Astral Projection, Ego, and Arrogance

by Bob Peterson

Today I want to talk about ego. The bottom line is that astral projection can cause some people to over-inflate their ego and become arrogant.

When you start having out-of-body experiences or astral projections, it's easy to fall into the ego trap. This is especially true when you learn to self-induce them regularly. Since most people can't leave their physical body at will, it's easy to think you're special, you're better than ordinary people. After all, you've seen things "normal" people don't see: you've seen "the afterlife." You've seen astral planes, spirits, angels, light beings, akashic records, non-physical cities. You've felt things others don't, like the incredible feeling of flying free without boundaries or devices. You may have met spiritual masters like Jesus and attended their lectures. You may have flown to the stars, or explored the craters of the moon. You may have explored the depths of the oceans. You may have done healing, witnessed life-planning. You may have visited the distant past our incredible future. You've caught glimpses of a deeper reality, other worlds that evade "ordinary" people. It's easy to think "I'm special, I'm magical, I'm better than everyone else." And it's easy to look down on other people as mere "Muggles."

It's the same thing with computers. As a career computer professional, I met a lot of very arrogant people with huge egos. Back in college, my friends and I used to brag about how many computer languages we knew. Back in the day I was fluent in Fortran, Pascal, C, Basic, Cobol, Snobol, C++, Compass assembler, 8080 assembler and others. For today's kids, it's Java, Java script, Python, Bash scripting, Rust, Go, TypeScript, Kotlin, Swift, and guess what? It's all meaningless. No matter how much you know about computers, there's always someone more knowledgeable or better. And there are always things you don't know.  I sometimes wonder if there's some "final boss" at the top who is unmatched, like maybe Linus Torvalds.

It's the same thing with martial arts. In college I used to practice Tai Chi, Chin Na, and some Shaolin Kung Fu, and I met some very arrogant people along the way. Most of the greatest Kung Fu movies are about ego, and who is the "final boss." There's always someone better. (As an aside, I love love love the "Ip Man" movies).

But it's all a trap. It's all a distraction. The ancient Buddhist and Hindu teachers knew that thousands of years ago, and cautioned us against it. The fact is, the more you learn to see and understand, the more you know you don't know. You realize there are layers upon layers, and each is greater than the last, and that applies to aspects of "self," as well as aspects of reality. You come to realize we are all one, and that separation is an illusion. 

The more you see, the more you realize we're just a speck of nothing. The more you see, the more you realize your "ego"--the conscious you--is only a tiny fraction of your greater self. Your entire lifetime is only one of thousands. Or as Kansas put it, "All we are is dust in the wind."

To feel or act like you're better or superior to another person is, in fact, just like an ant thinking he's better than the microbe. Or the microbe thinking he's better than the molecule. Or the molecule thinking he's better than the atom, or the atom thinking he's better than the neutrino. Get it? Any comparison is so trivial it's laughable. 

In the end, our bodies all end up in a box or an urn, but our spiritual essence--the soul--lives on in another layer. After we die, we judge ourselves, not by what we learned or how much better we were than others, but by how we treated other people and animals, how we helped them or hurt them; how we lifted them up or tore them down. So tearing someone else down is just like gnawing on your own leg. At first it might taste good, but it's wrought with your own pain and suffering. But lifting up another person is like ascending with them. Raising consciousness for one is raising consciousness for all.

I'm reminded of the song "Lonely is the Word" by Black Sabbath from the Ronnie James Dio era. Here's a quote:

"I've been higher than stardust
I've been seen upon the sun
I used to count in millions then,
but now I only count in One.
Come on, join the traveler
If you've got nowhere to go
Hang your head and take my hand
It's the only road I know"

Bob Peterson,
02 June 2026