waking/dream/deep-sleep

[Guest guest]

Dear friends,

I apologize if I gave the impression that Ramanuja says the

dream objects are real and so they must be considered real. This

was not my intent. I just wanted to demystify the discussion by

pointing out that Ramanuja describes the dream objects as

`things to be perceived by the dreamer and persisting for a certain

time only'.

 

I think everyone of us is agreed that this is a reasonable

description of the dream objects. For `technical' reasons in

Visistadvaita these obejcts are referred to as `real'. That is all.

There is no big mystery here.

 

If we want to understand what those technical reasons are, and

what is visistadvaita's position on what we would normally consider

"illusory", we have to understand the basic principles of the

philosophy and the theory of `truth' and `error'. Again, I want to

repeat that there is no mystery at all.

 

Now the second question is why the supreme soul is held to be

the creator of dreams. I think this again can be atleast partly

appreciated if one has a clear picture of the nature of the three

tattvas that act in the phenomenal world -- prakriti, jiva, and

Iswara. I will try to elaborate later but I would be more happy

if some learned person does this.

 

thanks and sorry for errors.

 

-Kasturi