[Advaita-l] waking, dreaming, sleeping, as mutually supportive

[Michael Shepherd]

Dear Shrinivas,

Thank you for that response. It's just those 'labels' of experience thatr I
wanted to look at -- particularly the 'dreaming' state.

My 'taste' of the fourth state showed its simplicity : the bodily senses
were clear and fully available to sense; the mind was clear and fully
available to think; and all I can say of the 'spirit' was that it seemed
totally at rest. A perfect and blissful condition all round !

But as you say, our 'daily experience' during the 'waking hours' is a
mixture of perfect sensing,'dreaming' or clear thought, and continual
swinging between mental and sensory 'rest' and activity.

I am intrigued by whether we could rename the 'dreaming' state -- whether
'day-dreaming' or 'night-dreaming' -- as quite simply the 'thoughtful'
state. During the day, it's voluntary' during the night, it's involuntary;
but in the fourth state, it would appear to be at rest and in effect,
unnecessary.

I guess the answer is, if the presence of atman as witness is held in mind
at all times, all these questions don't matter !

But I'm just intrigued, technically, as to the power of the 'dreams' of art
to use illusion to remove illusion, thorn to remove thorn ! Or by my
definition above, thought to remove thought, ahamkara to remove ahamkara !

Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
[mailto:advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org]On Behalf Of
Shrinivas Gadkari
Sent: 04 November 2009 06:25
To: advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
Subject: [Advaita-l] waking, dreaming, sleeping, as mutually supportive



Namaste,

Revisiting this thread after several days:
In our daily experience we are awake, we sleep and we
see dreams. Now we have three states of consciousness
"awake state", "dream state" and "sleep state".

Based on my understanding and experience it will be too
hasty a conclusion to equate:
"awake state" = what we commonly mean by "awake experience",
"dream state" = what we commonly mean by "dream experience",
"sleep state" = what we commonly mean by "sleep experience".

It is true that "dream state" dominates the "dream experience",
and "sleep state" dominates the "deep sleep experience",
However, the "awake experience" (based on my understanding)
is quite complex. Though the "awake state" is easily
recognized in "awake experience", there are interspersed
experiences of "dream state" and "sleep state" in
the "awake experience". Recognizing/ examining this
phenomenon, in my opinion, forms the foundation for
study/ exploration/ understanding of the three states
of consciousness. hari om.

Regards,
Shrinivas




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