[Advaita-l] Dreams and Reality

[Dr D Bharadwaj]

Dear SrI Pranipata,

Experiencing heaviness in carrying when the food was external to the body
and not so when consumed! Since both cannot be true, both has to be
imagination only.

In the case of the food carried we experience the weight of the food only
and *spend* energy to carry. In the case of the same food consumed, we *gain
* energy from the food consumed. I agree with the conclusion you drew from
the example. Perhaps that is more important than the example itself.
Otherwise it might lead to an unnecessary and perhaps unintended *shift*  in
communication.

It is true that there is a subjective, an iimagination aspect to anything we
perceive, both in the dream and in the wakefulness.

@ SrI Suresh,

So long as one is left to consider only the process of 'sanga' of the
indriyas with the objects as 'perception', it really does not matter whether
the objects are from the physical world, as in the wakeful state, or from
the subtle worlds, as in the case of the dreams, visions etc. What we call
the wakeful state is the state of 'a' limited awareness - awareness when
the objects of perception are limited, *mostly or entirely, *to the part of
the gross, physical. The dream state is the state of 'another' limited
awareness - awareness when the objects of perception are limited, *mostly or
entirely, * to a part of the subtle.

Both perceptions are almost identical as far as the process or the means of
perception are concerned. Also, the 'strangeness' and the 'unusualness' or
the 'unfamiliarity' of the dream state is only upon being awake. It was not
so strange etc. in the dream state itself. Both the states are,
*usually,* perceived
with their exclusiveness.

Also, the dream state that we 'talk of' is actually as perceived
from the wakeful state. As such, it is a recollected version or  a re
perceived 'impression' of the dream, from the wakeful state.
As SrI Pranipata had suggested, the 'play' of  an un-quantifiable amount of
imagination cannot be discounted.

So long as, for perception, we happen to have to deal only with and depend
only on the data gleaned with the help of the senses, our perception,
whether in the wakeful state or in the dream state, is 'tainted' by
the limitation of this process and its validity is, at least, suspect as far
as vedantic reality is concerned.

SrI gurucaraNakamalEBhyOnnamah
SrIramaNArpaNamastu






Regards,
Dr. D. Bharadwaj
drdbharadwaj at gmail.com


On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 6:40 AM, kuntimaddi sadananda <
kuntimaddisada at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> Sunilji - PraNAms
>
> As I  Understand:
>
> --- On Sat, 2/21/09, Sunil Bhattacharjya <sunil_bhattacharjya at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> Can the dreams not be related to the actions of the past births?
>
> ---------
> KS
> It is just as simple as to state that any creation involves knowledge of
> creation. Hence even the dream creator should have the knowledge to create -
> that knowledge gained from the past. That it relates to past samskaara is
> definite and how past that past should be- your judgment is as good as mine.
> ------------------------------
> Sunil:
>
> Only a realized soul can see his or her past lives clearly and the rest can
> probably have a peep into those only in their dreams in a random manner.
>
> KS: Sunilji, The above statement is a statement of declaration. I have no
> basis to say yes or no.
> ----------
> Sunil:
>
> Our present birth is based on our past Karma  and in dreams we may be
> seeing some sort of explanations of our present leanings in terms of our
> past actions. A person who is of very kind disposition may see in his dream
> that he is very cruel to people and it may be that he was so in his past
> life and realization of that made him kind in this life but he does see that
> link in the present waking state.
>
> KS: The key word in the above para is 'May see' - Kind disposition comes
> with discipline. Suppressions can be initial emotional or reaction states
> that can arise as mental and sensuous response to situations, which for a
> more balanced person are sublimated while those who are still evolutionary
> ladder they get suppressed. Suppressed ones will get exhausted in the dream
> since intellect is at low level compared to the mind - That is the
> discriminative faculty, the intellect is low so that mind can project those
> suppressed reactions. Nature has provided the dream state as exhaust
> mechanism. You only exhaust the vaasanaas without accumulate the new ones.
> It is a relief mechanism. Even the extreme states like somnambulism etc are
> repressed states motivating even physical action without the discriminative
> intellect aware of it.
>
> This is the basics = the rest one can speculate.
>
>
> Hari Om!
> Sadananda
>
>
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