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What is a dream state?..........
1. Dream is the experience of any phenomena other than our true self. 2. Dream is any phenomena that is observed (...Mandukya Upanishad). 3. Dream is the state of mind that seems real when you are in it and not-real when you are out of it. 4. Any phenomenal existence that is borrowed or dependent or changing is a dream (anything that is not real/permanent). 5. What exists between two states of non-existence is a dream. Another name for dream is 'mithya.'
Dream/Illusion ('swapna') is something that exists but it is not not what appears to be (='mithya'). We call the dream as not-real because it has changed/disappeared (the mountain you have seen next to your waking-state-home is not there now, the money you had in the dream by winning a lottery is not there now). When the not-real appears as real, we call it a dream, mithya. Remember, not-real is in between real and unreal. Not-real is also known as mithya/maya. We have four categories/classifications of truth: 1. true ('sath'; eternally unchanging, Absolute, independent existence, has no beginning and no end), 2. untrue ('asath'; a square circle; a barren women's baby, 'thuchha', non-appearing no-existence), 3. both true and untrue (true from one point of view but untrue from a different point of view; 'sath-asath'; ex: the doctrine of karma and reincarnation), and 4. neither true nor untrue ('mithya'; world as an appearance is mithya; not-real; a mystery; apparently-real, appearing non-existence, has no beginning but an end). As we all know...Science deals with the objective knowledge and/or the physical world or the observed world; religion deals with the ethical, moral, psychological and/or the subtle world or the non-observed world; spirituality deals with the knowledge of the Spirit or Consciousness or Awareness and/or the deeper nature of the observer himself. The doctrine of Karma and Reincarnation is in the realm of the metaphysical/subtle which is true from an individual point of view but untrue from the Absolute point of view. However, Brahman is neither sath nor asath; it is the one that illumines the both; it is Yourself!
Night-dream state is the one in which man enjoys the five objects of senses while the senses are at rest and the mind alone works. The ego is manifested half way in the dream state; intellect or buddhi does not operate in the night-dream state. The ego does not perceive any objects external to itself. The dreamer feels that the dreams are real so long as they last, however incoherent they may be. It is only when he wakes up, he realizes that it is an illusion. Experience with external objects is waking state and experience without the external objects is dream state. Consciousness looked through waking/solid state ('jaagrath'=watchfulness, alertness; watchful because one accumulates karma in this state) is called the waker ('vishva'=the apparent knower of waking/solid experience), Consciousness looked through dream state ('swapna') is called the dreamer ('thaijasa'=the apparent knower of dream experience) and Consciousness looked through deep sleep state ('sushupthi') is called the sleeper ('praagnya'=the apparent knower of pragnya or deep sleep experience; pra+a-gnya=filled with ignorance). The corresponding waking/watchful/physical/solid/external, dream/subtle/internal and causal/unmanifest/spiritual worlds are called 'vaishvaanara'/'vishvam'/'sthoola-bhauthika-prapancha', 'hiranyagarbha'/'sukshma-bhauthika-prapancha' and 'eeshwara'/'antharyaami.' The meaning of 'jaagra-th' is watchful or alert or attentive or focusing state on external objects, focusing on seemingly something other than your true self in an externally watchful state. The meaning of 'swapna' is 'ap'=close, 'sw'=real or your own, 'ana'=double negative, 'swapna'=close to your true-self; swapna is a semi-watchful or semi-alert or semi-focusing state (on internal objects only) because freewill does not operate in that state. Alertness operates in only one direction. The meaning of 'sushupthi' is 'su'=total or positive, 'shup-thi'=the state of in-activeness or passiveness; =passive non-duality. Sleep is called 'nidra' in Sanskrit; 'ni'=absence of, 'dra'=external moving, running or activity; ni-dra=absence of watchful/external or internal activity.
In the night-dream, there is only one mind involved, the mind of the dreamer. We create all of the characters and events but experience them only through one character. Events we did not expect surprise us, even though we, as the dreamer, created them. We become excited and afraid because we have forgotten that we actually created them. Though you interact with many characters within the night-dream, you have access to only one mind.
And, actually, this is exactly what happens in the waking-dream. As Consciousness, we have access to all minds at any given time, but, we choose to disregard all but one of them in the interest of completely enjoying the experience of this mind. It is only when you are in a state transcendent to waking-dream, you realize that this is also a dream and the reality of the waking state is nothing but Consciousness. In ultimate understanding there is no dream, there is no dreamer, but only Consciousness. All there is, is Consciousness!
When Ramana Maharshi was asked about the difference between night-dream and the waking state, he replied that the only difference is that the waking state dream is a long drawn out illusion (and this is strictly from the point of view of waking state). The dream-world is an individual's magic show and the waking-world is Creator's (Eeshwara's) magic show. The support for both is "I," Consciousness, the "You.".
There are two main obstacles in Self-Realization (the removal of the illusion of ignorance)! Self means "I," Aathma, the Reality of an individual.
1. Taking the body and the world as real with cause-effect relationship, obsession with not-Self, me and the world, 'ahamkaara' ='realism.' Solution: By repeatedly dwelling upon the dream, we have to realize that the waking world is similar to dream. One should come out of this obstacle by understanding that the world has no origination or existence and is 'mithya' only - conditionally real, apparently real, dependently real, non-substantial. The world is an appearance in Me, Awareness. Dream is, therefore, important to us because it clearly demonstrates the fact that our mind has a wonderful power of imagination by which it is not only able to create a body and a whole world, but is also able to delude itself into mistaking its own imaginary creation to be real. The first spiritual value of the night-dream state is that it illustrates to us how the waking-dream state can also operate with illusion and that the waking world is an appearance only. World/object can be negated by the dream example (just like the ego/subject can be negated by the pot-space example and the example of John Smith-King Lear)! Dream example serves as the greatest pointer to the nature of the world ((that the world ('jagath') is 'mithya,' a second-order reality; world is You-Awareness, but Awareness is not the world))!
2. Holding on to duality (worldly and religious attachments including dependence on objects, selves and Creator/Eeshwara) for moral and emotional support; believing that the reality is divided into two - a subject and an object - and that the peace/happiness/completeness is found in the objects, mine and my selves/objects, 'mamakaara' ='dualism.' Solution: Know your true nature and stand upon your own/inner emotional feet as the only "I." Moving into Non-Duality ('advaitham'), Self-Dependence, is scary. That's why in many religions, liberation, 'mokṣha,' is presented in dualistic terms in which the God-devotee duality is maintained, i.e., mokhṣa is a condition in which the devotee lives with God happily for eternity. One should come out of the second obstacle by understanding that one can stand upon one’s own emotional feet. Understanding of the duality-less deep sleep state (where there is only "I") is the clue here. The spiritual value of the deep sleep state ('sushupthi') is that it reveals to us we are not our body-minds but Non-Dual Awareness from which everything seems to emerge. Sushupthi is also called as 'swapithi,' meaning real nature by resolving. Whatever be the locus or the place of resolution of a thing, that must be the nature of that thing. Deep sleep is the absence of duality/manifestation (passive non-duality; 'nishkritha advaitham'); Reality is the knowledge/knowing of the absence of duality and the presence of duality/manifestation (non-duality; beyond manifestation and no-manifestation; beyond duality and singularity)! Deep sleep example serves as the greatest pointer to the nature of the Reality (and that You are that Reality-Awareness; "Brahman is Sathyam")!
An important point!...During deep sleep state duality-less experience (passive non-duality) is there (jeevaathma/soul/saakshi abiding in its own nature), but since mind/world is dormant non-dual knowledge cannot take place. It is passive because duality/world is hiding in the form of ignorance which rises again. Therefore what is required is: during the waking state in the midst of dual experience, we should understand that the passive non-dual experience we have during sushupthi state, is our real nature! This understanding (of knowing+feeling Who You Really Are) will transform into the knowledge of complete Non-Duality in the mind in the presence of the world (ignorance is forever destroyed)! Awareness cannot claim "I am Awareness" in sushupthi. Claim it in waking state! That's it!
Thus, the deep sleep and the dream states serve to clarify the two of the three fundamental and the most important questions of life: 1. What is the Reality?, 2. Who am I? and 3. What is this world?
We are the creator, sustainer and the destroyer of all objects in Consciousness. The characters and objects of the night-dream seem real to us when under the spell of sleep even when we realize that we are creating it all along. Well, the same illusion holds true in waking state under the power of Maya. It could be said that the night-dream is powered by individual mind or ignorance and the waking-dream state is powered by cosmic mind or Maya. In a playful manner, Consciousness makes it utterly real. This waking world, which seems to be real, is a well-orchestrated dream!
The second spiritual value of the night-dream state is this: If you have had the experience of your waking state identity in the dream state, then you have the intensity in seeking. During a nightmare, a very wild dream, just one thought or one click such as, "Hey, this is a dream" is enough. You will be awakened. You will be out of the dream. It will be impossible for you to be continuing the night-dream. In the same way, if you are intense in this dream you are living, called the waking-world, then one click is enough and you will be out of this waking-dream! The one click of remembering your true nature!
The waking-dream has the appearance of consistency from day to day. This is because gross matter vibrates at a much lower frequency than that which prevails at the level of mind, the subtle state. This gives the appearance of durability. What the mind serves up are images designed to entertain Consciousness. The mind never sees ‘the thing in itself'.
Mind is an amazing but an unreliable instrument. Take an example. You are looking at a tree. Tree is green and at a distance from you. In actuality, tree is anything but green. Tree processes the white light and rejects green and keeps the remaining six colors. It is made of the remaining six colors but not green! On top of that, human eye can only see 0.0035% of the electromagnetic spectrum. So, the mind is not capable to see the actual tree in its total form and color. Who knows what the tree is like?
Mind sees the tree at a distance. But the tree is an image in our Consciousness, and so is our body. They both are appearing on the screen of Consciousness. The depth is an illusion created by our eyes. Humans enjoy stereoscopic vision, because our eyes are separated horizontally. Images we see in the two eyes are slightly different and the difference is proportional to the relative depth. The visual areas in the brain measure these differences, and we experience the result as stereo—what we all have enjoyed as children playing with View-Master toys. By the same token, mind is unreliable when it comes to internal knowing also. What you think you are, is not you. And what you think you are hides the real you from you!
The ‘thing in itself’ has no shape, no form, no color and no properties. This is not to deny its relative reality, but to put things in proper perspective. Since the we identify ourselves with a different body in the night-dream, the night-dream gives us a clue that we, in reality, are different than these two bodies. The only thing that is common to both the states is Consciousness and we are that. Both waking and dream states rise and subside in deep sleep which is nothing other than Pure Consciousness (from its own perspective). We are experiencing waking state as matter/mind and dream state as mind. Their reality is Consciousness.
