The Astral World by Swami Panchadasi:

this is a great little book that tells all about the seven astral planes, astral regions, higher planes, astral entities, and much more. it's kind of like a field guide to the astral world. this book was written around the 1920's.

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Journeys out of the Body by Robert Monroe

robert monroe began writing this book in the 50's, when he first started having out-of-body experiences. he documents and categorizes with detail all of his astral experiences. this is the first book about astral projection that i read, and it is a fascinating read.

 

Out of Body Experiences: how to have them and what to expect
by Robert Peterson

robert peterson, an avid reader of robert monroe, tells in his book what the other books never told him. this book is casual and friendly, and assures readers that anyone can have an OBE, and relates the difficulties and discoveries in his personal quest for OBE.

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Creation itself can be described by the smell in a room. When you walk into room and smell, say, some vanilla extract, it is only a matter of minutes before you become accustomed to the smell, and no longer realize its presence. at this point, you easily forget what the smell of vanilla actually smells like. So in order to experience the joy of smelling it for the first time again, you must leave the room; you must experience the opposite of that wonderful aroma. This is the nature of the yin and the yan, good and evil, hot and cold, up and down, and all other polarities. The universe began when All There Is needed to experience the infiniteness of its own existence, to experience itself, and it could only do this by creating Everything That Is, as well as Everything That Is Not.

when we don't learn from it

Most people at this moment are living their lives backward. They try to have more things in order to do more of what they want, so that they will be happier.

The way I think it works is the reverse. If you first be who you really are (happy, wise, compassionate, etc.), then you will automatically do everything from this place of being. Then, you will find that what you are doing will bring you what you've always wanted to have.

if we cannot find it in the present

if all of the world's problems were solved

Like the many fingers of one hand, we as humans are all unique, but one in the same. If you truly know and live this, you will never do anything that hurts or damages another, for you will only be (eventually) hurting your self. This is what is meant by the phrase "what goes around comes around," It's the cosmic law of cause and effect. Because of the illusion of time, we cannot see the instantaneousness of the time between "what goes around" and what "comes around". This is unlike the physical universe, where you can witness the action of throwing a rock in a pond and the reaction of the ripples in the water in an instant.

A recent example of this bit of wisdom can be found in the words of an American soldier from the war in Iraq. He said you can't kill someone without killing a part of yourself.

there would be nothing left for us to do

Everything you do, you do for yourself because you and all others are One (as mentioned in "Fingers on the hand"). What you do for another, you therefore do for you. What you fail to do for another, you fail to do for you. What is good for another is good for you, and what is bad for another is bad for you.

everything you say and do declares "this is who i am"

Time is an illusion. Everything that ever happened, is happening, and will happen, exists in the moment of Now. The human perception is shielded from actual infinity by the illusion of time. Each and every feasible future event is happening right Now. When we create our future, we are selecting merely one of the infinite number of possible outcomes. This is why the future cannot always be predicted, and why there is no such thing as ultimate, unchangable destiny.

it becomes truth

Is the soul contained within the body? It may be that the soul contains the body. Imagine a mansion. One room in the mansion represents your body. The other rooms are the bodies of every other person on the earth. This of course, would be a very large mansion, but that's besides the point. The air in the room of your body is your soul. The air in that one room may have different traits than the air in another room. It may be warmer, for example. Yet the air in one room is still the same air that is in the other room. We are all one, we are the fabric of life itself manifested as individual people.

Right and Wrong are simply labels that a society places on anything. Some might say that killing is always wrong, but they wouldn't say that it's wrong if it was in self defense. There's exceptions to each right and wrong we have labeled in the world. This is why I say Everything is relative.

What you think, you create. What you create, you experience. What you experience, you think. In this way, change can come about through a new thought. For example, when you think "I'm a loser," that thought's negative energy will manifest itself as a negative experience through your creation. If your new thought is "I'm happy and successful," this repeated thought will begin to create happiness and success in your life.

Everything is made up of vibration. matter, sound, light and thought are all examples of such. The human body is made up of energy centers, most commonly called "chakras." Every vibration, or energy, is influential towards other vibrations. This can be noted in "Think, Create, Experience." Thought is power, and collective thought is even more powerful. Each thought you have is broadcasted out into the universe amongst the billions of other thoughts floating around.

In generating compassion, you recognize that you do not want suffering, and you have a right to happiness. This can be verified or validated by your own experience. You then recognize that other people, just like yourself, do not want to suffer, and that they also have the right to happiness. So this becomes the basis of your beginning to generate compassion. Let us meditate on compassion today. Begin by visualising a person who is accutely suffering. Someone who is in pain, or is in a very unfortunate situation. For the first 3 minutes of this meditation, reflect on that person's suffering in a more analytic way. Think about their intense suffering and the unfortunate state of that person's existence. After thinking about that person's suffering for a few minutes, next try to relate that to yourself thinking, "that individual has the same capacity for experiencing pain, joy, happiness and suffering that I do. Then try to allow your natural response to arise; a natural feeling of compassion towards that person. Try to arrive at a conclusion. thinking how strongly you wish for that person to be free fom that suffering, and resolve that you will help that person to be relieved from their suffering. Finally, place your mind single pointedly on that kind of conclusion, or resolution. And for the last few minutes of the meditation, try to simply generate in your mind a compassionate, loving state.