Out-of-body experiences

(Mother:) “You know, one of the first times when I came out of my body, it was in a train. I think it was one of the first times, well, it was probably one of the first times. It happened like this: I was travelling in a fast train towards Marseille. It was a fast train which went directly from Paris to Marseille. Only it stopped briefly midway. I forget the name of the station... Yes, yes it was Lyon. The fast train started towards evening from Paris, stopped at Lyon for some minutes, and the next morning we alighted in Marseille. It was long, the distance, but it was a fast train which stopped nowhere except in Lyon, and at the end of the night, we found ourselves in Marseille. And this train was fast. As I had the whole night to travel I looked for a place in the compartment to sleep or to stretch myself. Then, I lay down and fell asleep.
         Then, I came out of my body after some time, and I began to wander in the train, in the corridors, in the long compartment where I saw people who were sleeping, each one in his own way. They slept soundly and I saw these people. I passed from one compartment to the other and I was floating here and there. It was so amusing to see these people who were sleeping peacefully. I did not disturb them, but I saw them as clearly as one would see them with the physical eyes. I tell you, it was as concrete as seeing them physically.
         Then I roamed a little more and when I returned, I saw that my body was rigid and immobile. The first impression I had was that the body I left behind had no life. It was as immobile as that. I looked at it from above as if it was a garment that I had discarded in order to take up another. Moreover, the experience was so concrete and living that there was no doubt that it was by far the best way to see things. Then I re-entered this rigid body, I remembered one after another, what had happened, and how I came out of this body and began to move from one compartment to another to see the spectacle which was unfolding in this fast train while they were sleeping at night. And early in the morning when I woke up, I went round to see the compartments in order to verify whether my experience was real. And what did I see? It was the same scene that I had seen at night. I found each one in his place as I had seen them last night. They were nearly in the same position. I could recognise them very well, for it was still vivid in my memory. And it was exactly what I was witnessing now physically, as concrete as this. This experience reinforced my conviction that there was a truer way of seeing than with these physical eyes.”

(Medhananda:) “Haven't I ever told you about the time I left my body on the marketplace in Papeete? It was during the time when my wife had gone to take the children to school in France, and I was looking after a chemists' shop for a friend in his absence. The market starts at five in the morning, and by six-thirty or seven it is more or less finished. If you want good fish, you must go there at five when the fishermen have just come in. The fish are sold strung together on a cord. You have to buy a whole string of eight or ten fish. So there I was at the market. Just being their so early in the morning, and in such a crowd, was strange. Suddenly I became aware that I had left my body somewhere there in the marketplace, gazing at the fish.

What did it do there, all on its own?

What everybody does... People don't do much – it got jostled around a bit. When I wanted to return to my body, it was impossible to remember what earth I belonged to, what solar system, what galaxy. There are lots of earths, even inhabited ones. It is a problem if you lose your connection with your body, especially in an expanding universe where you are in danger of getting further and further away from it.
         I was like a tiny child with those vastnesses, which began to question me. And suddenly I remembered, “Sri Aurobindo!” I came from Sri Aurobindo's planet. “Ah!” they seemed to exclaim, these cosmic entities who look after the intergalactic traffic, “Sri Aurobindo! You should have said that to start with!” And contact was re-established with this poor body standing in the middle of the marketplace.
         It was used to my wanderings and knew that I would come back, but normally I would leave it in a quiet corner somewhere. That unusual situation in the marketplace happened under the unconscious protection of a particularly kindly race. In a big European or American city it might have developed into a tragedy.”

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See also

• Trance