We don’t wake up from the waking-dream simply because, when invited, we don’t really want to. You are looking at the illusion from within the illusion. This dream is very compelling, because you are part of the dream and you firmly believe that the dream is real. Believing is seeing! There is a common misunderstanding that when 'one wakes up' form the waking state dream, that the dream goes away and, in it’s place, a better one emerges. In actuality, the dream simply continues as it did before; Maya does not change. The difference is that we now know Maya as Maya and that the body/mind is involved.
We enter a new phase of life, lucid waking: it is similar to lucid dreaming. The dream does not go away. The only thing that changes is our recognition of the illusion, that what we experience is not the ultimate reality of what we are. This allows us to become playful and approach life as a celebration. We live in the timeless moment and the contentment of our aloneness, permitting the mind to chatter on since we are no longer married to it.
Is waking state (transactional reality) like a dream?..........
The experience of any phenomena other than our true self is either a dream or a sleep (illusory, conditionally-real, mithya)! So, yes, believe it or not; the waking state is like a dream! Well, now let us look at some arguments in support of this claim.
It is important to define the words Reality ('Sathya') and apparent-reality 'mithya' in this regard. Reality is that which is not subject to change or negation and/or destruction at any time or in any state. So, by definition, Reality is Independent, Immutable and Infinite. What is mithya?...There are several definitions. That which did not exist earlier and will not exist later but has only a temporary existence in an intermediary stage is a dream, mithya. Whatever is a product, is mithya. Any dependent and/or observed phenomena is mithya. If a state appears real when you are in it but not-real or non-existent when you are out of it, is dream or mithya. Mithya may be called 'virtual reality.' Remember: Mithya is not unreal. The appearance part of mithya is virtual and the real part of it is Reality. Illusion is not quite an accurate word for mithya, even though it is commonly used.
Ponder the following nine points to compare the waking and the dream states. However, it is important to judge each state either from a common perspective or from its own perspective for fairness. If a waker says the dream is an illusion, a dreamer can say waker does not even exist!
1. Dream/Appearance is the only way Reality could apparently manifest a world without compromising its intrinsic nature as Infinity and Immutability because it is impossible for Infinity to become finite or Unchanging to become changing. Physical world is, thus, manifested as an illusion so Reality can now apparently experience a finite object by imagining itself as a finite subject - all in appearance, all in illusion, all in dream! Don't we, as individuals, perform this feat perfectly every night?
2. Human beings consider that whatever is clearly experienced, can be transacted and has utility, has to be real, sathya (ETU). This is ingrained in our subconscious minds. But this proposition is not valid as a night-dream has all the same features. And the night-dream is only conditionally-real, not absolutely-real. ETU is possible because of an actual creation as well as a seeming creation, like pot-space. The space in a pot is not a separate space; it is seemingly separate. Therefore, based on ETU, the waking state should not be considered as an 'actual creation.'
3. Reality does not disappear or change at any time. We call night-dream not-real because it disappears and appears as something new. In other words, it is changing. Now, what is there in the waking state that does not change or disappear? Nothing. Therefore, everything objective, connected with the waking state, is not real. When the not-real appears as real we call it a dream or mithya. Therefore the waking state is mithya. It is conditionally-real; its existence is borrowed.
4. In a night-dream you will never be able to find out that you are dreaming. We always think that we are in the waking state and that it is transactional. This is despite the fact that we know the dream to be illusory every time we come out of it. Well, the same applies to our waking state. It is not any different. As a matter of fact, waking state does not even exist from the point of view of the dreaming state! When you think that you are in an inert body, the inert body and the inert world looks real and the real-you will look illusory (when you realize that the inert body is in you, the opposite happens). The dream world is an object of experience and the waking world is also an object of experience. The dream world is transactional like the waking world. The dream world is useful in dream but not useful in waking. The waking world is useful in waking but not useful in dream. Then for all possibilities we have to consider either both of these states as dreaming or both as waking (this argument is logical). Since there cannot be two real and waking states, they both have to be dream states! Further, we also know that one of the states, the dream state, is mithya. Therefore the waking state is mithya.
5. Since the dream world is experienced very much like the waking world, generally the dream is considered to be the product of the waking world. If that is so, from that, a principle can be extended. Since the waking world is the cause for the dream world, both should have similar nature, as effect and cause have similar nature. Since we know that the dream state is mithya, the waking state, as the cause, is also mithya.
<<<This leaves us with deep sleep state where you exist alone and you experience peace directly. Therefore it is evident that the deep sleep state is our real and fundamental state and that waking and dream states are illusory.
Whatever you are has to stay with you all the time. The experience of 'I am' in deep sleep stays with you all the time while the experience of 'I am this' in dream and waking states disappears sometimes. Thus, you are always in deep sleep state (now, prior to the birth of the gross body and after its death). Dream and waking states are both based on impressions (vaasanas or desires-fears) and apparently appear and disappear out of deep sleep state (projected from it). When a one-dimensional time can produce a three-dimensional dream world, why can't a zero-dimensional deep sleep produce a four dimensional waking world? A zero dimensional deep sleep state (with no time and no space) can only be the cause of a one-dimensional dream state and a four-dimensional waking state, not the other way round. Because any dimensional state is finite; deep sleep is infinite. With orange colored glasses (one dimension/limit) you can only see an orange world, but with no colored glasses (zero dimension) you can see infinite colors (all possibilities exist). Points can fit into a line, lines can fit into a planar surface, planar surfaces can fit into a cube; but not the other way round.
However, people take their measure of reality as the waking state. They think that the waking state is the most real state and the dream state is like an aberration of it and the deep sleep state is either nothing or blank. But this is not true (from the point of view of our experience). This is just a belief. We have already seen that the deep sleep state is the most fundamental. The more layers/limits you have on the Self, the more ignorant (or less real) you are. Dream state has the limit of time (subtle body) and the waking state has the limits of time and space (subtle and gross bodies). Waking state plays the impressions of this present life (conscious memory) whereas the dream state plays the impressions of all of your life times (subconscious memory which is much bigger than the conscious memory).
Deep sleep state is Pure Consciousness which is infinite and is the biggest element of our experience. And inside Consciousness is mind. Consciousness modulates itself and takes the shape of the mind (dream state). And inside mind is the matter (waking state) because it is thought/mind that conceptualizes objects made out of matter inside of it. Deep sleep is the link between the waker and the dreamer. Switching from the waker’s body (a thought) to the dreamer’s body (another thought) requires a small gap and that gap is the substratum of all thoughts which is called the deep sleep state. Deep sleep contains both the waking and the dream states because they both arise from and disappear into the deep sleep state. It is impossible to change either from waking to dream or from dream to waking directly without going through the deep sleep state. So from this point of view (which coincides with our actual experience), the waking state of objects and matter is the smallest element of our experience.>>>
6. Reality means liberation, moksha, infinity. But Reality is Non-Dual which implies that we are already infinite but are wrongly believing that we are finite (because infinite can never become finite). But, this belief or imagination can happen only in a dream state. Therefore, we are constantly dreaming - not only in the night, not only while we are asleep; we are dreaming the whole day.
7. All we have in life is Consciousness, mind and matter. Waking mind depends on the waking world as mind and matter rise and sink together. Since mind and matter do not exist independently, they both are dependent on something else and, hence, not real. And also, waking state comes and goes and must depend on something else. This leaves Consciousness/Reality as the only independent, real entity. Everything else is mithya. Very simple!
8. The strongest objection against equating the waking state with the dream state is this. We think that the waking world exists independent of us (an objective existence) and is continuous but the dream world exists dependent on us and is discontinuous. Firstly, this tells us that the waking world must have originated from some other cause other than me. But, dream is accepted as a projection only in the waking state and never accepted as projection in the dream state. Similarly this waking world is an objective world as long as it is looked at from the waker’s perspective. But if looked at from the neutral/Reality angle, the waking world will not remain objective. Secondly, assuming that the waking world is not my projection and that it has an independent existence of its own, then there must be a cause for this world. But the analysis shows that the "creation" of the waking world can never be logically established and so the objective existence of the waking world is not a viable fact (see point #1).
Waking world disappears in night-dream or in deep sleep. When others say that this waking world is real and exists continuously while you are sleeping, it proves only their experience. Other people are part of the world that you are trying to investigate. This is very subtle to understand. Imagine the same thing happened in your night-dream. Once up from the night-dream, you realize that the entire dream was not real including those people who said that the world was real. Those people are not certainly existing in that dream-world now! The same thing holds true now in the waking state! The solidity of the material world (matter vibrates at a lower rate) gives us the false impression of permanence when we get back to waking from sleep, but everything is continuously changing. You don't even get back into the same body in the morning; it is a new body/mind. It’s the sense instruments in the physical body that structure the waking state and make it seem logical and well ordered. The impressions/'vaasanas' are no longer structured well in the subtle world, they just come up and express without having to work out through the physical body. But remember, there is continuity in the dream world also because you never have any doubt that the dream is discontinuous while in the dream.
The apparent continuity of memories and the continuous world is the trace/hint that Awareness leaves in the finite mind to the true continuity of Awareness!
9. The night-dream happens in here-now which is the reality of the imaginative (space-time) experience. And the here-now is you, the Consciousness that apparently projected the dream. Waking experience also happens in here-now and, thus, the space-time is an imagination in waking also. The waking-dream is also projected by Consciousness (apparently), which is the real-you.
Thus, in all respects the dream world and the waking world are similar and enjoy the same degree of reality which proves that the waking state is also like a dream state! What you are experiencing in the waking state is dream-like. The individual is a dream character; as matter and mind, it is a robot.
Why does the waking-dream feel so real? <<< The reason for this is that while dreaming we do not experience ourselves as the one who has projected the dream, but as one of the people in the dream-world that we have projected; so since we experience ourselves as one of the projected phenomena, we seem to be a creature rather than the creator. As the creator we projected the night-dream-world, but as a creature we are just one among the projections; we are bound. Our power of imagination is so intense and vivid that whenever we imagine something, we become ensnared in our own imagination. We may say that as the Creator you have already decided how to play the game with the abilities of the characters as they are designed. You cannot change the software in the middle of the game. >>>
What are the differences between the night-dream and the waking-dream? <<< The characters and objects of the night-dream seem real to us when under the spell of sleep even when we realize that we are creating it all along. Well, the same illusion holds true in waking state under the power of Maya. It could be said that the night-dream is powered by individual mind or ignorance and the waking-dream state is powered by cosmic mind or Maya. They both are mental. The main differences between a night-dream and a waking-dream are three: 1. Night-dream is shared by one mind, whereas the waking-dream is shared by many minds. That's why night-dream dissolves upon waking whereas the common waking-dream continues even after waking up. 2. Buddhi/Intellect does not operate in dream state. Buddhi/free will operates only in waking state (with a gross body). No gross body, no buddhi, no free will. That is the reason why Enlightenment is possible only in the waking state when buddhi operates. Since free will does not operate in night-dream, we cannot accumulate any fresh karmas/vaasanas; we can only spend them. 3. Waking state is experiencing personal creation on God's Creation whereas the night-dream is experiencing personal creation on personal creation. 4. The waking-dream is longer. Dream-world will seem real as long as we are ignorant of the waking-world reality. This seeming reality is corrected instantly (like a rope-snake) in waking state itself and does not require Absolute Knowledge. The waking reality, of course, gets corrected upon the rise of the Absolute Knowledge (Brahma Gnyanam). This is like a bent rod in a glass of water; the appearance will never go away but the knowledge that the bent rod is actually straight stays. In other words, Maya, appearance, stays and ignorance goes! The dream-world is an individual's magic show (personal, one-minded) and the waking-world is Maya's/Creator's magic show (shared, common). The support for both is "I," Consciousness, the real-you! 4. The night-dream is unstable.
