For most of the exercises I do to build energy, stances, meditation, martial arts, etc etc..there is a passive phase and an active phase, a version in which you gather or refine or redistribute energy and a version in which you do something with it. It's the same for trancework in Sleeping Lion posture, or in any posture which allows you to completely relax but maintain an alert mind. (When your energy is very high you may be able to work from a posture like full lotus, without physical support, but it is simpler to find a way to relax and stop worrying about it. The goal here is to leave the body safely behind for awhile, whether it is sitting upright with perfect posture or not isn't critical.)
Some of the skills of the spirit warrior are based on very simple techniques. Those techniques have over the ages come to be thought of as the goal of the practise. They are not, they are just steps on the path. It's kind of a crushing blow when you realize this is true, because some of these techniques, when realized, are commonly thought to give a person everything imaginable. Then you get there and you see there is infinite work still ahead and that can be very disappointing. You grow up a little, you wonder why you thought such a simple thing was so important. Like gazing at candles, many people are taught to do this, thinking that when their focus and attention are perfect and there is no difference between them and the candle that is the ultimate. It isn't enlightenment at all, it's just a fact and a skill.
Focusing the attention is a mental skill and there are many ways to learn it. The classic method would be placing an object like a candle or a statue of a deity you admire at a point about six and a half feet away from you, at near waist level. Or if you are sitting on the ground, on the ground in front of you that far away. Then you look at that point and mentally focus on that point without thinking. You become aware of that point in the same way you become aware of your little toe if somebody steps on it, but you do it without the physical stimulus and instinctive reaction. You do it by will. When your mind wanders, you bring your attention back to that point without being concerned that your mind has wandered. When your gaze wanders, you do the same. No wrong effort, no failure possible, you just do it. Eventually the mind does grow quiet and in the final stages of this training you reach a mental state of pure awareness, there is no difference between you and that object, perception and object are realized as two expressions of a single truth. Hard to explain, it's like attaining the Sacred Silence in the Indian paths. When I did this, after many years of trying way too hard, I suddenly didn't exist any more. The world didn't exist any more. There was a gray void, but a finite one. Big enough to hold the universe, sure, but also with boundaries. Like an egg seen from the inside. Inside the egg was awareness, awareness was the egg. But there was no quality of perception and no object to perceive, awareness does not see itself as separate. So, as Awareness I looked around without eyes for awhile and suddenly a thought sprang into being, This is Boring. With that the world started up again. I did that three times in one evening, ended it the same way every time. I'm not fond of the Void, I guess.
So, having come back to this world of illusion in search of something interesting to do, I sought a way to use that skill, that ability to focus the mind on a single point for long periods. It turns out that there are many.
One way to understand this is to see mental focusing as a way of bringing Awareness to a particular point. It does not matter whether this point is inside your body or not, or whether it is within reach, or whether you can directly perceive it. If you can visualize that point you can bring Awareness to it no matter where it is. Where Awareness goes, energy follows. The medium that manifests physicality is an energetic one, and focusing Awareness in a particular point brings this energy and the potential for manifestation to that point.
Suppose you wanted to perceive something so distant that for you it is unreachable. To do that you create a mental image of the location and focus Awareness at that point, setting aside the limitations of the illusions of time and space. As Awareness builds at that point, a tangible energy also begins to build. With visualization techniques you can shape that energy into a usable form, like an eye. Creating an eye of energy automatically brings the intent of sight to that form, and as you shift Awareness more and more to that remote eye, your perceptions become visual ones centered in that place.
It's a little tricky, the mind and body don't particular like this idea. It's like pulling the Earth out from underneath you, really, definitions of reality get all screwed up when you start doing this. If you cling to rigid self concepts you can't do it at all. Success depends on giving up self concepts, allowing a new self to form, one which has open ended abilities. This infinite self is just Awareness and has always been here, but we get scared of that idea. We think that unless we continually reinforce self concepts we'll disappear forever. Hmm, in my experience that hasn't happened permanently. I've disappeared for a little while now and then, become other beings now and then, but always wound up back here. Until it's time to move on, that will continue to happen.
In actual practise, suppose you've done your physical stance and your sitting meditation and now you are calm and focused and highly charged. You lie down in your "sleeping asana" and you want to do some remote viewing. At first maybe you have a lot of doubts, preconceptions about your lack of ability, so it may be good to pick a place that you know, one that isn't too far away. The next room, maybe. So you focus your attention on a point nearby you, one that you can see, and when you are intensely aware of that point you close your eyes. With eyes closed you continue that focused awareness of the known point. Then you shake the focal point loose from its physical location. Kind of neat trick, requires a new way of thinking about perception. That focal point is not dependent on any object's existence, it can exist on its own. Helps to give it the concept of energy and shape and move it by visualization. You practise moving it farther from you, in the direction of the place you want to see, through whatever objects are in the way, and to the chosen destination. Then you keep it there, become aware of this focused energy in that other place.
