What's the difference between meditation and astral projection?

I've come across in several places (literature, personal testimonies, etc) that people in deep meditation, their 'spirit' leaves their physical body to travel to other dimensions. Yogi masters, monks, mystics, etc all have discovered and learned profound wisdom during this time of meditation. Some even meditate continuously for months/years like Buddha boy. Some have traveled to the 22nd dimension and above and met/spoke with the Source/God.

So my question: Is meditation a form of projection? How's it different from astral projection as taught by AP and MAP? How are the techniques similar/different?

Meditation is a practice. Those who meditate deeply and within become 'non-local' and often leave their body's location. There are many ways to leave the body (more generally known as Out of Body Experience AKA 'OBE'). Mediators can 'leave' in a variety of OBE methods. Typically they are mental or spirit based versions of travel (no physical or energy body).

Astral travel is a specific form of OBE involving the projection of a duplicate energy (ethereal) and mental (awareness) body.

Though Astral travel is not the most common type of OBE during meditation, it does occur.

[advanced] The different forms of OBE have to do with what aspects are projected. Other than astral travel, phasing (a version of mental projection ref: Robert Monroe) is the most commonly practiced in the 'West'. Phasing is mostly a projection of a duplicate mental (awareness) body though certain energy abilities can also be projected. Note that there is no duplicate energy body. Many other combinations of bodies and aspects can be projected using a wide variety of OBE methods.

hmmm, anyone experiencing, is going to report as an experience, to say 'as if' because experience is all about the 'as if'. however, all experiences are self-contained within the one experiencing.

awareness is not like a fish in a fish tank, which grows so far as the tank dictates, that when moved into a larger tank, the fish grows to meet the tank's dictates.

awareness would be the reverse, that the larger is the sense of the tank, the smaller the fish is becoming. thus, one who is feeling the lack of experience, is 'as if' tightly packed within where they feel from.

now, meditation is like this minimalization of self, where the experiencer within where they feel from, investigates the scene. the scene choked like a street lamp on a summer's night within a dense cloud of moths. these moths are as thoughts, buzz buzzing around ina calamitous cloud of unknowing.

at first, the meditator feels to see nothing but darkness, for they are the lamp within the dense cloud. so, they have to get out, and beyond that cloud, to look back at what it is. well, there is the problem , one says. day needs to come so the light goes out, the moths leave. the lamp is not gone, clarity of eye still yet is. but the overall size of the seeming obstruction, the spherical inclusion of lamp plus attracted thoughts is now minimalized to merely the eye as the lamp.

reading to see, is like looking at the dark mass of thoughts which reading to see attracts. seeing to read, is like the minimalization where awareness extends well beyond the eye, where all the the eye sees is the eye, for within the eye is all manifest to the ever deepening consciousness where within all without would gather as scene.

so, now, ya might see, the difference between being empty and being full to running over. for such a sight cannot be contained, and rejoice exclaims, abounding of the abundance within felt. it becomes one that they must continously empty for each momentous sight from upon to within's fulness.

this is why it is said, "if there be darkness within you, how great is that darkness?" Jesus

whatever is within you is you and yours. how else does a butterfly land in your hand, if not because within you as yours, there was no question as to where your hand was reaching?

travel to meet God? hmmm, you read the literal, and are not seeing the experience shared as experiences described in terms the world might connect with. this even as what was experience was connected with through the very same terms.

the warp and woof of possibility is equal to the awareness ever expansive from the ever minimalizing focalization of self. this we call humility, and this humbledness is the experience of travel that would within felt as distancing, approachedly reach God for a talk. truth is, like a soup can, the can dont get smaller, only the matter/s within get smaller.

this can be seen in current science where within a chamber, the enterior's exacted contents, are driven to an ever increasing focal point compressive of oneness, and boom, a tiny little star is born. they cant keep it long, but they are experimentally successful for a mi-nute space of time placement.

now, the distant travel to talk to God was not to a distance away from yourself. the distance was within your self, in that as you compressively minimized toward sudden ignition, therein that ignition as star is precisely the location where self and God well met to talk. and that talk [spoken word] was creative toward filling to fulness, all that expansively beyond that ignition point universally...IS.

it sounds completely backwards to how we think as the experiencer. but, we forget how we get here, backwardsly.

stop thinking readable thoughts, and start seeing what's right in your face. but, where and how is your face seen?

it's what children do through the wide open eyes of awe. remember?

cog~ni~tion, or nigh unto nigh...boom....................................... ................ad infinitum fuses with endlessness.

the Lamp of Ages has two feeds, yet one wick. just like the focalizing human brain has two hemispheres and hope~fully, one localized whole being, Hu~man. sumptin like dat

awesomely so, there is no other being than Human, that without realizing, is already oned, otherwise we'd not BE as we are. for 'as we are' ~ 'aware'. how humbly mi-nute are we, to have forgotten how we've come to BE. yah, we've come a far piece, to be right here...boom....right now. rejoice

Tim

To simplify this some more, meditation is what you do, astral projection is what might happen when you meditate.