep and frustrated. I feel it. I acknowledge the feeling in my body, in my heart. I look at it clearly. Ah! I'm creating a desire to AP, thinking it will change reality in some way - nonsense! I'm happy - what's the problem? I see there is no problem.

Meanwhile, life goes on and on as it has for untold time. Real life, with bills, jobs, pimples and wrinkles. With angry people in this here world. With insane prices for life's necessities, horror on the news, mindless zombies in churches and synagogues - all of it - just as before. O yes. Inescapable. It's beautiful too, though I can't take it seriously anymore. Yet here I am - in it. Right, smack bang in the midst of it, like you. Strange? Of course it's strange!

I hope to add more strangeness and more clarity into an already full existence through this new leg of the journey. I know this unseen reality is right here where I am. I'm not expecting to find anything substantially other, or better, or easier. I enjoy the flying feeling. I enjoy the space. I enjoy the fluidity. I like the spiritual feeling too. I like the insights that come - if they ever will come, i don't know. It's another aspect of the one eternal isness, and I want to explore it too.

Last night I had more vibrations again - it's now a nightly thing. I found myself in a dream, but not 100% lucid. I woke in the dream to my vibrations, thinking I want to project. In my dream I got frustrated. In my dream I looked at my hand, struggling to count fingers. In my dream I got up and gave up on trying to exit. I thought I felt myself beginning to separate, but decided, in my dream, that it was not going to happen. So I walked outside, spoke to some dream people, looked around a bit, completely accepting that this wasn't actually my home or my reality, and went back to bed.

It reminds me again of that line from the TRuman show - we accept the reality of the world with which we are presented. A false awakening? Either way - the journey continues into more clarity and lucidity, slowly but surely. Let's see where it goes.

I hope that answers your question, Omcasey, and speaks to your thoughts, Kodemaster.

May love steal your one sock and gift you with two more.

Nice to meet you too   And thanks Adrian. I get am digesting it all.

Hi OmCasey thanks for your interest.

I am getting the suspicion that I've worded my initial query far too strongly. As I get to know the people here, I think I approached it with a bit too much force - but so we learn each moment.

So meditation is none of the above for me. I've never had a formal teacher, besides the universe and my life. It just lightninged its way in one night in 2008. It refined and got much simpler. I've never been to a group or a satsang, or a retreat. There's no practice anymore, no method anymore, all that fell away a long time ago - now its just being.

What is my most notable observation?

"..observation...ation... tion...." the echoes recede and the blank space on the page goes silent... the observer observes the observed observing the observer observing the observed... erved... erved....

As waves of wonder cascade around the auditorium, the crowd disappears, the curtains melt, the stage disappears and wonder escapes through the roof into the great beyond, but never moves an inch...

erm.. um. Observation? I don't really know!

Meditation is me. It is now. It just is - all this - in the sense of your "I am!" at the bottom of your page. I suspect that I may get where you are - of course i've just met you on a cryptic message, so maybe not -  I'm in a similar place perhaps - who knows, right? Nowhere. Here, now. It started back then for me, and it hasn't gone anywhere. I haven't gone anywhere. Life has moved, of course, as it does, because it is alive. All this talk about it is a bit pointless, isn't it? Even so - sharing makes it bright and clear, makes it relatable, and makes it a celebration - so let's share it, no?

Astral projection was skipped over in my case, early in the journey. It came to me, but I didn't pursue it back then. Now I feel like playing with it, exploring the terrain I skipped before, so I'm learning the ropes from more experienced wayfarers. i think I'm absorbing the right information and vibes here. Life will teach me this too, or it won't. I'm here, teacher. Present. All who wish to teach, I'm all ears.  Let's see how it unfolds.

It's a liberating insight, isn't it? Wonderful. I didn't get this through AP, though I know it's the same source. When I got it, I laughed so hard. I remember scribbling in a notebook: "How could there ever be a "global energy crisis" (it was a big theme on the news). There can't be such a thing! Never was. Never will be.  It's all energy. The whole bloody cosmos is energy in flow. I have always been flowing energy, playing in forms. The "crisis" is based on the wrong identification with something that's flowing, but you think it's solid and can be controlled." 

  Thanks

Thanks for that as well Adrian. Heard and understood. I will pay attention to intention and subconscious messaging.

