Unreal actions and actors

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Sista wrote:

>Which reminds me of a discussion I had a few years ago with a friend.
>He told me likewise that a ferocious tiger woke him up from a dream.
>In my experience, I had terrifying dreams but did not wake up always.
>The dream sometimes transforms into another kind of dream. So my
>question is as follows: is the waking up due to the content of the
>dream or something else? (this is not a frivolous question)

The sentence "tattvamasi" is said to bring about realization for ripe
souls. When AshvalAyana maharshhi asks Lord brahma, the latter merely
tells him that he and brahman are one and the same and this produces
advaita siddhi in AshvalAyana maharshhi (See kaivalya upanishhad). I
have read this upanishhad 100s of times with no effect :-). Of course in
my case Lord brahma didn't say it either. Anyway, similar ideas are
given in the pai.ngala upanishhad and also the classic case of
shvetaketu. So it's all a question of how advanced one is.

However, one should remember that illustrations are just that -
illustrations. If the illustration corresponded one-to-one with reality,
then there would be no point in the shruti stating yato vAcho
nivartante, aprApya manasA saha etc.

Ramakrishnan.

PS: This tiger illustration is by sarvaGYAtma muni. Further
illustrations can be found in chapter VIII of the mAnasollAsa.