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

[Michael Shepherd]

Dear Sunil,

Thanks for that. 'Day-dreaming' can be used constructively ; but it
generally involves more reason than emotion ? Night-dreaming seems freer and
more emotional.

I've noticed that in group discussions, individuals, when their thinking
gets stymied into a cul-de-sac, light a cigarette. Perhaps that allows
'resting spirit' as in sleep, to take part in the waking state, and thus
free 'dreaming' or thinking mind, to act better ?

(Whether it helps to smoke while working physically, I wouldn't know and
wouldn't want to know !)

Your response raises the question with me : is 'dreaming' therefore an
unique co-operation of emotion and reason not usually experienced so freely
in the 'waking' state ?

That may be why smoking is so irresistible to some thinkers ? Though that
must get blunted by habit. I can recall in my mind's eye, chain-smokers who
are thinking, and those who are not !

I can recall one brilliant teacher years ago when 'everyone' smoked, whose
detached observation of his own smoking was part of our own focussed
attention on his words of wisdom; like some veiled hypnotism ! We had the
sense of his resting, dreaming and wakefulness at the same time.. a
demonstration of the fourth state ? An alarming thought !

Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
[mailto:advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org]On Behalf Of Sunil
Bhattacharjya
Sent: 04 November 2009 10:54
To: A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] waking, dreaming, sleeping, as mutually
supportive



Dear Michael,

Can we say that during the night-dreaming the subconscious mind can act on a
problem and that can give some indication of things going to happen in the
future but in day-dreaming the sub-conscious mind would not act that freely.
I understand that with training one can however train the sub-conscious mind
to analyse problems even in the waking sate. Some executives light a
cigarette and keep quiet fort a short while and leave the problem to the
sub-conscious mind to analyse and by the time cigarette is half smoked the
answers are ready. Some people believe like that. I too subscribe to that
thinking to some extent though I do not smoke. Any comment?

Regards,

Sunil




--- On Wed, 11/4/09, Michael Shepherd <michael at shepherd87.fsnet.co.uk>
wrote:

From: Michael Shepherd <michael at shepherd87.fsnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] waking, dreaming, sleeping, as mutually supportive
To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta"
<advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2009, 2:28 AM

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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