So far it's just signposts - mostly auditory. I can pick out at least four different ringing tones, besides the big sound that makes you think you're going deaf. I'm used to the ringing - it has been a companion, though single tone, since 2008. It fades until I do this kind of work. Last couple of weeks it has been strong. Baby steps. Progress.

Am I right in saying that the knack is something like finding the right level of interest / engagement? If you're too into it, it blows out. If you're not into it enough, it eludes you? For instance, this morning the jet engine woke me, but somehow I didn't wake up into it enough - maybe I was getting too cocky or not enough interest? It's bloody slippery! 

Thanks Tides. It's just after 3 in the morning, and its a wake back to bed kind of moment, so I'm flowing with that. What better way to do it than here, mining the forum?

Another interesting one tonight - I tried briefly to pop out, wasn't happening, so I tried following some of EV's advice, questioning the great mamma black screen universe about what was holding me back. Then I just called it an early one and fell asleep, only to be woken up a while ago by another bout of strong vibrations and deafening sounds. Weirdly, I remember clearly letting it happen and being curious about it, though kinda dismissive, but somehow through that cacophony I was still not awake enough to attempt an exit. I think I must have moved and woken up more fully, only to realize - hey! I might be in the "phase." So I tried to stop moving and exit, but no, so after a while I got up to check my messages. 


I wasn't expecting the vibrations / sounds to actually happen during deep sleep? Its a question I guess. 


O well. I'm happy anyway. I'll try again in a minute.

Yes - I feel a connection with the Sufi way as well.

One of the things I love about them is their way of using stories as a device for spiritual awakening. Those kinds of stories come to me sometimes. I think fiction is a way to tap into our other brain areas, rather than reading rational non-fiction to clarify spiritual truths - much like AP I guess.

I'm glad you're feeling present and in communion with that loving guidance. I agree - in body-out of body, mind, body emotion spirit - all of it - it's one grand continuum, like the toes, fingernails, liver and eyes of one big cosmic joker! 

Thank you very much for the reply, EV.

I can see that you are looking at it from a place of experience. I will take your advice in that spirit, knowing full well that an intellectual understanding is peanuts compared to living experience.

I hear you. A part of me is so comfortable with energy work, blockages and the whole terrain that the other, real, living part is a bit weighed down - like you say, we think we've transcended fear, until we try something new that's real. (surprise!) I will take your pointers to heart and give it my authentic best. I honestly think I've just been taking it all a bit too seriously - despite my attempts at humor in the posts here.  The limiting belief I will explore most deeply is "do I have the ability?" That may be the one - but I will explore others as well. Thank you.

Anyway, it's almost bed time here, and I am looking forward to it. I will continue reading and learning again, hopefully with some progress, but if not, so be it, I will continue regardless.

May the force be with you.

Dear tides - ok if I call you "tides?"

Thank you for your thoughtful and heartfelt message. It contains a genuine interest and a lovely sentiment, and I accept it gratefully and wholeheartedly in that way. I can see you are coming from a good place, and I reflect that as it is. May I reply to some of your thoughts?

Firstly, yes, 2008 ...  Words are utterly inadequate. The person who went in never came out again.

Let's just say it was a bit more than an invitation. If it were an invitation, then there was no name on the card, no event described, no start time and no venue, and I finally knew, in a moment of shock, just how and why the blank space on the front was my name. I knew that the blank venue was here, and the blank time was now. I accepted, RSVP'd, attended and thoroughly enjoyed it immediately and simultaneously, and it hasn't ended yet. I have been unwrapping, clarifying, wondering, gasping, and writing about it since 2014, and I've barely covered the first five minutes.

I don't see it as a personality. It's not a "thing." I see it as the wellspring of personality. All personalities. It is that by means of which all personalities are expressed, and more nicely, that which knows the expressions.

For me it is even more than divine guidance. To be guided, there must be two: One as the guide, the other as a tourist. I am simultaneously the guide and the tourist, as well as the landscape, the photo and the cap from the gift shop at the gate, the wildlife, the bus of Chinese tourists, and.. - well you get the picture. Yet my focus is this locus of perception. (A locus is a location that can move). I can't eat your dinner, and your bills don't come in my mail - yet I am you and you are me. It's a matter of diving closer to the center of the sphere, or swimming on the surface. Make sense? If not, I will try again.

It's a focus locus hocus pocus show!  Ha ha ha! Where the hell did that come from?

