ADVAITA-L Digest - 25 May 1996 to 27 May 1996

[egodust]

> >
> >         Regarding the svapna debate, I have a question based on lucid
> > dreaming. Most of the times when I dream, I am aware that I am dreaming.
> > That is, if I see myself being attacked by a tiger, I know that it is not
> > real and that I am sleeping on the mattress and nothing will happen to my
> > body. This is mostly consistent with the term lucid dreaming { i heard of
> > this term only recently, so don't ask me too much about it, except that I
> > read the FAQ on it :-)}. Do vedantic philosophers handle this type of
> > dream ? In my opinion, GYAnis regard the waking state as a dream and
> > perecive it to be not real, while being established in the SELF, while in
> > lucid dreams one is able to perceive that a dream is not real, while
> > being established in the mattress :-)
> >
> > Giri
> >
> > PS : I am aware that lucid dreams spoil the fun of dreaming to a certain
> > extent :-)
> >
>
> I used to have occasional lucid dreams few years ago(after my 12th, when
> I read about astral travelling). I dont have them anymore. They used to
> be lot of fun. You can do some outrageous things like fly, go through
> walls, jump off cliffs and smoothly land on the ground ..etc
> Sometimes, such outrageous events used to give me the knowledge that
> I am dreaming (this is by deduction within the dream).
> For me, the waking/dream state equivalence comes from the understanding
> of how I put together objects and events. Also the perception of water
> in a mirage gave me lot of initial push towards that understanding.
> I feel that (just my feeling), for a gnani, the world appears like
> water appears to us in a mirage (it appears quite real). But once
> the unreal nature of the mirage is understood, the water there loses
> its reality (that doesn't mean that water doesn't appear anymore :-) ).
> So objects are put together by associating different sense perceptions.
> But we know that all the objects and events in dreams are not perceptions
> of 'external' objects (after waking up of course). So on what basis can we
> classify objects as external and internal (all of them being products of
> the mind)? Even if there exist external objects, we can only have their
> internal representations. So there is no external and internal but
> only 'one'. The external and internal are only concepts.
>
> Srinivas.

Namaskaar.

I consider that the philosophical ordering of concepts/precepts has its
place insofar as preparing the ego-Mind for its final dissolution.
However, regarding the ultimate status of [such] ideas, I further
consider that they are intrinsically arbitrary and, thereof--in the last
analysis--, irrelevant.  To wit: ideas that the waking and dream states are
projections of Mind-stuff, being itself a projection of Cidakasa, only
hold water relative to the phenomenal constructs of the shakti matrix.
And the changeable shakti expression is only some mysterious artform spun
from ParaBrahmam which, subject to birth and later death, even now doesn't
exist.

I submit that any settlement on any idea [including the idea in this
very sentence] is prone to annihilation.  Moksha will not tolerate it.
This seems to be the occult mandate of Siva.

praNaam.