Bhagavan: Why does everyone desire sleep?

[Guest guest]

Q: Ecstatic experience implies the association with a very subtle

mind state. What is your state in sleep?

M: No ecstasy or pain, but beyond both. The natural state is just

that, with consciousness of existence added.

Q: What is turiya?

M: Turiya is mind in quiescence and aware of Self, with awareness that

the mind has merged in its source. Whether the senses are active or

inactive is immaterial. In nirvikalpa samadhi the senses are

inactive. To know, implies subject and object. To be aware means to

be thought-free.

Q: I consider sleep a worse state than waking.

M: If it were so, why does everyone desire sleep?

There are different methods of approach to prove the unreality of the

universe. The example of the dream is one of them. Jagrat, swapna and

sushupti are all treated elaborately in the scriptures in order that

the reality underlying them might be revealed. The intention is not

meant to accentuate differences among the three states. Their purpose

must be kept clearly in view.

They say that the world is unreal - but to what degree? It is like the

son of a barren mother, or a flower in the sky? These are mere words

without any reference to facts, whereas the world is a fact and not a

mere word.

 

The answer it that it is a superimposition on the one Reality like the

appearance of a snake on a coiled rope in dim light. Here too the

wrong identity ceases as soon as a friend points out that it is a

rope, whereas in the matter of the world, it persists even after we

have been told it is unreal. How is that? Though knowing it to be

unreal, it continues to manifest - but we do not try to satisfy our

thirst with the water of the mirage. as soon as one knows that it is

a mirage , one gives it up as useless and does not run after it to

get water.

 

jagrat, the waking state

swapna, dream state

sushupti, deep dreamless state

 

Snipped from Conscious Immortality