Those are the main differences; though, ultimately, they are both Consciousness. They are both equally dreams in Consciousness, made out of Consciousness. In a playful manner, Consciousness makes the dreams look utterly real. This waking world, which seems to be real, is a well-orchestrated multi-minded dream. Life is designed to experience and enjoy only one reality at a time. That is the reason why we forget the waking state while dreaming and think that dream is an illusion upon waking. Of course we do not remember anything of deep sleep; we only enjoy the peace and bliss of our being, after the fact! If we knew the realities of other planes all at once - that is the state an enlightened master is in - then the game is over. Since you are not absolutely certain that this world could not be dream-like, be open to that possibility. Explore it and try to wake up from this waking-dream!
There is only one dreamer, 'I.' Waking up from this waking-dream to the real 'I' proves beyond any doubt that this waking-world is also like a night-dream! Remember: The world is not a dream; the world is like a dream! It is because both dream and waking are mental constructs. Your dream-world is created by 'I' and the waking-world is also created by 'I.' 'I' or Self creates the night-dream world using 'Nidra Shakthi' (or ignorance) and the waking-dream world using 'Maya Shakthi.' Deep sleep/Causal world is maintained by the power called 'Praana Shakthi.' You are 'I' that owns all the powers! Just like you can't know that you have created your night-dream until you wake up, you can't know that you have also created the waking-dream until you wake up from this waking-dream. Misery is created by identifying yourself with a body/mind as a thinker/doer and imagining the world-play/dream to be real and serious!>>>
Note: Though from the highest standpoint the world may be mithya (non-substantial), but from the standpoint of a separate-self, the waking state and the world should be understood as real and that the world is important. The idea that an external elephant is not there and that you can dash your head against it, is wrong. It is there but both it and your body are ideas. Therefore during transaction, the world importance should be recognized and adherence to dharma and karma should be followed. The Law of Karma is valid in this plane. Do not underestimate or overestimate any relative reality. If you do your duty, you are not underestimating. When you are underestimating, you refuse to do your duty. If you are worrying over your duties, you are overestimating. Do the duty and do not worry. Liberation is using the world without obsession. If you underestimate a rope-snake, it may bite you. If you overestimate it, it will cause you misery. Keep the rope-snake where it belongs! Krishna says: “May you keep the external world outside.”
Why does waking-dream seem so real? And how to step out of it?..........
As the creator we projected the dream world, but as a creature/ego we are just one among that projection (so we are tied and bound). Our power of imagination is so intense and vivid that whenever we imagine something, we become ensnared in our own imagination. So long as we experience ourselves as this creature/ego or the body-mind, we cannot overcome this powerful illusion that whatever we are currently experiencing is real, because this illusion is the very nature of this ego. Again, illusion/mithya is the nature of the ego. This is why any dream (whether a night-dream or a waking-dream) seems to us to be real so long as we are experiencing it, and it ceases to seem real only when we cease to experience ourselves as whatever body-mind we seemed to be in the world of that dream. Don't we realize the night-dream's nature upon our dis-identification with the dream body-mind every night?!
Now we experience ourselves as a body-mind in the world we are currently experiencing, so this world (and all the other people we perceive in it) will continue to seem to us to be real so long as we continue to experience ourselves as this body-mind. Since our illusion that we are a body-mind (whether in a night-dream or in our present waking state) is what is called the ego (ahamkaara), this ego is the root cause of the illusion that whatever state we are currently experiencing, and whatever world we happen to perceive in this state, are real. Therefore the only way in which we can ascertain whether or not our present state and its world are actually real is to investigate ourselves and thereby to ascertain whether or not we are actually this ego that we now seem to be. Are we this ego in essence or not? What are we in essence? That's the question.
Until we investigate ourselves and thereby know+experience ourselves as what we really are, we will continue to experience ourselves intermittently as an ego and consequently to experience successive states of plurality. Each of these successive states seems to be a state of waking so long as we are experiencing that particular state, and a state of dream when we are currently experiencing some other such state. While in waking, obviously, we think that the dream is an illusion. And while in dream, we think that the waking is an illusion or, even worse, waking state doesn't even exist! Since the waking and dream states have the same features of experiencing, transaction and utility, we cannot say that the waking state is a real state, meaning real as matter. It is wise for you to be at least open to this suggestion, open to this possibility.
Therefore, in order to free ourselves from all this confusion and delusion, we must investigate ourselves, our seemingly limited selves, by trying to experience+know ourselves alone through inquiry or discrimination (Viveka or Aathma Vichaara). And once we do that, explore our nature fully; then explore into the world and realize that the world is also in us. The final understanding must be that the world is in you and the world is you but you are free of the world! World is not real as matter and mind, but real as God-The Awareness!
In Jesus Christ's words: "Be in the world, but not of it!" In other words, step out of the illusion but not away from it. Live with the illusion, but not within it! That's what Christ really meant! Time and space appearing in you is Peace-Happiness and you appearing in time and space is misery-suffering.
Since the dream is our own imagination, why can't we imagine it in any way we wish?..........
We will not be able to control our dream because we ourselves are a part of it and we firmly believe it to be real. The reason for this is that while dreaming we do not experience ourselves as the one who has projected the dream, but as one of the people in the dream world that we have projected; so since we experience ourselves as one of the projected phenomena, we seem to be a creature rather than the creator. As the creator we projected the night-dream world, but as a creature we are just one among that projection (so we are tied and bound). Our power of imagination is so intense and vivid that whenever we imagine something, we become ensnared in our own imagination.
Since our present waking state is also just a dream, everything that we experience in this waking-dream is just our own mental projection, but instead of experiencing ourselves as the creator of this world, we now experience ourselves as a small part of this creation. Therefore most of the rest of this creation seems to be beyond our control. If a fierce hurricane is approaching, for example, and leaving widespread destruction in its wake, we cannot stop it at will, because by projecting ourselves as a limited person in our creation, we have thereby lost the power to control what we have created.
The power to create and control all this lies somewhere deep inside us, but so long as we are looking outwards, we do not have the subtlety and acuity of mind required to turn within and see what it is. In the waking state, "I" has higher frequency than the thoughts and the identification with a body/mind organism is so strong. We feel that we have control over the happenings even though it is an illusion. Don't we think that we are acting through our free will in our night-dream also?...Yes! You can have control over an illusion only when you can step out of that illusion. So, step out of the illusion but not away from it. Live with the illusion, but not within it!
How is the dream state nearer the Truth than the waking state?..........
The waking subject holds that sense perception is the highest test of Truth. From this position, it denounces dream objects as unreal, as they are not perceptible to the waking physical senses. In the waking state – dominated as it is by the triad or triputi – the perceiver, perception and the percept are so clearly distinct and separate that it is very difficult to find anything common between them.
But as far as the dream state is concerned, there is a great difference. As soon as the
dream is past, one can see clearly that the subject and the object series – appearing in that state – are both creations of the same mind, and therefore one in essence. So there is this much of Non-Duality in dream. To that extent, the dream is nearer the Truth. Therefore, the clear diversity of the waking state is first examined from the lesser diversity of the dream state, and the waking state is found to be nothing other than an idea.
Can we remember a dream?..........
You can (apparently) remember only your past experiences. You can think of your dream experiences only by standing as the dreamer for the time being. But you, as the waking subject, were never the dreamer. Therefore the waking subject can never remember a dream!
How can we see the illusion as illusion and then step out of it?..........
The trick to making the illusion a joy is to understand what actually is happening, to understand the nature of Ultimate Reality. All things are One Thing. Yet in this physical reality, this world of our illusion, we do well to think in terms of Three Things in One - the Holy Trinity. We do well to get out of our dyad world and into a triad reality; to embrace The Triune Truth: a thing is neither this nor that, but a Third Thing altogether. The Third Thing that's the One Thing.
In the body-mind-soul triad, the mind is the balancing point between the body and the soul. The body and the soul could be seen as the two extremes of a strictly binary system. In strictly binary thinking, things are either "physical" or "non-physical." That is, they are considered to be either matter or anti-matter-or what we would call "body" or "soul." By thinking triangularly we are able to conclude that things can be both body and soul.
Indeed, this is exactly what we are. This awareness is created by mind, which acts as a linkage, or balancing point, between the two extremities. It is in the mind that we conceive of both the body and the soul, and thus provide ourselves with the opportunity to experience both.
The most basic dyad of all physical life is Love and Fear. It is the prime factor. It is the "0" and the "1" of the Computer of Life. Somewhere in between love and fear is a mid-point, at which neither one nor the other are experienced in any degree. This is the place of neutrality, or non-attachment, that is described by many masters. Neutrality is a metaphysical place that exists in the mind and not in physical reality.
Non-attachment is the balance point between the two, and it is in this place of perfect balance between the positive and negative aspects of the binary system of physical life where all masters reside. It is a point of "being." This is the point where you see the illusion as an illusion.
If, when you confront the illusion, you believe it is an illusion, you will see it as an illusion, even though it seems very real. You will be able to use the illusion as it was intended to be used - as a tool with which to Experience Ultimate Reality. Science has concluded that nothing which is observed is unaffected by the observer. You will then remember to create the illusion yourself. You will cause it to be what you wish it to be, rather than simply watching it present itself as you think that it has to be, out of your agreement that "that's just the way it is."
Step out of the illusion, but not away from it. Live with it, but not within it. Do this and you will be in this world, but not of it. You will know your own magic, and what you know, you will grow. Ever larger will be your idea about your magic, until you one day understand that you are the magic.
Since we - who experience our imagination - are unable to control it, who or what controls the dreams?..........
The power that is regulating this imaginary world is obviously not an individual. Is it our real Self then? No, it cannot be, because our real Self is just being, and knows nothing other than mere being. Real Self is Infinite and can never "become" finite. Real Self is Changeless and can never "become" a doing. So, in its view there is no imagination or any product of imagination. Since it is not us as our individual mind, nor us as our Real Self, the power that regulates all that we imagine appears to us to be something separate from us. That seemingly separate power is what we commonly refer to as Personal-God or Creator or Eeshwara.
