During one of the discussions about meditation, John grew very interested and decided to try this himself. He asked her after class for some instructions on how to do this and the teacher gave him some simple exercises to try. He went home that night and began to practice. He was able to relax and calm himself over time. After about a month of doing practice, he had a strange experience. While very deep in meditation, he had a strange feeling. He was suddenly not lying down anymore, but was standing on the other side of the room. Puzzled, he turned around and could still see himself lying on the bed. He walked towards his body and just before he got close enough, suddenly found himself on the bed again.
He was very stunned by this and asked the teacher for advice. The teacher was very excited about this, and told him that what he had felt was a spontaneous out of body experience. She said that the more he practiced this, the more he would be able to control it.
John went home again that night and tried to repeat the experience. He succeeded after a few hours of trying. He found himself out of body in his bedroom. He decided to see what he could do without his body. He found that he could float and rose up out of the house. He saw the lights in the distance and the sounds of cars going up and down the road near the house.
He turned around and looked at his house and he could see what looked like a white rope trailing from him down into his house. The teacher later explained to him that this was his silver cord, that which connects him to his physical body when he leaves it. If the cord is broken, you cannot get back into the body.
He decided to float towards a car and see if he could see the driver. He did this and came up to one of the driver’s windows of a moving car. He could see the driver, when suddenly; the driver turned his head and looked at John. He gasped in fear and John was startled also. He suddenly found himself inside his body again. Still in a relaxed state, he decided to not move for a bit, until he heard the police sirens outside. Curious, he went out and found that the car that he had seen had actually driven into the guardrail on the side of the road. He didn't get close enough to see the driver, but found that he was OK, if a little shaken. He went back to his house feeling very strange.
The next day he told his teacher about the experience. She was amazed by it. She told him he should be careful when confronting people. She wasn't sure why that person could see him; perhaps that person was sensitive to such things. John not being one to back down, and loving an adventure decided to continue with his practicing. His innocent and curious adventure was about to take a different turn.
The next week he practiced much, but still being shook up from the car accident experience found trouble getting out of body. Eventually after he started to forget about it more and more, he soon found himself out of body again. Not sure of what to do, and being an avid reader and lover of science fiction, he decided to see if he could travel to another planet. He said he wanted to go to the most beautiful planet in the galaxy. Suddenly he felt himself hovering in space above a strange world that was not earth. It was made up of very weird colors. He slowly fell through the clouds onto the surface. He could see strange plants and animals, of very different and exotic colors.
Suddenly he saw what looked like a man and a woman and yet their faces were those of cats. They looked at him and he looked at them. Suddenly one of them, the female, took off into the air straight up at a great speed. He wondered where she was going, so he followed her. She was following along his silver cord. He did not have a good feeling about this. He chased her and overtook her just as she was nearing his house. He snapped back into his body and awoke with a start. For a split second he could see the female she-lion at the end of his bed roaring in rage, and then it was gone.
Needless to say, he was freaked out completely. When he told the teacher about it, she did not know what to say or advise since she had not encountered anything like this before in her studying. John stopped his meditating.
It was many years later when he was stationed in the army in Great Britain that he began to meditate again. A few months passed and he felt more comfortable with it. Then one day he had an out of body. He always wondered what had been the deal with the planet and the felines. He decided to go back and look around again. He went to the planet and as he was floating down through the clouds, he saw many of the felines standing and floating in the clouds also. One of them said to him as he saw the group, 'John, you should not have come back.' Then three of them tried to hold him, while two others flew off in the direction he had come from following his cord. He fought back with everything he had and was able to break free and get away from the creatures. With no time to spare he returned to his body, just beating the two cat men back to his body. This was the last time he ever tried to meditate.
From my own experience when I heard this story, I was very curious as to what it was that was attacking him. In my studies I found out about an old legend from India. The Rakasha or lion men they were called. They were evil spirits who attempted to possess human bodies and do great evils upon them and their families. In another book on out of body, I read of a man who was attacked by lion creatures while he was out of body one night. OK, so there is more to this then just a story. So how to combat it if one is able to travel out of body. Reading further, I learned of spiritual protection, sometimes called white light. Something John had never learned about, which could possibly have protected him from the creatures.
In ending I feel that to dabble into the mystical is good, but caution must be taken, and reading of the ups and downs one can face go a long way to help you on your path.