Getting to the Astral Ashram
AC 426B: November 6, 2010 (Boston)
[Part II]
This portion of the adventure may seem like a regular dream. I recount it here because it demonstrates a process I call after-the-fact lucidity. This term refers to a process of probing imagery remembered from an adventure in consciousness while writing down that adventure. It amounts to shifting away from the imagery (a form of information) to the energy aspect (which reveals true function).
In Otherwhere, published in 2001, I developed a "map" of nonphysical reality by using the mass transit system in Boston, where I live. My adventures in consciousness took me into various realms that were differentiated from each other by the mode of transit. Boston has a subway system in which the train routes are differentiated by color (Red Line, Blue Line, Orange Line, Silver Line), an extensive local and regional bus system, a commuter rail service that operates locally and regionally, and long-distance train service via AMTRAK.
This portion of my adventure placed me in relation with various aspects of the Boston mass transit system. I was not lucid enough to know where I was from this information during the experience itself. But when I was writing the experience down, I realized that I was using this imagery from waking life to help me orient myself to a specific destination in Otherwhere. After-the-fact lucidity allowed me to figure out that destination and this account shows the process. So here's the first part of my adventure.
I came into town on the Orange Line, the Boston subway system that begins a couple blocks away from my home. I got off at Downtown Crossing, an important public transit transfer point. Walking down Summer Street, I made my way to South Station, where the Red Line subway, many commuter rail trains, AMTRAK, and a number of regional bus lines originate. Once inside South Station, however, I found myself in an environment quite different from the busy transportation hub I expected. It was more like the inside of a movie theater.
As I wrote in Otherwhere, the Boston public transit system supplied a number of images for understanding how I got from one area of Otherwhere (nonphysical reality) to another. The Orange Line was the Earth to Otherwhere (EA) Line. Just as the signs at the station I usually start out from (Forest Hills) say Inbound, so does the EA line take me inward from the surface level of sleep in which I’m semiconscious of my physical body on my bed to the astral plane.
Downtown Crossing is the point where the Orange Line and the Red Lines intersect. If I’m going to Cambridge, home of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University, I get off the Orange Line at Downtown Crossing, walk through a tunnel, and get on an outbound Red Line Train. I’ve always noticed that the average intelligence of the Red Line riders seems higher than that of the Orange Line riders. Therefore, the transfer point between the Orange Line and the Red Line involves going inbound to the astral plane, and then outbound from that plane into the mental plane.
The Downtown Crossing area is a little seedy, though also a major shopping destination. The Theater District is nearby. These facts make it an apt symbol for the astral plane. The seediness represents the lower levels of the astral plane, full of the undesirable entities I call Creatures (also called negs, short for negative entities, by veteran astral traveler Robert Bruce). The shopping area hints at the theosophical definition of the astral plane, kama loka, Sanskrit for realm of desire. A shopping area is ostensibly full of things we desire. The Theater District hints at the main function of the astral plane for living humans–it’s the Dream Zone, the place where our dreams are enacted.
For the spiritualists, the highest level of the astral plane is a somewhat materialistic heaven called Summerland. People who have died often spend some time there enjoying the activities they enjoyed on Earth. The weather is always perfect. One psychic has even likened it to a magnificent golf course for those who love golf.
Summer Street does indeed lead from the Downtown Crossing Station to South Station. My walking along it indicated that I was not headed to the mental plane on this trip to Otherwhere, but to Summerland.
In past adventures, I’d learned of an ashram on the upper mental plane. It served the purpose of offering training and delegating missions to transcendental souls at a certain level of development–the more advanced Facilitators and early level Administrators who worked on the mental plane. I also knew that a similar ashram existed on the Summerland level of the astral plane, catering to less evolved transcendental souls who were acting as Facilitators on that plane, such as Personal Trainers in the Dream Zone. I’d visited that ashram once, but only to locate it. I hadn’t entered and explored it.
In the present adventure I represented this ashram to myself as South Station. As the origin of the Red Line, South Station represented the gateway to the lower mental plane. Individuals with access to the highest level of the astral plane can travel freely, via astral projection, on all the lower subplanes, as well as anywhere on the physical plane. This is why I saw the astral plane ashram as an important transportation hub.
The two main areas of the astral plane in our reality/learning system are the Dream Zone and the Afterdeath Zone. The regional bus lines could represent travel to the Dream Zone, since one of the prominent carriers departing from South Station is Peter Pan. But these lines would only be used by Dreamers–living human beings who were awake and active on the astral plane.
The commuter rail could represent travel to the Afterdeath Zone for the Facilitators who work there–the commuters, as it were. AMTRAK could represent astral travel to distant locations on the physical plane.
In Otherwhere, I described what I called Grand Central Station, from which various forms of transportation took off into different regions of Otherwhere. I believe the current adventure provides a more refined version of the Grand Central Station imagery from twenty years ago.
In the earlier adventure, I explored three bus lines that took me into the Alternative Was, Is, and Will-Be Worlds. I believe these areas to be located in the mental plane Dream Zone. So the regional buses from South Station would not be confined to the astral plane Dream Zone. Similarly, the Afterdeath Zone has astral and a mental plane regions. So the commuter rail would serve either.
Boston also has a North Station as well as a South Station. The former serves the North Shore and points west, the latter serves the south shore and points west. In my adventures, north often represents the higher planes, closer to the Source (magnetic north). Thus, if the astral plane transportation hub is equated with South Station, there must also be a mental plane transportation hub, serving the mental and higher planes. North Station would be the mental plane ashram, as South Station is the astral plane ashram. What I described as Grand Central Station in Otherwhere, when I was not yet aware of the distinction between the astral and mental planes and had access only to the astral and lower mental planes through my mental body, was really South Station, the astral plane ashram.
But why do I equate the image of a transportation hub with an ashram? The answer to that question should become clear as I continue recounting my adventure.