Just as our mind is the soul that animates the physical form of our body, so Personal-God is the soul that animates the physical form of the entire world. We cannot see the mind in the physical body of another person, but from the behavior of that physical body we are able to infer that a mind is present within it. Likewise we are able to infer the presence of God in this world even though we cannot see it.
As soon as we imagine ourselves to be a separate-self, the world and Creator also come into existence as separate entities. Once the separate-self has abstracted the knower and the known, the seer and the seen by ignoring the All Pervading Consciousness, it thinks that the knower pervades only in this little corner inside the body. As an inevitable counterpart to the inside self, this ego projects an outside world. Then the ego looks around the outside world and notices that it is coming and going and wonders from where it has all come from. Then it manufactures a third element called Personal-God or Creator or Eeshwara or Power or First Cause who creates it all. That is where the separate-self's family becomes complete. Personal-God is nothing but a reflection of this belief in being a separate-self.
An atheist may deny God, but he is in the same boat as a theist. The theist is pretending that he knows - that there is God. The atheist is pretending he also knows - that there is no God. So, atheism is an ideology too - an ideology with a negative belief. They both believe and they both are God-centric. But belief is an escape. Did atheist search everywhere outside the world and inside him before he reached that conclusion? Not at all. His no-God becomes a God. An atheist's "Prove me God?" implies that God is separate from him and the moment he considers himself separate from God, he has reduced God from Infinity to a finite entity (=a belief) which cannot be (because by definition, God/Existence is Infinity which precludes the existence of any second entity). When you say, "There is no God," you have already made up in your mind what it looks like, where it is, what its properties are (you already have a belief system about God). You have already decided that God is not currently here. When he denies God, he is also denying the experience of God.
The reality of each one of these three basic entities is inseparable from the reality of the other two. Though all three of them are imaginary, so long as we experience the existence of ourselves as an individual, we will also experience the existence of the world and a Creator/Personal-God. When we reach full understanding, the following becomes clear: That which IS, is God-The Reality; there is no other Reality. Reality is a presence like beauty, like joy and like love. You cannot talk to Reality but you can knowingly experience Reality by "being" Reality!
If this world is imaginary, like a dream, why should we not behave in any way we wish?..........
The world we perceive, and the Personal-God we believe in, are both as real as our mind. So long as we feel ourselves to be real as an individual, the world and Creator are also equally real, as are all actions and their consequences. The other people and creatures that we see in this world are as real as our mind, which sees them, and hence their feelings - their happiness and their sufferings - are all as real as our own feelings.
If our actions cause harm to any other sentient being, we will have to suffer the consequences of those actions, because the consequences we experience are as real as the actions that we do. The laws of karma - which include the fact that we must sooner or later experience the consequences of each of our actions, whether good or bad, and the fact that the appropriate time, place and manner in which we must experience those consequences are all ordained by Personal-God in such a way that we gradually develop spiritual maturity - are all real so long as we mistake ourselves to be real as an agent or 'doer' of action, and as the one who experiences the 'fruit' or consequences of action.
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What is a deep sleep state?..........
Deep sleep is an object-less state in which man enjoys peace; no body, no mind and no world. He is thrown back into nature. However, from its own viewpoint, which is the real viewpoint, it is Pure Consciousness! The presence of sense-of-presence of your true-self (Pure Awareness) without the appearance of mind as a second thing is deep sleep! Deep sleep is the ignorance of objects!
The true nature of deep sleep state can be understood by examining its three positive aspects:
1. We do not cease to exist. That means it is the state of unconditioned being.
2. On waking we are conscious of having slept soundly, though that absence, as such, can never be experienced in itself. That means the principle of consciousness remains without its seeming to assume the duality of a conscious subject and its object. This reinforces that our presence is conscious and consciousness is present! You are conscious of the no-thingness or the absence of objects.
3. We always look forward to the enjoyment associated with sound sleep. That means deep sleep, from its own standpoint, is the state of peace or self-contentment.
These three aspects recognize the fact that the state of Not-Duality (deep sleep) continues, always, as the background of duality. Dream and waking states, obviously, emerge from deep sleep. It is our experience. Deep sleep as the link between the waker and the dreamer may also be understood as the switching from the waker’s body (a thought) to the dreamer’s body (another thought) requires a small gap and that gap is the deep sleep state which has to be the substratum of both. This is also clear in the waking state, as the interval between the thoughts is nothing but deep sleep! Thus, the interval between two thoughts/mentations, if rightly understood, is also a key to the Absolute Truth. You get cured of your pain and disease (no matter how intense your pain is) immediately when you get into deep sleep; and you begin to suffer again when you come back to the waking state. Isn't it right? So, if you can bring something from deep sleep to bear upon the waking state, certainly the suffering will be relieved in the waking state also! Simple! And what is that? The Infinity/Aananda aspect/knowledge of deep sleep! You exist and you are aware, you also know that you are aware that you are aware. You are Existence-Consciousness. The Infinity/Aananda aspect is missing. So, if you can bring that aspect from the deep sleep state to the waking state, then you are Existence-Consciousness-Aananda which equals Brahman!
When you identify yourself with the body as in waking you see gross objects; when in subtle body or in mental plane as in dream, you see objects equally subtle; in the absence of identification as in deep sleep you see nothing. So, the objects seen bear a relation to the state of the seer. If you are identified with Brahman/Pure Consciousness, you see Brahman in every one and in everything. There will be none other than Brahman! All is one big family! The best clue given to us by the Unseen, to understand one’s own real nature, is the deep sleep state!
Well, we have looked at the deep sleep state from the perspective of the waking state. Let us now look it from its own perspective. This is an important analysis and is very subtle to understand. Deep sleep, from its own perspective, cannot be called a state of mind, because the mind does not exist or even seem to exist in deep sleep. What exists in deep sleep is only ourselves, so deep sleep is actually the state of Pure Consciousness, and as such it is the only real state. This one real state seems to be interrupted by the appearance of two other states called waking and dream, but this seeming interruption does not occur in the view of Pure Consciousness but only in the view of ourselves as this mind.
Krishna, Bhagavad Geetha, 2.69: "What is waking state (matter/mind) for the ignorant is sleep (nothing substantial) for the sage and what is sleep (blankness/nothingness) for the ignorant is waking (consciousness) for the sage!"
In other words, when we rise as this mind in either waking or dream, our one real state seems to have been divided into three states, in two of which, we experience ourselves as this mind, and in one of which we do not experience anything other than ourselves, not even our mind. Therefore, what happens to our mind in deep sleep is that it simply does not appear at all. However, from the perspective of our mind in waking state it is not possible for us to conceive of deep sleep as a state in which our mind does not exist at all, so it is said that in deep sleep our mind has subsided and remains in a dormant or seed-like condition, which is then called by various names such as the kaarana sharira (causal body) and the aanandamaya kosha (sheath composed of happiness). These two terms, therefore, denote something that do not actually exists or even seemed to exist while we are asleep, but that seems to exist only from the perspective of our mind in the waking state.
Since the dream is our own imagination, why can't we imagine it in any way we wish?..........
We will not be able to control our dream because we ourselves are a part of it and we firmly believe it to be real. The reason for this is that while dreaming we do not experience ourselves as the one who has projected the dream, but as one of the people in the dream world that we have projected; so since we experience ourselves as one of the projected phenomena, we seem to be a creature rather than the creator. As the creator we projected the night-dream world, but as a creature we are just one among that projection (so we are tied and bound). Our power of imagination is so intense and vivid that whenever we imagine something, we become ensnared in our own imagination.
Since our present waking state is also just a dream, everything that we experience in this waking-dream is just our own mental projection, but instead of experiencing ourselves as the creator of this world, we now experience ourselves as a small part of this creation. Therefore most of the rest of this creation seems to be beyond our control. If a fierce hurricane is approaching, for example, and leaving widespread destruction in its wake, we cannot stop it at will, because by projecting ourselves as a limited person in our creation, we have thereby lost the power to control what we have created.
The power to create and control all this lies somewhere deep inside us, but so long as we are looking outwards, we do not have the subtlety and acuity of mind required to turn within and see what it is. In the waking state, "I" has higher frequency than the thoughts and the identification with a body/mind organism is so strong. We feel that we have control over the happenings even though it is an illusion. Don't we think that we are acting through our free will in our night-dream also?...Yes! You can have control over an illusion only when you can step out of that illusion. So, step out of the illusion but not away from it. Live with the illusion, but not within it!
How is the dream state nearer the Truth than the waking state?..........
The waking subject holds that sense perception is the highest test of Truth. From this position, it denounces dream objects as unreal, as they are not perceptible to the waking physical senses. In the waking state – dominated as it is by the triad or triputi – the perceiver, perception and the percept are so clearly distinct and separate that it is very difficult to find anything common between them.
But as far as the dream state is concerned, there is a great difference. As soon as the
dream is past, one can see clearly that the subject and the object series – appearing in that state – are both creations of the same mind, and therefore one in essence. So there is this much of Non-Duality in dream. To that extent, the dream is nearer the Truth. Therefore, the clear diversity of the waking state is first examined from the lesser diversity of the dream state, and the waking state is found to be nothing other than an idea.
Can we remember a dream?..........
You can (apparently) remember only your past experiences. You can think of your dream experiences only by standing as the dreamer for the time being. But you, as the waking subject, were never the dreamer. Therefore the waking subject can never remember a dream!
How can we see the illusion as illusion and then step out of it?..........
The trick to making the illusion a joy is to understand what actually is happening, to understand the nature of Ultimate Reality. All things are One Thing. Yet in this physical reality, this world of our illusion, we do well to think in terms of Three Things in One - the Holy Trinity. We do well to get out of our dyad world and into a triad reality; to embrace The Triune Truth: a thing is neither this nor that, but a Third Thing altogether. The Third Thing that's the One Thing.
In the body-mind-soul triad, the mind is the balancing point between the body and the soul. The body and the soul could be seen as the two extremes of a strictly binary system. In strictly binary thinking, things are either "physical" or "non-physical." That is, they are considered to be either matter or anti-matter-or what we would call "body" or "soul." By thinking triangularly we are able to conclude that things can be both body and soul.
Indeed, this is exactly what we are. This awareness is created by mind, which acts as a linkage, or balancing point, between the two extremities. It is in the mind that we conceive of both the body and the soul, and thus provide ourselves with the opportunity to experience both.
The most basic dyad of all physical life is Love and Fear. It is the prime factor. It is the "0" and the "1" of the Computer of Life. Somewhere in between love and fear is a mid-point, at which neither one nor the other are experienced in any degree. This is the place of neutrality, or non-attachment, that is described by many masters. Neutrality is a metaphysical place that exists in the mind and not in physical reality.