Doing this, you will experience flickering imagery that comes to you on its own, images of that place. It takes awhile if you are new at it, and when it does happen it is pretty exciting so you lose your grip on the process and it stops. You have to maintain that calm and onepointed focus in order to "see" in this way. Excitement, fear, anger, passion, all of these things get in the way and break your pattern of attention. People who practise meditation and chi kung are often bothered by flickering visions which seem like they should be important but don't pan out that way. Often when you try to remember them later, they are gone. Now and then something truly important comes through, and that is easily recalled, so just accepting that helps you deal with what is happening, a natural talent is emerging which you don't understand as yet. Another thing that happens occasionally to people is that while practising they drift into perception of another place, they perceive a different room than the one they are in, for instance. Then when they realize it's a different place they snap out of it and "return to their sense." Another example of a natural potential beginning to express itself. It isn't good to become too attached to these spontaneous visions and perceptions, you shouldn't attribute too much importance to them. As much as, hmm, as much as you would ascribe to driving to the nearest shopping center and buying a new toothbrush. That is an appropriate degree of importance, all journeys you take are not miraculous ones. When they are, you'll know it.
It's possible to see things through the imagination which are false, and many people set great store by these experiences, think of them as instructive and symbolic of great things. Usually, they are not, they are fantasies we build ourselves. The old test of visions, to judge whether they are true or not, is to try to change what you see by imagination. If you can change your vision it is false. A true vision is independent of your manipulation.
Remote viewing is pretty simple, many people can do it without much training at all and it does not seem to depend on "natural talent." It's just a fact of life that we've ignored. It seems like a very powerful talent, and it can be helpful at times. For the most part, it's only a tool, not a substitute for direct experience. Remote perceptions are often distorted, partially spoiled by imagination and preconception. The practise does lead to other things which are more important, and it is useful, it does have survival value.
The question of potential abuse is important. What happens if you get really good at this and the world turns into a fishbowl? In my experience, the more I learned and the more I believed in the ability the more limits I placed on my own conduct. In the early days I found myself wandering through walls a lot, passing through the homes of other people. OK, you can imagine the problems that might create, issues of privacy instantly arise. For many reasons I made a rule for myself rather quickly, that I would stay out of other people's homes unless I was invited there for correct reasons. If you want to keep the ability, you make your own moral limitations on it.
It really isn't a mark of high moral character, it is just a practical decision. What happens, literally, if a person wants to do something like enter the home of a desirable man or woman and observe them for voyeuristic reasons, is that a surge of energy in the remote viewer disconnects them from the experience instantly. Emotions must be calm and quiet to stay in the mode, and in this mode of perception the emotional being is extremely volatile and easily triggered to intense passions. So, if you have the powerful desire necessary to make this effort, the same desire will boot you right out of it. If you acquire the discipline needed to calm the emotions and stay in that situation, you have eliminated the basic desire that would guide you to it. If you want X rated video experiences you have to rent them, sorry.
Remote viewing is a simple thing, but lots of more complex practises arise from it, and those have more potential for abuse, more potential for positive action as well. The moral tradeoffs exist no matter how far into this you go. If you want to make progress and learn more powerful things, you set more and more limits on your conduct. Not because you are a person of high moral character, but because moral conduct is necessary to make this kind of progress. If you try it the other way, you end up with nothing. I speak from experience, having reached bottom several times along my own path, for those reasons, and I do not intend to make that mistake again.
There is a state of spiritual evolution which is eventually reached by following these paths, which I am just beginning to glimpse a bit now and then and maybe understand a little bit. Beyond that are things I don't comprehend, but I trust that these higher levels are worth the trouble. The men and women who have reached the highest level of the Known are unknowns, very humble people who intentionally vanish from the ordinary world, maybe by hiding in plain sight. They have powerful effects upon the world, but in very subtle ways, guiding rather than forcing issues. My living and physical Elders are that sort of people. I like the way an old Taoist described this level of life to a student of his.
"I might be anywhere," he said. "I might be anything. I might be a hummingbird on the wing, or a monkey's fart. I might be a tear of compassion in a sailor's eye."
Which brings us back again to the power of little things, like the farts of monkeys and the flight of a hummingbird.