Tag Archives: Dream

Who am I

Is dream really a dream?

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A king saw a dream in which he lost his kingdom, sent into exile and subsequently faced extreme hardships. After waking up he found himself to be the king but the experience of losing kingdom and being treated poorly had gone deep into his mind. He kept on saying, “Is this true or is that true?”. When a sage visited him, the king said the same thing to the sage as well.

King: Is this true or is that true?
Sage: You experienced both things. However, when one experience was present, other was absent. You are experiencing kingdom now but this experience was absent when you experienced the loss of kingdom and events after that. No experience is absolute truth as experience keeps on changing. So, neither is this experience true nor is that experience true. What never changes is absolute truth. The only truth is YOU.

Maya

Sleep & Maya

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The verse below compares sleep with maya:

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[Panchadasi, Chapter 8, Kootasthadeep Prakraran, Verse 63]

Meaning: We see that our sleep too (which can be called as our maya) does create the conscious Jiva and Ishvar of the dream. Then, why should you be surprised if the grand maya creates conscious Jivas and Ishvar?

Universe Creation

If creation is a dream why everyone sees the same dream?

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Q: It is I only who sees my dream, nobody else. But, everybody sees creation. If creation is also a dream why does everybody see it?

A: Actually, it is not just you who sees your dream world. Others also see your dream world but they do not call it dream world. For them it is real. Let us say that K is seeing a dream in which he (as K’) along with A, B and C are present. These 4 people (A, B, C, K’) who are fictitious are actually behaving in the dream as if they were seeing the dream world of K as real world. If A hits B in the dream world, B responds A in the dream world appropriately. Does this not mean that B is seeing and experiencing the same dream world? This means that everybody present in the dream is seeing & experiencing the dream world – not just K whose mind is projecting the dream. Creation is the dream world projected by the consciousness and we the actors present in the dream world would naturally see it. We as humans may appear very real with respect to our world (which is not dream world for us) but from the perspective of consciousness, we as humans are like actors in the dream movie.

Consciousness

If I am non-dual consciousness, why don’t I know all?

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Question: If consciousness itself is present in every form and it is one, why does not one form know about what all forms perceive?

Answer-1: Imagine that you are the only passenger in a stationary train. You change compartments to view outside through different windows. You get to see different things. It is the same you having different views but you have only one view at a time. Likewise it is the same essence of one consciousness in every form, but the forms are different and one form does not know what other form perceives.

Answer-2: When you dream in which you are present yourself along with others, even though it is your mind that is creating the dream, the you present in dream does not know about what is going on in the minds of other dream-mates. Let us say that K is dreaming in which K himself as K’ along with A, B and C are present.

Dream Example

In the figure,  though it is K’s mind that is projecting the dream, K who is himself present in the dream as K’ does not know what is going on in the minds of A, B and C. This is like one way traffic in the direction of arrows. For the K’ to know the mind of A the information would need to flow is opposite direction which does not happen.

PS: The figure above shows K outside the dream boundary. This is just for simplicity sake. Since K’s mind is projecting the dream, we can say that the K’s dream is within K’s mind and the following figure looks at it in this respect and can be considered as more accurate:

Dream Example II