Non-attachment is the balance point between the two, and it is in this place of perfect balance between the positive and negative aspects of the binary system of physical life where all masters reside. It is a point of "being." This is the point where you see the illusion as an illusion.
If, when you confront the illusion, you believe it is an illusion, you will see it as an illusion, even though it seems very real. You will be able to use the illusion as it was intended to be used - as a tool with which to Experience Ultimate Reality. Science has concluded that nothing which is observed is unaffected by the observer. You will then remember to create the illusion yourself. You will cause it to be what you wish it to be, rather than simply watching it present itself as you think that it has to be, out of your agreement that "that's just the way it is."
Step out of the illusion, but not away from it. Live with it, but not within it. Do this and you will be in this world, but not of it. You will know your own magic, and what you know, you will grow. Ever larger will be your idea about your magic, until you one day understand that you are the magic.
The best way to step out of the illusion is to use the Illusion. You will know that the Illusion is not real when you see that you can easily manipulate it. You may claim that you cannot do this. You may say that this is a big order more than you are up to. Yet humans consciously create illusions every day, and live within them.
Do you know anyone who sets his clock or watch ahead fifteen minutes in order to never be late? They actually set their clock or their watch five or ten or fifteen minutes ahead of the time that it actually is. Then when they look to see what time it is, they motivate themselves to hurry up, because they are pretending that it is several minutes later than it really is. Some people actually forget that they are playing this little trick on themselves, and think that it really is the time that it is not. This is when the Illusion no longer serves them. It does not serve its intended purpose.
The person who understands that the time on his watch is an illusion that he has created himself relaxes when he sees the time, because he knows that he has a few more minutes. He goes into high gear and becomes very efficient, precisely because he is relaxed. He understands that the Illusion is not the reality. The person who has temporarily forgotten that the time on his watch is an illusion, and one that he has created himself is filled with anxiety because he thinks that the Illusion is real.
Thus, two people have two entirely different reactions to the same circumstance. One experiences the illusion as an illusion, and the other experiences it as reality. Only when an Illusion is recognized as an illusion and lived as an illusion can it lead to an Experience of Ultimate Reality. Then it serves the purpose of its Creator.
So just how can you do this?...You are already doing it. You simply do not remember it and are thus making unconscious, rather than conscious, choices. Most of the time you are simply accepting the choices of others. The day that you stop choosing what has been chosen for you...will be the moment of your liberation. And the fastest way to choose and create this illusion is from the state of "being," not from the state of thinking.
Why? Because all creation starts from a place of BEING. Coming FROM a state of being, rather than trying to get TO a state of being, assures that the state of being is achieved (because you are creating it arbitrarily!), and the 'havingness' end of the equation takes care of itself.
In truth, there is nothing for you to have to create. All that is necessary is for you to become aware that everything you wish and everything that you seek has already been created. Your mind must have data to create. Your being needs no data at all. That is because data is the illusion. It is what you are making up, rather than what is. That is why all the great insights come from the state of being, not from the state of thinking. Have you not heard the truly great creators, the truly great problem solvers, say, when you give them a problem, "hmmmm...let me be with it for a while?..."
Don't you perform all of your body's most important functions without thinking about it? You don't think about blinking an eye, or taking a breath, or beating your heart. These things just happen because you are a "being." When you are thinking you are creating, of course. Every thought is a creation. So when you are thinking about a problem, you are seeking to create a solution. You can either seek to create a solution, or you can simply become aware of that solution that has already been created since all things exist in the eternal moment of Now where "being" resides.
You will not then escape illusion but be liberated from it. You will step outside of the illusion, but will continue to live with it, free of its ability to control you or your reality. You will never choose to end the illusion, once you understand its purpose, until your own purpose is fulfilled. Your purpose is not only to Know and Experience Who You Really Are, but to Create Who You Next Will Be. This is the process we call evolution which is always moving forward.
So just how can you do this?...You are already doing it. You simply do not remember it and are thus making unconscious, rather than conscious, choices. Most of the time you are simply accepting the choices of others. The day that you stop choosing what has been chosen for you...will be the moment of your liberation. And the fastest way to choose and create this illusion is from the state of "being," not from the state of thinking.
Why? Because all creation starts from a place of BEING. Coming FROM a state of being, rather than trying to get TO a state of being, assures that the state of being is achieved (because you are creating it arbitrarily!), and the 'havingness' end of the equation takes care of itself.
In truth, there is nothing for you to have to create. All that is necessary is for you to become aware that everything you wish and everything that you seek has already been created. Your mind must have data to create. Your being needs no data at all. That is because data is the illusion. It is what you are making up, rather than what is. That is why all the great insights come from the state of being, not from the state of thinking. Have you not heard the truly great creators, the truly great problem solvers, say, when you give them a problem, "hmmmm...let me be with it for a while?..."
Don't you perform all of your body's most important functions without thinking about it? You don't think about blinking an eye, or taking a breath, or beating your heart. These things just happen because you are a "being." When you are thinking you are creating, of course. Every thought is a creation. So when you are thinking about a problem, you are seeking to create a solution. You can either seek to create a solution, or you can simply become aware of that solution that has already been created since all things exist in the eternal moment of Now where "being" resides.
You will not then escape illusion but be liberated from it. You will step outside of the illusion, but will continue to live with it, free of its ability to control you or your reality. You will never choose to end the illusion, once you understand its purpose, until your own purpose is fulfilled. Your purpose is not only to Know and Experience Who You Really Are, but to Create Who You Next Will Be. This is the process we call evolution which is always moving forward.
Since we - who experience our imagination - are unable to control it, who or what controls the dreams?..........
The power that is regulating this imaginary world is obviously not an individual. Is it our real Self then? No, it cannot be, because our real Self is just being, and knows nothing other than mere being. Real Self is Infinite and can never "become" finite. Real Self is Changeless and can never "become" a doing. So, in its view there is no imagination or any product of imagination. Since it is not us as our individual mind, nor us as our Real Self, the power that regulates all that we imagine appears to us to be something separate from us. That seemingly separate power is what we commonly refer to as Personal-God or Creator or Eeshwara.
Just as our mind is the soul that animates the physical form of our body, so Personal-God is the soul that animates the physical form of the entire world. We cannot see the mind in the physical body of another person, but from the behavior of that physical body we are able to infer that a mind is present within it. Likewise we are able to infer the presence of God in this world even though we cannot see it.
As soon as we imagine ourselves to be a separate-self, the world and Creator also come into existence as separate entities. Once the separate-self has abstracted the knower and the known, the seer and the seen by ignoring the All Pervading Consciousness, it thinks that the knower pervades only in this little corner inside the body. As an inevitable counterpart to the inside self, this ego projects an outside world. Then the ego looks around the outside world and notices that it is coming and going and wonders from where it has all come from. Then it manufactures a third element called Personal-God or Creator or Eeshwara or Power or First Cause who creates it all. That is where the separate-self's family becomes complete. Personal-God is nothing but a reflection of this belief in being a separate-self.
An atheist may deny God, but he is in the same boat as a theist. The theist is pretending that he knows - that there is God. The atheist is pretending he also knows - that there is no God. So, atheism is an ideology too - an ideology with a negative belief. They both believe and they both are God-centric. But belief is an escape. Did atheist search everywhere outside the world and inside him before he reached that conclusion? Not at all. His no-God becomes a God. An atheist's "Prove me God?" implies that God is separate from him and the moment he considers himself separate from God, he has reduced God from Infinity to a finite entity (=a belief) which cannot be (because by definition, God/Existence is Infinity which precludes the existence of any second entity). When you say, "There is no God," you have already made up in your mind what it looks like, where it is, what its properties are (you already have a belief system about God). You have already decided that God is not currently here. When he denies God, he is also denying the experience of God.
The reality of each one of these three basic entities is inseparable from the reality of the other two. Though all three of them are imaginary, so long as we experience the existence of ourselves as an individual, we will also experience the existence of the world and a Creator/Personal-God. When we reach full understanding, the following becomes clear: That which IS, is God-The Reality; there is no other Reality. Reality is a presence like beauty, like joy and like love. You cannot talk to Reality but you can knowingly experience Reality by "being" Reality!
If this world is imaginary, like a dream, why should we not behave in any way we wish?..........
The world we perceive, and the Personal-God we believe in, are both as real as our mind. So long as we feel ourselves to be real as an individual, the world and Creator are also equally real, as are all actions and their consequences. The other people and creatures that we see in this world are as real as our mind, which sees them, and hence their feelings - their happiness and their sufferings - are all as real as our own feelings.
If our actions cause harm to any other sentient being, we will have to suffer the consequences of those actions, because the consequences we experience are as real as the actions that we do. The laws of karma - which include the fact that we must sooner or later experience the consequences of each of our actions, whether good or bad, and the fact that the appropriate time, place and manner in which we must experience those consequences are all ordained by Personal-God in such a way that we gradually develop spiritual maturity - are all real so long as we mistake ourselves to be real as an agent or 'doer' of action, and as the one who experiences the 'fruit' or consequences of action.
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What is a deep sleep state?..........
Deep sleep is an object-less state in which man enjoys peace; no body, no mind and no world. He is thrown back into nature. However, from its own viewpoint, which is the real viewpoint, it is Pure Consciousness! The presence of sense-of-presence of your true-self (Pure Awareness) without the appearance of mind as a second thing is deep sleep! Deep sleep is the ignorance of objects!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4s884ll1ds&t=7s
This is why deep sleep is a tricky subject. We need to analyze deep sleep from two perspectives, one from the waking state and one from the deep sleep itself. Let us analyze deep sleep from the perspective of the waking state first. Deep sleep, from the perspective of the waking state, is the not-dual experience of Peace/Aananda where you can raise no questions at all. That Peace/Aananda, however, is a Reflection of Aananda, negative bliss, that's why it is called not-dual not Non-Dual. There is still an element of duality in deep sleep because duality is dormant and rises again as the mind to experience the apparent world. Pure Consciousness or Reality or Brahman is Existence without any dormancy or any seeds of objects/mind/world. So deep sleep is not a permanent enlightened state (and does not lead to one). In deep sleep, Nirvikalpa Samaadhi, death and dissolution there is only temporary seeming Non-Duality/Brahman (seeming Advaitham) which is subject to arrival and departure. Pure Non-Duality is permanent, not subject to arrival and departure. Deep sleep state, therefore, is the state of no-duality (or absence of duality, nir-dvaitha state), not Non-Duality (advaitha). It is a state of no-mind, not of non-mind. Deep sleep is still a state that comes and goes. And any experience that begins and ends is not you! You can experience who you are in deep sleep but you can’t know/realize what you are in deep sleep or in any experience, for that matter! What is missing?...Knowledge! And remember: Knowledge is Awareness in the form of a firm, constant, continuous and non-contradictory thought in the intellect/buddhi. Deep sleep gives us the clue not to go astray in waking state about what Brahman is or is not. To help you understand Brahman aright, nature has given you deep sleep. That is why deep sleep state is extremely important. Deep sleep, as mentioned earlier, is not Brahman, however. Brahman knowledge exists when you see the world of objects and selves; not when you are unaware of the world. If deep sleep continued unbroken it would be called Brahman, yes. But it doesn't. Deep sleep is the absence of duality. Brahman is the knowledge/knowing of the absence of duality. Bringing the awareness of deep sleep into the waking state is Knowledge, Enlightenment.The true nature of deep sleep state can be understood by examining its three positive aspects:
1. We do not cease to exist. That means it is the state of unconditioned being.
2. On waking we are conscious of having slept soundly, though that absence, as such, can never be experienced in itself. That means the principle of consciousness remains without its seeming to assume the duality of a conscious subject and its object. This reinforces that our presence is conscious and consciousness is present! You are conscious of the no-thingness or the absence of objects.
