Understanding Soul Travel

Reading Time: 8 minutes

Guest Post by Doug Marman

From: The Whole Truth—The Spiritual Legacy of Paul Twitchell
Chapter 10

A few chapters back, we discussed the idea that by publicly passing judgment upon others we can freeze our perceptions about them and limit our ability to learn. When our criticisms are displayed before the world and we fight to defend what we have said, this tends to solidify our opinions. We become committed to a stance. We draw a line in the sand for the world to see, and this makes it more difficult for our point of view to flow and change smoothly to see things differently. This problem represents the tip of an interesting iceberg.

All religious teachings tend to crystallize over time. This is a sign that perceptions are becoming hardened and learning has slowed down. However, it is not just public criticism that creates this; public praise has the same effect. 

People like to simplify religious teachings into dogmatic phrases, mentalized concepts and basic ideals so they can file these belief systems away into neat little boxes. Then, after thousands of public statements, whether for or against a religion, perceptions start to become frozen, and the real spiritual essence becomes lost.

This is nothing new. The Tao-Te-Ching, written some 2500 years ago said,

That which can be described
Is not The Way.
The name that can be named
Is not the eternal Tao.

About 1000 years ago, a Sufi teacher said something very similar:

Sufism used to be a spiritual teaching without a name.
Now it has become a name without a teaching.

For the same reason, Eckankar says that only a small fraction of the teachings can be revealed through books or lectures. But even words like these become crystallized over time and hide their true meaning, because it is not just new Masters who keep the teachings from hardening and dying over time. Each student, inwardly and outwardly, also plays a role as well. It is when seekers find new spiritual rivers and worlds to explore that the teachings continue to flow. But if those in search of Truth choose the comfortable and familiar instead, then even spiritual leaders may not be able to keep an outer teaching from falling into ritual.

What this all comes down to is that Spirit always finds new ways of expressing Itself, and unless we are continually willing to drop everything we ever thought was true, we will miss the rebirth of the teachings. 

Therefore, the path of ECK is not about committing ourselves to mentalized beliefs, but simply following the spirit of Truth, as it manifests in the moment. As Harold Klemp once said, we must re-win our connection with Spirit every day. So, we must also rediscover the path over and over. 

A New Look at Soul Travel

This is exactly what Soul Travel is about: throwing away the fixed states of mind. But in a strange twist, the idea of Soul Travel itself has become a frozen concept for many.

In going over Paul’s early writings, it strikes me how the Science of Soul Travel has almost been lost. This might seem like a strange comment, but looking back I can see that Paul continued to change his way of talking about Soul Travel. He never became fixed in his explanations. Starting with Bi-Location and the idea of being in more than one place at a time, he then took up the term Soul Travel and spent numerous articles saying that it was nothing like astral projection.

In other words, he was teaching a way of getting outside of traditional worldviews, to seeing and experiencing everything through Soul. This is what keeps us from getting stuck in beliefs, because we learn to see from all points of view, which is the natural perspective of our true Self. The greatest danger for any spiritual seeker is thinking they have gained the ultimate truth. This is exactly how spiritual teachings harden into religious beliefs. Followers start having spiritual experiences that only reinforce their ideas. They stop having realizations that surprise them. The unexpected always comes from outside of what we know. Therefore, we need to continually get outside our way of seeing things if we want to continue growing spiritually.

So, let’s continue in Paul’s evolutionary teaching style and thaw out our concepts of Soul Travel. We can start by reading how Paul described it in his second Illuminated Way Letter, May 1966:

Actually, Soul Travel is not a projection of the subtle bodies as one might think, but an expansion of awareness into those areas where we want to be. It has nothing to do with astral travel, which is a limited form of movement, nor with the mental body and other lower bodies wrapped about Soul in order to protect it in the lower worlds. We find that Soul can be as small as an acorn or as large as the whole universe, according to Its own desire. This being true, it puts us in the position of having as much space as we desire, with a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree vision. It is really up to us as to how much awareness we desire to have at any time—this is sometimes called being in all places at once with Total Awareness.

This is where we are heading—the area of Total Awareness, or God-Consciousness, as it is often called. This is the modus operandi in which many Spiritual Travelers are working, and that in which each of us may at some time or other find ourselves. It is not difficult, but it means we must develop the state of God-Consciousness. This can be done by acting as an agent of God, meaning, of course, that everything we do, say and think is done for God only…

The word “uplift” means opening the consciousness. When Christ said, “Whosoever cometh to me will I lift up,” he was saying that he would open their consciousness (Soul) so the Divine Spirit could flow through in greater quantity into the world of matter. This means we are able to project whenever we wish or expand the awareness to the area that we want to know about and even appear to those who are able to see us.