I make light of it. (pun intended) But it carries a sense of sacredness and awe - in the most lighthearted, wise, exuberant, sober and insightful way.

No my dear tides, thank you for your wonderful heart, you may have misunderstood me. I may have misled you with my post header. In a big way, I can never be truly stuck again.

Astral projection is stuck, that's all. This body-mind wants to unstick it now to enlarge the playground.

It will unstick when it's good and ready. I'm here to play with it more, learn, try, fail, and succeed because I enjoy it.

And yes, divine friend, I know God's blessings in my life. It is my life. The whole shitshow of it all - is a blessing. And o yes, I can't agree more - the ordinary is the extraordinary. Utterly inexplicable, mysterious, those tiny details, like moss, bees wings and bird feathers. To feel and to know, as you say! Wonderfully put. Bless you. I concur.

May peace follow you like a shadow, may insight mug you in the alley, may love steal your umbrella and shower on your head!

Thanks for taking the time to write, tides. I appreciate your energy.

Thanks for the reply and the encouragement. I will check out the links to see if there's anything hiding there that I've missed.  I'm also mining the posts here and finding all the roadblocks I've encountered so far - reaffirming that we're all just different skin cells on the same living body. I feel like I should have had all this Astral business down by age 13 - like I know it all already, somewhere in my hinterbrain - but oh well - the Great Cosmic Joker has its sense of humor too! 

Hello everyone - this is my first message here - I hope it's in the right place. Your expertise and caring energy is appreciated - thanks for providing this wonderful resource. I will read more as I get time. Here's where I am:

In 2008 I had a spontaneous satori, and I fell into what Kepple calls focus 4. That place where everything is one, and all is connected. Formless love. Being, wisdom and understanding itself. I see it as the seed of the universe tree, and here on the physical we are but the leaves. For two weeks I was in total samadhi, as if lucid dreaming and wide awake day and night. For a year I was in both realities, here and other, deeper here, in and out in waves. Later it all settled down. I naturally became interested in all things spiritual, including the astral reality.

I got a book called A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming by Dylan Tuccillo and others, and I tried really really hard for about a year or three, with almost no success, so I gave up, but it was there in the background. Recently it has appeared on my inner radar again, and I can feel it cooking.

A few nights ago (weeks) I had the vibrations, much more intensely than normal, and I knew what they were, so I surrendered and let it kill me. I separated, feet first, and found myself in a dream house, where I went to the mirror and saw my face. "My hair looks a bit longer. Interesting." I went to the lounge and saw my guitar, and fell onto the couch - an old couch i had years ago. I got really excited, "I'm out! I'm out!" (I know, newbie stuff! and physically stimulated to the point of getting turned on - and snap - I was back in my body.

I've been trying really, really hard for about three weeks now. I know I'm trying too hard. I'm losing a lot of sleep, and can't seem to pop out. I can feel I'm on the threshold - really close - and I'm blocking myself somehow. I've read a lot, and listened to a lot of advice. A lot. I've tried multiple exit techniques, and I'm a long time meditator, so relaxing is like breathing for me. When I meditate I just go quiet. I don't think, I don't focus, I just be. It's wonderful - a kind of low grade samadhi, and it follows me through life. My whole life has become a meditation, and it's no longer a practice for me. I have grown in insight and understanding in incredible ways, and my heart has opened wide - and now this astral thing seems to be knocking on the door. I am excited to explore - but I'm getting in my own way. I just can't get out of the body.

I think part of the problem is that I'm so attuned to the energy system in the physical body. After a big car accident I had a lot of work to do in that area, and it has become my default to do the cellular healing thing. It keeps me in the body.

Kepple's phasing makes sense to me. I read his stuff and listened to it on youtube as well. I know it's the way - so my focus has been trying not to actually leave the body, separate with vibrations, but just phase. I've tried incorporating Active Imagination (from Jung), I've tried ladders, ropes, swimming, wobbling, wriggling, floating, rolling, flying, dropping, popping, sniffing, farting my way out - but no go. I tried giving up and letting it happen. I tried fighting hard and not giving up. I tried giving up and not giving up at the same time. I tried ignoring the sign posts and focusing on the destination. I think I want to stop trying altogether, so this whole message is a kind of "someone please pull me out already and tell me what I'm messing up."

Thanks!