3. We always look forward to the enjoyment associated with sound sleep. That means deep sleep, from its own standpoint, is the state of peace or self-contentment.
These three aspects recognize the fact that the state of Not-Duality (deep sleep) continues, always, as the background of duality. Dream and waking states, obviously, emerge from deep sleep. It is our experience. Deep sleep as the link between the waker and the dreamer may also be understood as the switching from the waker’s body (a thought) to the dreamer’s body (another thought) requires a small gap and that gap is the deep sleep state which has to be the substratum of both. This is also clear in the waking state, as the interval between the thoughts is nothing but deep sleep! Thus, the interval between two thoughts/mentations, if rightly understood, is also a key to the Absolute Truth. You get cured of your pain and disease (no matter how intense your pain is) immediately when you get into deep sleep; and you begin to suffer again when you come back to the waking state. Isn't it right? So, if you can bring something from deep sleep to bear upon the waking state, certainly the suffering will be relieved in the waking state also! Simple! And what is that? The Infinity/Aananda aspect/knowledge of deep sleep! You exist and you are aware, you also know that you are aware that you are aware. You are Existence-Consciousness. The Infinity/Aananda aspect is missing. So, if you can bring that aspect from the deep sleep state to the waking state, then you are Existence-Consciousness-Aananda which equals Brahman!
When you identify yourself with the body as in waking you see gross objects; when in subtle body or in mental plane as in dream, you see objects equally subtle; in the absence of identification as in deep sleep you see nothing. So, the objects seen bear a relation to the state of the seer. If you are identified with Brahman/Pure Consciousness, you see Brahman in every one and in everything. There will be none other than Brahman! All is one big family! The best clue given to us by the Unseen, to understand one’s own real nature, is the deep sleep state!
Well, we have looked at the deep sleep state from the perspective of the waking state. Let us now look it from its own perspective. This is an important analysis and is very subtle to understand. Deep sleep, from its own perspective, cannot be called a state of mind, because the mind does not exist or even seem to exist in deep sleep. What exists in deep sleep is only ourselves, so deep sleep is actually the state of Pure Consciousness, and as such it is the only real state. This one real state seems to be interrupted by the appearance of two other states called waking and dream, but this seeming interruption does not occur in the view of Pure Consciousness but only in the view of ourselves as this mind.
Krishna, Bhagavad Geetha, 2.69: "What is waking state (matter/mind) for the ignorant is sleep (nothing substantial) for the sage and what is sleep (blankness/nothingness) for the ignorant is waking (consciousness) for the sage!"
In other words, when we rise as this mind in either waking or dream, our one real state seems to have been divided into three states, in two of which, we experience ourselves as this mind, and in one of which we do not experience anything other than ourselves, not even our mind. Therefore, what happens to our mind in deep sleep is that it simply does not appear at all. However, from the perspective of our mind in waking state it is not possible for us to conceive of deep sleep as a state in which our mind does not exist at all, so it is said that in deep sleep our mind has subsided and remains in a dormant or seed-like condition, which is then called by various names such as the kaarana sharira (causal body) and the aanandamaya kosha (sheath composed of happiness). These two terms, therefore, denote something that do not actually exists or even seemed to exist while we are asleep, but that seems to exist only from the perspective of our mind in the waking state.
Another implication of the above (Krishna's) statement is that when the Absolute Reality (Brahman) is apparently sleeping, it is the Creator (Eeshwara) creating this dream-world. The final truth is that Brahman, the Awareness, is always awake!
So from the point of view of experience, deep sleep is simply the presence of sense-of-presence of your true-self (Pure Awareness) without the appearance of mind. This is the spiritual value of the deep sleep! There is no experience of a dark, blank nothingness. Rather, there is only the 'experience' of itself, which means only the presence or being of itself. This is neither deep, dark, blank or asleep. It is dimensionless, present, luminous, alive and awake. That is our natural state. Consciousness is present but is not manifest because the mind is not functioning or not manifesting Consciousness. That's all. What we actually experience in deep sleep is only our Non-Dual Consciousness of our own essential being, 'I am', so as such, deep sleep is a state devoid of any form of relativity or finitude. What makes deep sleep appear to be a relative and, therefore, finite state is the rising of our mind in the two truly relative and finite states of waking and dream. Otherwise, we are always in deep sleep!
The only difference between deep sleep and Pure Consciousness, from the waking state perspective, is that Pure Consciousness is Eternal and Immutable whereas we seem to come out of deep sleep. However this difference is not real, because it is only from the perspective of the ego in waking state that we seem to have come out of deep sleep. If we investigate ourselves keenly enough we will find that we have never come out of deep sleep, and that deep sleep is therefore our only state and the one real state, otherwise known as Pure Consciousness, the substrate.
If we raise two walls in a vast open space, that one open space will appear to be divided into three confined spaces. Similarly, when our mind imagines the existence of two different types of body – gross and subtle – the infinite space of our true and absolute self-conscious being appears to be divided into three separate finite states, which we call waking, dream and deep-sleep. But deep-sleep is continuous throughout. If waking is movie#1 and dream is movie#2, then deep-sleep is the screen. All that exists and is experienced in deep sleep is Pure Consciousness, which is what we actually are, but after rising from sleep as this ego in the waking state, it seems to us that in deep sleep we did not know what we actually are, so from our perspective as this ego it seems that we were self-ignorant even in sleep. However, what did not know our actual self in deep sleep was only our ego, but the reason it did not know our actual self in deep sleep was that it did not exist then, so since what we experienced in deep sleep is therefore causal body/ignorance/bliss only in the view of our ego in waking or dream. All the three bodies actually appear together in the waking state only and disappear together in deep sleep.
In reality, the state that we now call deep sleep is our true, natural, infinite and absolute state of Pure Self-Consciousness. However, so long as we feel ourselves to be this relative and finite consciousness that we call our mind, we cannot know deep sleep as it really is. That is, since we do not experience our essential Self-Consciousness "I am" in its true/pure form in our present waking state, from the perspective of this waking state we cannot recognize the fact that we did experience our Self-Consciousness "I am" in its true/pure form in deep sleep. The reason why deep sleep seems to most of us to be a state devoid of Self-Consciousness is that we are so habituated in waking and dream to mistakenly confusing our awareness of adjuncts (body/mind/world) to be our real Self-Consciousness that the absence of any awareness of adjuncts in sleep seems to us to be an absence of Self-Consciousness. And because this body and mind, which now seem to be ourselves, do not exist in sleep, it seems to us now that we were not aware of ourselves in sleep, whereas what we are actually not aware of in sleep was any of these phenomena that we mistake to be ourselves in waking and dream (body/mind).
Therefore, in order to discover what we really experienced in deep sleep, we must know-experience our fundamental self-consciousness "I am" in its true/pure form in our present waking state! That's it! So, we must distinguish between the mere absence of duality in deep sleep and the knowledge of absence of duality. A sage (gnyaani) will have this knowledge/knowing of the absence of duality even in the waking state. Then only there is realization, then only there is liberation.
>>>Two common but important questions on deep sleep as a side note...1. Are you aware during deep sleep?...Yes, you are Awareness and Awareness can never not-exist and can never be unaware! Deep sleep is neither an action nor an inaction. There is no ego/mind in sleeping, so there can never be a sleeper. Therefore nobody sleeps, and deep sleep is not. Deep sleep is a non-action. What is non-action? Well, action is an act with a personal doership ('karma'); inaction is an egoless action ('vikarma'); non-action is action where things just happen automatically, with or without an ego ('akarma'), breathing is a good example of non-action. And where do you think God is? In non-action! A common man's realm is action, a sage's realm is inaction and God's realm is non-action. So is deep sleep, a non-action, which is God or Awareness. 2. Does mind remember that you slept soundly in deep sleep?...No. Mind is not there in deep sleep, so how can it remember?! From the perspective of the waking state, deep sleep appears as a vague memory of a blank nothingness, which apparently lasts for an undetermined period of time. This memory, like all memories, comes in the form of a thought, which, takes place in the 'now.' The deep sleep to which the memorizing-thought refers, is utterly non-existent at the time of the occurrence of the memorizing thought. In other words, the only evidence, in the waking state, for the existence of an experience called 'deep sleep' comes in the form of a thought. Thought first imagines deep sleep and, in order to conceive of it in its own language of apparent objectivity, it superimposes onto it the qualities of blankness and duration. Because a finite mind can never grasp/understand the Infinite Consciousness which has no objective qualities. This is the work of the cunning mind to claim that it had the experience of sound sleep! Mind is an imposter!>>>
In conclusion...In our search for the Absolute Reality, deep sleep is in fact the most important of our three states of mind, because it is the only state in which we experience our fundamental knowledge — our essential Self-Consciousness, "I am" — devoid of any other knowledge. Not only does deep sleep provide us with indisputable evidence of the fact that our essential nature is only our Non-Dual Self-Consciousness — our Pure Consciousness of our own being, 'I am' — but it also provides us with the important clue we require in the waking state in order to practice self-investigation effectively.
Deep sleep analysis, coming from two different perspectives, is one of the best tools available for Self-Inquiry. It has an immense value in spirituality. Deep sleep is not nothing, it is completely filled with Pure Consciousness. You will be wise to use this tool!
Ramana Maharshi: "That which is not present in deep, dreamless sleep is not-real (mithya)!"
Who is the deep-sleeper?..........
According to grammar, the verb ‘is’ and its variants are considered verbs of incomplete
predication and so do not denote any particular action. All other verbs always denote action. We usually say, ‘I sleep.’ What does it really mean? Deep sleep is used as a verb and must denote some action. But do I sleep? Is there any action in sleeping? No. Sleep is neither an action nor an inaction. There is no ego in sleeping, so there can never be a sleeper. Therefore nobody sleeps, and deep sleep is not. Deep sleep is a non-action.