If you see what Paul is saying, Soul Travel has nothing to do with projection, not even projection of the Soul body, as the word seems to suggest. Nor is it about raising our state of consciousness. It is all about EXPANSION of consciousness. This may seem like a subtle distinction, but there is a world of difference.

In Paul’s ever evolving teaching, he used the term Total Awareness. Why? Because he wanted to show that Soul has no limitations in what It can be aware of. Soul can have that 360-degree perception. Do you get a sense of what Paul was referring to? It has nothing to do with becoming aware of all physical things, everywhere. That’s not what Paul meant.

Paul was simply correcting the idea that Soul Travel was some form of projection. Rather, Soul, of Itself, can be aware of a single event, or can EXPAND in consciousness to experience the whole universe. This shift in viewpoint is what is meant by Soul Travel. Although there is often a feeling of motion or movement, in fact, Soul does not move anywhere since Soul’s awareness permeates all of Life. Soul simply becomes aware.

The problem with raising the consciousness is that it can pull our awareness away from this body and this world where we live. It can split us off, as Paul said. If practiced over a long time this can cause difficulties. I’ve seen a number of Eckists who’ve misunderstood this point, and after many years began to feel as if parts of their lives were missing. This problem is even more common amongst students of Sant Mat.

They lose touch with their families. Physical things become harder for them. Some even get to the point where they intuitively feel the need to stop doing their spiritual exercises because it is creating a physical imbalance. This is the problem with trying to raise the consciousness over long periods of time. 

That, however, is not the goal on the path of Truth. Rather, we look to EXPAND our consciousness so the higher states become ours, while at the same time maintaining awareness of our physical life. This is what EXPANDING our consciousness means—spanning our awareness across a greater range.

This is the same thing as learning to live in cities while staying in touch with nature, or being part of a family while retaining our individual lives. In the same way, we can follow a religious teaching and discover new inner worlds and continents because Soul sees from all perspectives.

As Paul pointed out, even the word “uplift” means an OPENING in consciousness, not the raising of consciousness, like it sounds. Therefore, if we loosen our hold on the idea of Soul Travel, we see that in fact we could call it SOUL EXPANSION, even though, like Soul Travel, this term is only partially correct since Soul of Itself doesn’t actually expand. It is just our awareness and attention that opens into the unlimited perceptions of Soul.

When first beginning Soul Expansion, we find an interesting thing: We often have the feeling of actually leaving the physical body. However, the more we become adept at the extension of consciousness, the more our body remains a part of our awareness while increasing beyond it. We contain the awareness of both, which is what Paul meant by being in two places at the same time. This is exactly the opposite of Astral Travel, which preserves the experience of separateness and “otherness.”

This should answer the question that many ECKists have asked: Why were their most phenomenal out-of-the-body experiences in their early days with Eckankar? This happens because Soul gets used to limited frames of perception after living in a physical body for a long time. It forgets how to see from two places at the same time. So, when Soul finally begins extending Its awareness beyond the body, at first It shifts Its narrow focus all at once. The result is a dramatic experience.

In other words, in the beginning Soul holds onto this sense of separateness that comes from the body consciousness. But as Soul experiences the expanded state more and more, Its perceptions become more like Spirit itself. Soul starts to see Itself as an intimate part of all Life. It becomes both the body and the universe. It experiences limitation and yet is eternal. The hard walls of separation begin breaking down as it explores the spiritual worlds. Limitations become nothing more than experiences. Therefore, Soul no longer identifies with the body alone. It begins to hear and recognize the language of God, Itself. It can merge into the Sound Current and follow it.

Thus, the phenomenal experiences fade as Soul discovers true freedom of consciousness. The “solidness” and “otherness” of the outside world becomes infused with Spirit and Consciousness. Soul then learns to follow spiritual currents both upward and downward, in whatever way the path manifests itself in that moment. Therefore, frozen perceptions are nothing more than self-imposed limitations, and the true nature of Soul finds joy in changing points of view continually as It grows.

It should now be clear that Soul Expansion is nothing like the practices of Sant Mat, which focus on moving the spiritual currents to the Tisra Til (Third Eye), and then raising the consciousness into higher states, beyond the body. This is also why Soul Travel seems so much more natural and effortless, even though it still requires discipline to learn.

Please visit Doug’s website for more information about this book, his other books, and his recent interviews: https://spiritualdialogues.com

To download Doug’s free booklet, “Understanding Soul Travel,” please click on the link.

Please note: Articles on this site are reflections of the contributors’ own spiritual understandings and do not speak for any spiritual path, teacher, or religion.