[Advaita-l] Waking and Dream States - II

[Michael Shepherd]

Sri Sadananda -- Pranams

I had forgotten that the term taijasa covers the limited consciousness and concept of this 'dream self'. And I confess to the urge to explain the world in terms of my waking dream !

I guess that it's not unreasonable to question the Lord -- 'Lord, why did You give the jiva three states of consciousness, even four ?' in the hope that the Lord may answer in His own way... :)

Thanks again,
Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
[mailto:advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org]On Behalf Of
kuntimaddi sadananda
Sent: 31 March 2009 02:49
To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] Waking and Dream States - II




> From: Pranipata <pranipata at hotmail.com>
 
> bahiShprajnaH:  svAtmavyatirikte viShaye prajnA yasya
> saH bahiShprajnaH. Viewing with other upaniShadic statements
> like parAk pashyati na antarAtman, Atma should refer to Self
> and not BMI, I feel.

Pranipata Caitanyaji – PraNAms

First, thanks for the comment.  I think, What is implied by ‘sva aatma', or one’s own self is the self identified with BMI and with reference to that conditioned self, the external,  bahiH – implying sva aatma vyatirikta viShaye prajnaa – awareness of the objects that are different from oneself  – Since the self that is being pointed is not the absolute self as there is nothing that is external to the absolute, the implied meaning, as I understand, is the conditioned self – conditioned by the BMI.  Hence my simplified statement follows. Shankara goes into the analysis of avidya as cause for perceiving the objects separate from myself - which is the same avidya that is resposible for my taking the BMI as myself. Hence the statement is consistent and compatible with the individual experience. 

With reference to that conditioning only the anthaH prajnaa also follows. 

--- On Mon, 3/30/09, ombhurbhuva <ombhurbhuva at eircom.net> wrote:

Namaste Sada-ji,
To call the dream experience ‘perception’ is an imprecision that leads to 
mistakes. Perception applies to the waking state only. If I have a 
perception of the great hall of the temple at Tiruvanamalai I can proceed 
to count the pillars there. If I imagine or dream that I am there I can 
do no such thing.
---------
Michael – PraNams  and thanks again.

As I see, you are applying the perceptual process in the waking state directly to the mental states applicable in the waking. I, as a subject in my own dream have 19 mouths according to upanishad  – which include five jnaana indiriyaas, eyes, ears etc and also five karma indriyaas, the speech, hands etc. So the dreamer also sees  his dream created Tiruvannamalai temple and it pillars and he can count them with his karmendriyas –In fact he may even create more pillars to count than the original temple.  He will not have any problem. Each system is fully equipped – that is what the 19 mouths imply in both waking and dream states. Hence I will not have any conflict in counting the pillars in Tiruvannamalai temple may be even count better than in the waking state. 

Hence perception can apply equally to the dream state. There also I will have impressions from the perception in my tiny mind in dream and those are internal perceptions where just as in waking state the memory rules apply.  The parallelism of the dream in this respect is exact. It gets nullified if you try to analyze the dream perceptions with the yard stick of the waker’s indriyaas. 
Hope I am clear. 

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