How is deep sleep known? How is the fact that one slept well, recalled?..........
When we say “I see a pot (out there),” the 'I' in the sentence refers to the waker (or dreamer). This process of cognition is called as ‘direct-mediate perception.’ The perceiver (pseudo-subject) obtains the knowledge of the percept (object) through the direct-mediate means of using the sense of vision.
The knowledge or experience of deep sleep, strictly speaking, is not a “re-call” based on memory. The waker who says that he slept well was actually not present during that deep sleep. Besides, memory can only remember objects! By definition, deep sleep is when the waker is absent as the experiencer. Hence deep sleep cannot be known through direct-mediate means like seeing a pot or a tree. It can be known through inference only. Hence the knowledge (not memory) that “I slept well” is inferential. That's the first point to understand. But then, how exactly is the inference about the deep sleep made?
There are two different routes for the explanation. The more popular approach is the one followed by Mandukya Upanishad. Comparable to the awake state sentence “I cognize a pot,” the corresponding sentence made with respect to deep sleep, in this approach, is to say: “I cognize ignorance or nothing (in deep sleep).” According to this approach the really real cognizer is someone different from the waker, dreamer and deep sleeper. He is the fourth (Thuriya/Thuriyam or Pure Awareness). This Fourth one is the true 'I.' The followers of this approach tell us that the waker 'I' is only a fallacious entity and they exhort us to know the true 'I,' the Witness or 'Saakshee.'
The second approach (based on Taittiriya, Aitareya Upanishads) suggests that the waker 'I,' who was actually absent during deep sleep (ego), is an imposter/pretender when he explains away his own absence saying “I slept well.” Deep sleep is not in time. Ego cannot 'go there.' The only evidence, in the waking state, for the existence of an experience called 'deep sleep' comes in the form of a thought. Thought first imagines deep sleep and, in order to conceive of it in its own language of apparent objectivity, it superimposes onto it the qualities of blankness and duration. The true “I” is actually deep sleep itself as it is the "being" itself – peaceful, spaceless and timeless. The true “I” or Awareness knows itself in deep sleep (and always). There is no other thing/object to be known in deep sleep. Therefore to know deep sleep, simply take your stand knowingly as the Presence of Pure Awareness that you are.
So from the point of view of experience, deep sleep is simply the presence of sense-of-presence of your true-self (Pure Awareness) without the appearance of mind. This is the spiritual value of the deep sleep! There is no experience of a dark, blank nothingness. Rather, there is only the 'experience' of itself, which means only the presence or being of itself. This is neither deep, dark, blank or asleep. It is dimensionless, present, luminous, alive and awake. That is our natural state. Consciousness is present but is not manifest because the mind is not functioning or not manifesting Consciousness. That's all. What we actually experience in deep sleep is only our Non-Dual Consciousness of our own essential being, 'I am', so as such, deep sleep is a state devoid of any form of relativity or finitude. What makes deep sleep appear to be a relative and, therefore, finite state is the rising of our mind in the two truly relative and finite states of waking and dream. Otherwise, we are always in deep sleep!
The only difference between deep sleep and Pure Consciousness, from the waking state perspective, is that Pure Consciousness is Eternal and Immutable whereas we seem to come out of deep sleep. However this difference is not real, because it is only from the perspective of the ego in waking state that we seem to have come out of deep sleep. If we investigate ourselves keenly enough we will find that we have never come out of deep sleep, and that deep sleep is therefore our only state and the one real state, otherwise known as Pure Consciousness, the substrate.
If we raise two walls in a vast open space, that one open space will appear to be divided into three confined spaces. Similarly, when our mind imagines the existence of two different types of body – gross and subtle – the infinite space of our true and absolute self-conscious being appears to be divided into three separate finite states, which we call waking, dream and deep-sleep. But deep-sleep is continuous throughout. If waking is movie#1 and dream is movie#2, then deep-sleep is the screen. All that exists and is experienced in deep sleep is Pure Consciousness, which is what we actually are, but after rising from sleep as this ego in the waking state, it seems to us that in deep sleep we did not know what we actually are, so from our perspective as this ego it seems that we were self-ignorant even in sleep. However, what did not know our actual self in deep sleep was only our ego, but the reason it did not know our actual self in deep sleep was that it did not exist then, so since what we experienced in deep sleep is therefore causal body/ignorance/bliss only in the view of our ego in waking or dream. All the three bodies actually appear together in the waking state only and disappear together in deep sleep.
In reality, the state that we now call deep sleep is our true, natural, infinite and absolute state of Pure Self-Consciousness. However, so long as we feel ourselves to be this relative and finite consciousness that we call our mind, we cannot know deep sleep as it really is. That is, since we do not experience our essential Self-Consciousness "I am" in its true/pure form in our present waking state, from the perspective of this waking state we cannot recognize the fact that we did experience our Self-Consciousness "I am" in its true/pure form in deep sleep. The reason why deep sleep seems to most of us to be a state devoid of Self-Consciousness is that we are so habituated in waking and dream to mistakenly confusing our awareness of adjuncts (body/mind/world) to be our real Self-Consciousness that the absence of any awareness of adjuncts in sleep seems to us to be an absence of Self-Consciousness. And because this body and mind, which now seem to be ourselves, do not exist in sleep, it seems to us now that we were not aware of ourselves in sleep, whereas what we are actually not aware of in sleep was any of these phenomena that we mistake to be ourselves in waking and dream (body/mind).
Therefore, in order to discover what we really experienced in deep sleep, we must know-experience our fundamental self-consciousness "I am" in its true/pure form in our present waking state! That's it! So, we must distinguish between the mere absence of duality in deep sleep and the knowledge of absence of duality. A sage (gnyaani) will have this knowledge/knowing of the absence of duality even in the waking state. Then only there is realization, then only there is liberation.
>>>Two common but important questions on deep sleep as a side note...1. Are you aware during deep sleep?...Yes, you are Awareness and Awareness can never not-exist and can never be unaware! Deep sleep is neither an action nor an inaction. There is no ego/mind in sleeping, so there can never be a sleeper. Therefore nobody sleeps, and deep sleep is not. Deep sleep is a non-action. What is non-action? Well, action is an act with a personal doership ('karma'); inaction is an egoless action ('vikarma'); non-action is action where things just happen automatically, with or without an ego ('akarma'), breathing is a good example of non-action. And where do you think God is? In non-action! A common man's realm is action, a sage's realm is inaction and God's realm is non-action. So is deep sleep, a non-action, which is God or Awareness. 2. Does mind remember that you slept soundly in deep sleep?...No. Mind is not there in deep sleep, so how can it remember?! From the perspective of the waking state, deep sleep appears as a vague memory of a blank nothingness, which apparently lasts for an undetermined period of time. This memory, like all memories, comes in the form of a thought, which, takes place in the 'now.' The deep sleep to which the memorizing-thought refers, is utterly non-existent at the time of the occurrence of the memorizing thought. In other words, the only evidence, in the waking state, for the existence of an experience called 'deep sleep' comes in the form of a thought. Thought first imagines deep sleep and, in order to conceive of it in its own language of apparent objectivity, it superimposes onto it the qualities of blankness and duration. Because a finite mind can never grasp/understand the Infinite Consciousness which has no objective qualities. This is the work of the cunning mind to claim that it had the experience of sound sleep! Mind is an imposter!>>>
In conclusion...In our search for the Absolute Reality, deep sleep is in fact the most important of our three states of mind, because it is the only state in which we experience our fundamental knowledge — our essential Self-Consciousness, "I am" — devoid of any other knowledge. Not only does deep sleep provide us with indisputable evidence of the fact that our essential nature is only our Non-Dual Self-Consciousness — our Pure Consciousness of our own being, 'I am' — but it also provides us with the important clue we require in the waking state in order to practice self-investigation effectively.
Deep sleep analysis, coming from two different perspectives, is one of the best tools available for Self-Inquiry. It has an immense value in spirituality. Deep sleep is not nothing, it is completely filled with Pure Consciousness. You will be wise to use this tool!
Ramana Maharshi: "That which is not present in deep, dreamless sleep is not-real (mithya)!"
Who is the deep-sleeper?..........
According to grammar, the verb ‘is’ and its variants are considered verbs of incomplete
predication and so do not denote any particular action. All other verbs always denote action. We usually say, ‘I sleep.’ What does it really mean? Deep sleep is used as a verb and must denote some action. But do I sleep? Is there any action in sleeping? No. Sleep is neither an action nor an inaction. There is no ego in sleeping, so there can never be a sleeper. Therefore nobody sleeps, and deep sleep is not. Deep sleep is a non-action.
How is deep sleep known? How is the fact that one slept well, recalled?..........
When we say “I see a pot (out there),” the 'I' in the sentence refers to the waker (or dreamer). This process of cognition is called as ‘direct-mediate perception.’ The perceiver (pseudo-subject) obtains the knowledge of the percept (object) through the direct-mediate means of using the sense of vision.
The knowledge or experience of deep sleep, strictly speaking, is not a “re-call” based on memory. The waker who says that he slept well was actually not present during that deep sleep. Besides, memory can only remember objects! By definition, deep sleep is when the waker is absent as the experiencer. Hence deep sleep cannot be known through direct-mediate means like seeing a pot or a tree. It can be known through inference only. Hence the knowledge (not memory) that “I slept well” is inferential. That's the first point to understand. But then, how exactly is the inference about the deep sleep made?
There are two different routes for the explanation. The more popular approach is the one followed by Mandukya Upanishad. Comparable to the awake state sentence “I cognize a pot,” the corresponding sentence made with respect to deep sleep, in this approach, is to say: “I cognize ignorance or nothing (in deep sleep).” According to this approach the really real cognizer is someone different from the waker, dreamer and deep sleeper. He is the fourth (Thuriya/Thuriyam or Pure Awareness). This Fourth one is the true 'I.' The followers of this approach tell us that the waker 'I' is only a fallacious entity and they exhort us to know the true 'I,' the Witness or 'Saakshee.'
The second approach (based on Taittiriya, Aitareya Upanishads) suggests that the waker 'I,' who was actually absent during deep sleep (ego), is an imposter/pretender when he explains away his own absence saying “I slept well.” Deep sleep is not in time. Ego cannot 'go there.' The only evidence, in the waking state, for the existence of an experience called 'deep sleep' comes in the form of a thought. Thought first imagines deep sleep and, in order to conceive of it in its own language of apparent objectivity, it superimposes onto it the qualities of blankness and duration. The true “I” is actually deep sleep itself as it is the "being" itself – peaceful, spaceless and timeless. The true “I” or Awareness knows itself in deep sleep (and always). There is no other thing/object to be known in deep sleep. Therefore to know deep sleep, simply take your stand knowingly as the Presence of Pure Awareness that you are.
