A simple guide to Inner Travel

Thought for the Week
This article gives a simple guide to inner travel. The key is a tool which is often neglected or lost in the busy lives we lead these days. This tool can transport us anywhere in an instant and we won’t have to pay air fares or taxes to get there! 

This wonderful tool is our imagination. It is something we all have. We use it every day to work out simple tasks, like what to have for dinner. Hmmm, will I have rice or potatoes? What will I have with it? What meat, which vegetables? While wondering about our dinner, we look at different pictures in our imagination to see which is most appetising. Then we make a decision, based on what we imagine will be the best meal for us. But we can use our imagination to do lots of things. For example we could use it to travel to anywhere we wish. As you read this we are going to try some Inner Travel.

A walk on the beach
Let’s get moving. Where would you like to go? Let’s try somewhere that you have probably been at some stage in your life. Let's go for a walk on the beach. Now we have some idea of a beach in our mind’s eye. As you answer the following questions, imagine the result, picture the elements and build up the scene.
What time of the year is it? Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter? 
What time of the day is it? Morning, evening or night time? 
What is the weather like? Sunny, cloudy, wet, dry, warm, or cold? 
Are you walking, running, strolling or drifting over the scene? 
Are you on your own or is there someone with you?

Now stop reading this, take time to enjoy and explore this scene as you close your eyes.

Well, how did it go? Did you enjoy the experience? Can you describe the place where you were? If you can, click on ‘Comments’ below and tell us your story. It will be interesting to read each others descriptions of where we were. I’ve added mine into Comments, how does it compare to yours?

Levels of inner travel
How did we travel there? We used our imagination to build the scene. It is very like day dreaming, where we move our attention within ourselves and ramble off into our thoughts and imagination.

There are different levels of inner travel. 
The first, is the one we just tried where we build up a scene in our imagination. 
The next level is day dreaming, where our attention has moved from our current physical location, to somewhere within our selves. 
The third stage is contemplation, where we are sitting or resting in a quiet place with our eyes closed and we consciously explore the worlds within us. 
The next level is dreaming, where our body is asleep and we are going about our life in our inner worlds, where we go every night when we sleep. 
The fifth level is Inner Travel or Soul Travel where we consciously move to another location while at the same time being aware of where we are physically. 
The final level is death where we leave our physical body permanently. 

Death is often feared
This last stage, death, is often feared by many but only because we are unaware of the worlds within. If we have had some practice and experience with inner travel, we begin to realise that death is just moving to our inner worlds and not coming back to the physical world for a time. It is a natural process but because we are ignorant of what happens and where we go when we die, we fear it. 

To help us loose our fear of death we should learn the key to inner travel. We can use any of the different stages above but we need to make an effort to remember our experiences and inner travels. Keeping a journal or diary of our travels is a great way of bringing our inner reality into our physical reality.

So let’s us the power of our imagination and go off on our inner travels. Tell us about your experiences by writing a few lines in ‘Comments’ below.

Bon voyage.


*Ed Parkinson

Comments

[Ed Parkinson]

Here's my experience of the walk on the beach:
I’m on a beach by a lake. The lake is near Blessington in County Wicklow, Ireland. I’m in a wet suit, as I’m planning on doing some wind surfing. The weather is dull but the breeze is warm, so it will be a pleasant day for sailing. The sun will shine through the clouds every now and again. The beach is sandy with a scattering of pebbles. There is a bridge nearby which the occasional car travels over. I'm looking forward to being on the board with the wind in the sail.

*Ed Parkinson

[Marlene]

Interesting an informative post - it is pleasant to travel in our minds. Thanks for the inspiriation.

[Ed Parkinson]

Once you get the hang of it, Marlene, you'll find it is really the only real way of travelling. We journey to discover ourselves.
*Ed

[Robert Ilechuku]

Another feature of the use of the imagination is how it can help us make contact with our inner guide.

I was at a spiritual meeting in South London 2 years ago when the moderator asked us to close our eyes and ask our inner guide for the answer to a specific question.

Closing my eyes, I imagined myself in the presence of my inner guide, a being known as Wah Z. The answer he gave to my question made no sense at all until I went home that evening and, on opening a book at random, came across an explanation of the very thing my inner guide had told me about.

Inner travel via the imagination is a powerful thing.

[Ed Parkinson]

Robert, that's an excellent example of how we can use our outer world to get an understanding of what we expereince in our inner worlds. It is wonderful how life, our inner guides and Holy Spirit can help us live a happier life.

[Robert Ilechuku]

The fear of death is a terrible thing and can severely blight life itself.

When I was 12 or so, my mother told me a story of how someone died in their sleep back home in Eastern Nigeria. For years afterwards I was haunted by this story and would try and stay awake at night for fear of death in the small hours.

But at university, years later, I became involved in a spiritual path that taught the value of regular spiritual exercises.

Unannounced, I made a sudden trip outside of the body one evening. This one out-of-the-body experience cured my fear of death forever.

After the fear had gone the next stage was to try to perfect the art of "death in life", to borrow a term used by a man called Paul Twitchell.

When this laptop stopped working properly about a year ago, I used this growing ability to travel inwardly to contact my inner guide, Wah Z, who told me what to do to get it working again.

[Ed Parkinson]

You seem to have a good grasp of Inner Travel, Robert. Enjoy the journey on your travels.
*Ed