Question: Do our souls ever leave our bodies for just a second while we are alive?
Sri Chinmoy: For a few seconds during the day the soul may leave, but the consciousness of the soul remains in the body at that time. This is your room and your whole vibration is here. As soon as somebody comes here, he will immediately feel your vibration. But if you go away and do not come back, then there will be nothing here. If the soul stays away, then its own body becomes foreign; its own room is foreign. But when it is a matter of dying, the body, like a cage, is broken. So what is the use of staying in a broken cage?
Sri Chinmoy, The soul and the process of reincarnation, Agni Press, 1977