If you look at an hourglass, you will note that the upper portion is the future, the sand that has not yet passed through the neck. The lower portion is the past, the sand that has fallen from the neck. The neck is the most important part because it is the present, the narrow passage between the future and the past, the thing that is happening, the now, where we are.

Here is an important principle. You cannot touch the future because it is still to come. And you cannot touch the past because it is gone and cannot be reversed. The sand passes from future to present to past. It is only in the present, in that narrow neck, that you can act, and where you have complete control, the electric moment when you form your destiny with your own hands.

Astral Travel, literally “journey to a star,” is the ability of a spirit to leave its body and travel instantly to any place, far or near, just at the thought of it. In other words, it means to travel outside the realm of time and space.

The body, embedded in time and space, is a hindrance to Astral Travel. Without the body, the spirit is free. Perhaps you have heard of people who “died” and returned to life saying their spirit could see their lifeless body on the ground.

I had such an uncle. He fell from a tree and he said his spirit floated and he saw his body on the ground. Somehow, he achieved the separation of the spirit from the body. He said he traveled to some place. Then he returned and his spirit was reunited with his body. He left the time-space world, did some astral travel, then returned. The first thing he asked for was water.

Philosophers say the soul can transcend time and space and become “cosmic,” meaning it can go anywhere instantly just at the thought of it. Psychologists say we normally use only about 10 percent of our mental power. If we somehow learn how to increase that to 60 percent to 80 percent, we can possibly achieve astral travel, perhaps in a “dream state.”

As a boy, I dreamt I was “flying” above the trees and could see the small people and cars below. Suddenly, I woke up. The dream was so clear. I tried hard to sleep again and go back to that dream. I succeeded and began controlling my flight. It was a wonderful feeling that I could fly in my dream. I achieved semi-astral travel. This happened several times. Then it was all gone.

Albert Einstein explained Astral Travel without knowing it, through his famous equation e=mc2, meaning, energy (e) equals mass (m) times the square of the speed of light (c). The equation mathematically says that if you attain the speed of light (c), your mass (m) is zero, which implies you are no longer here but somewhere else, perhaps in another dimension, another time-space continuum. This is just a theory.

The point of my story is that we have the power to forge our own destiny by the sheer power of the mind and heart working together.