Is there ignorance in deep sleep?

[Guest guest]

Namaste,

 

 

Jan said:

"What is the use of thinking or philosophizing about this? Try to go

into samadhi when you are about to fall asleep and find out the truth

yourself."

 

 

I would like to relate an experience, and I hope it doesn't sound

pretentious. My track record of spiritual experiences is extremely

modest, mostly consisting of a peaceful feeling during meditation

which is probably no more than normal relaxation. But a couple of

experiences I had in the past year while falling asleep impressed me.

They were spontaneous and unintentional.

 

For some reason I stayed alert but unthinking while falling asleep.

Suddenly, there seemed to be a vast expansion of consciousness, which

was actually a bit frightening. It reminded of that quotation seen

earlier today from the Mandukya about a 'mass of consciousness'.

There was nothing but this mass of consciousness, which only lasted

an instant and could perhaps be compared to space (even more than to

light). In retrospect, it did indeed seem 'nondual', and there was a

complete absence of object.

 

The reason it only lasted an instant is because my mind immediately

swung into action and said, 'This is it! A nondual experience!'

This internal blabbering of the mind immediately killed the

experience, whatever it was, and made me wake up. The experience may

only have been some insignificant firing of neurons, with no

spiritual content whatsoever. But for an instant, something powerful

seemed to be happening.

 

But what was most noteworthy was what I just said. It was *thinking*

that killed it. More precisely, it was *objective* thinking, as when

my mind said, 'Here IT is ... an experience.' It was the analysis

that killed it, however brief that analysis was. It was observing

the process as an object, thinking about it, and making a judgement.

 

I believe that the no-good 'objective' thinking is much wider than

just seeing the world as 'material objects'. Objective thinking can

still occur, even if we are intellectually convinced that everything

is indeed consciousness. It is an *attitude*. It is the attitude

that says, 'Here I am, a self-contained entity, and here is something

else, the object I am considering. It does not matter what the

object is. It can be an internal mental process.

 

I might just add that this doesn't mean that we must become

vegetables in order to be realized. I feel sure that ultimately we

can even solve mathematical equations without triggering the

objective attitude. But to begin with, we can only taste the state

by suppressing the mind. Our rational mind is so closely tied to the

ego-sense, that we must start by being a bit of a vegetable, either

in meditation or in deep sleep. The ego-sense is inseparable from

objective thinking, like two sides of a coin. Gradually, though, it

becomes possible to incorporate the nondual consciousness into

everyday activities, even ones that require mental cogitation. Only,

we must do this without any sense of, 'Here I am and there it is.'

If we can abandon this mental reaction, then consciousness suddenly

expands to infinity, not unlike the primordial big bang. That's my

opinion.

 

All of this nondual talk is really a scientific description of how

consciousness actually behaves. It is not your usual

morality-inducing religious sermon, though a bit of morality in our

lives probably doesn't hurt (except when it gives you the dualistic

feeling of being a 'good person' ... which dumps you right back into

objective thinking and kills whatever realization you may have).

 

Benjamin