Why this inference is not a memory?...There is a subtle difference between our memory of anything we experienced in waking or dream and our 'memory' of what we experienced in deep sleep, because whatever we experience in waking or dream has numerous features, whereas what we experienced in deep sleep is featureless (it is infinite and not an object), because it is nothing other than "I," ourselves. Because "I" remains essentially unchanged in all these three states, we remember that in the past "I" experienced waking, "I" experienced dream and "I" experienced deep sleep. To remember the existence of "I," we do not require the mind, because our Self-Awareness, "I am," carries within itself, so to speak, its own 'memory' of itself. Actually it is not a memory, but immediate and direct knowledge/knowing.
In sleep we cannot remember anything that we experienced in waking or dream (other than "I am"), because in sleep the mind is absent/dormant. Because it is the mind that seemingly experiences anything other than "I," it is only the mind that can remember experiencing anything other than "I." However, because "I" experiences itself even in the absence of the mind (it experiences itself always), it does not require the mind to remember itself, and hence we can remember that I slept, even though the mind was absent in sleep.
'Memory' of the true "I" by the true "I" is quite unlike our memory of anything else. What experiences and remembers other things is our mind, but what experiences and remembers "I" (our own existence and awareness) is only "I" itself. Our experience "I" or "I am" is essentially timeless, because whether we experience time (as in waking and dream) or no time (as in sleep), we always experience "I am," so this ever-present experience is beyond time. We can never forget "I," and hence we cannot but remember "I" at all times. This immediate-knowledge (not memory) is always available as the Self is always present. Awareness does not "know" in any objective sense. Awareness simply knows. It is a direct and immediate knowledge/knowing.
The experience of deep sleep or peace is not something that needs to be remembered from the past because it is still shining here in the present, in this very experience now. It is like asking a TV screen, while the movie is running, "Why do you not remember what you actually are (like when there is no movie present, i.e, when the screen is blank)?" And the screen answers, "Even now when the movie is running, I know myself as I am." Where is the need for memory, when the screen, the knowing of its own self, is present as a current experience?
Perhaps a simple common sense approach that 'I' as the true knower has always been present irrespective of the fact whether it is awake, in dream or in deep sleep state is to ask oneself: "Am I ever aware of my own absence?" The answer should be obvious.
Am I aware in deep sleep?..........
Yes, you are aware in deep sleep! You are the True 'I' that is never unaware. Anything that is not aware (like matter or mind) does not experience itself as ‘I,' because only something that is aware can be aware that 'I' exist or 'I am.' So, whatever experiences itself as ‘I’ is something that is aware. Just by being yourself, you are knowing yourself. Being and knowing are one and the same. You cannot "be" without knowing and you cannot "know" without being. This is everyone's undeniable experience. Q: Do you exist? A: Yes. Q: How do you know that you exist? A: I know (just by being). The 'I' that exists and the 'I' that knows that exists is the same 'I.' They are not two different 'I's.' This is very subtle to understand.
In other words, whatever is aware is always self-aware, so Self-Awareness is the very nature of whatever is aware. And what is Self-Awareness? It is the awareness of itself as ‘I’; Self-Awareness is the knowledge/knowing that one knows of being aware. It is the Self-Knowledge which does not require any means of knowledge - it is direct, "I am present." Therefore whatever is aware is that which is aware of itself as ‘I,’ so what is called ‘I’ is whatever is aware. In other words, experiencing oneself as ‘I,’ the first person, is an essential characteristic of the experience of being aware. Therefore awareness and ‘I’ are inseparable, because unless we are aware we cannot be aware of ‘I,’ and if we are aware we cannot but be aware of ourselves as ‘I,’ the first person, the one who is aware.
Moreover, whatever is aware will always be aware of itself as ‘I,’ the first person, whether or not it is aware of anything else, because it cannot be aware without being aware that it is aware, and being aware that it is aware necessarily entails being aware of itself, its own existence.
Therefore being aware is the very nature of ‘I,’ and ‘I’ is the essential nature of being aware. Hence, if what we call ‘I’ does exist in deep sleep (or in a state of complete anesthesia, coma or whatever), it is certainly aware of itself as ‘I’ in that state, whereas if on the contrary it were not aware of itself in sleep, it would not exist then, because it cannot exist (that is, it cannot be ‘I’) without being aware. That is, since ‘I’ would not be ‘I’ if it were not aware of itself, it cannot exist without being aware of itself.
Are you convinced that you do exist when you are asleep (and that likewise you did exist when you were in a state of general anesthesia)? If you are convinced that you do not cease to exist in such states, then you should be equally convinced that you do not cease to be aware of yourself as ‘I,’ because what you essentially are is something that is aware of itself as ‘I’ — something whose very nature is to be aware of itself as ‘I.’ If you ever ceased to be aware, you would cease to be ‘I,’ so you would no longer be you. Since you cannot not be you, if you ever ceased to be aware, you would cease to exist!
Since you are the same 'I' that existed continuously, 'I' must have been continuously aware! An unaware ‘I’ is a self-contradictory concept just like an existent no-existence.
The expression, I was unconscious, is, therefore, a contradiction in terms. It means I, the thinker, had no thoughts. But I cannot be a thinker when I have no thoughts. When thought is absent, I remains in being although the consciousness of an individual existence has vanished with the cessation of mental activity. Thus the expression, I was unconscious, implies that I continued to exist without individuality. Every human life proves this fact, although it is not recognized. If, for example, there were any fear lest the loss of individual consciousness meant annihilation/extinction, no one who identified himself with his body would dare to fall asleep!
Does the world exist during deep sleep?..........
Our world vanishes absolutely when we fall asleep. All our thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions are private. We think we all view the same world but in fact all we view is our own private perception. The world that is considered to exist independent of perception and of which each of our perceptions is considered to be a single, partial view, has never been experienced. There is no evidence for its existence.
Other peoples’ experience proves only their experience. Other people are part of the world that you are trying to investigate! They prove neither your experience nor the existence of a world outside or independent of experience. Once up from a night-dream, you realize that the entire dream was not real including those people that say the world is real. Those people are not certainly existing in that dream-world now! See clearly that when the mind, body and world appear, they appear simply as the current thought, feeling, sensation and/or perception.
Every thought, sensation and perception, is only the coloring of Consciousness, just as whatever image appears on the TV screen is only the coloring of the screen. Although appearances change, just as the images on a screen change, their substance, Consciousness, always remains as it is. And just as there is no continuity between the images that appear on the screen, other than the screen itself, so there is no continuity between the appearances of the mind, body and world, other than Consciousness out of which they are made.
Just as the screen remains throughout all the images that appear on it, so Consciousness or Knowing remains throughout all appearances of the mind, body and world. The felt continuity of the mind, body and world does not reside in anything objective, because all apparent objects are intermittent. Our experience of the apparent continuity of the mind, body and world is in fact the experience of the ever-presentness of Consciousness. It is a reflection of the ever-presentness of Consciousness in the mind.
Because we have overlooked the presence of Consciousness, we have to account for its ever-presentness somewhere and, as a result, project it onto the mind, body and world. The ever-presentness of Consciousness, thus, appears as continuity in time and permanence in space. As a result we think that the mind, body and world are continuous and that Consciousness is intermittent. It is precisely the opposite. Consciousness is ever-present and the the mind, body and world are intermittent.
Take as an example the last image of your bedroom before falling asleep and let us call that image A. Now take the first image of your bedroom that appears in the morning and let us call it image B. And let us call the thought that says that the bedroom you see in the morning is the same bedroom that was seen the previous night, thought C. Our experience is that when A is present, B is not, and when B is present, A is not. So, in fact, thought C imagines a connection between an existing image, B, and a non-existent image, A.
What is the relationship between something that exists and something that does not? There is none. It is simply a belief that connects the two appearances. It is this belief that creates the apparent continuity of A and B, that is, the apparent continuity of the bedroom while you were asleep and, as a result, posits a solid, permanent world that persists when it is not being experienced. A similar belief about the apparent connection between sensations creates the concept of a continuous body and likewise a similar belief in relation to all the thoughts and images creates the apparent mind. But in each case, the world, body and mind that are imagined to exist independent of Consciousness, are never actually experienced.
From a higher point of view, even the above is not true. There are never any objects, such as the bedroom, in the first place. There is only one ‘thing,’ Consciousness (The bedroom is only made of perceiving and perceiving is only made of mind and mind is only made of Consciousness). How can there be continuity between non-existent objects? There is just one ever-present, homogeneous, substantial Presence. What is the connection between the current image of the bedroom that appears in the film and an image of the bedroom that appears in the same film two minutes later? Only the screen. Nothing else connects them. But there are not even two independent images of the bedroom in the first place because all they are made out of - is the screen. Their only reality is the screen.
Take your stand as this Presence and see that you never go anywhere or do anything. You are just eternally yourself, always in the same placeless place, being colored by the images of a bedroom, being colored by the images of a dream, being colored by the blankness of deep sleep, being colored by the images of a bedroom, being colored by the images of a dream…...and on and on, but always yourself. Changing apparently, yet never changing! And that is Consciousness!
What are the states of the Creator-God?..........
As the individual soul has three states, so has the Creator-God.
The gross universe is Creator-God’s waking state.
The cosmic mind is Creator-God’s dream state (or subtle universe).
Deluge (pralaya) is Creator-God’s deep sleep state.Is deep sleep state is the link between the waking and dream states?..........
Yes. The deep sleep state or the sleeper is the link between the waking and the dream states. From the waking state, we never go to dream state directly and similarly, we do not go to waking state from the dream state directly. Through the deep sleep state alone, we go to the other two states: waking – deep sleep – dream –deep sleep – waking...on and on. Even when we seem to have woken up suddenly and directly from the dream state, there is a deep sleep state of very short duration intervening that we are unable to recognize. Because to go from one state to another, we have to drop our identification with one body and develop identification with the other body or the next body. Switching from the waker’s body (which is a thought) to the dreamer’s body (which is another thought) requires a small gap and that gap is the substratum of all thoughts and is called the deep sleep state.
The sleeper is the link between the waker and the dreamer always, or in all ways!
- Sudhakar V Reddy
For Further Reading:
Esoterics of GOD-The Reality! And How to Realize IT?
https://sudhakarvreddy.blogspot.com/2018/04/esoterics-of-god.html
Esoterics of Death and Life After Death!
https://sudhakarvreddy.blogspot.com/2017/12/esoterics-of-death-and-life-after-death.html
Esoterics of the Seven Bodies of Man!
https://sudhakarvreddy.blogspot.com/2013/09/esoterics-of-seven-bodies-mysteries-of_2.html
