Guest guest Posted January 18, 2003 Report Share Posted January 18, 2003 D: It is easy to accept tentatively that the world is not ultimately real, but it is hard to have the conviction that it is really unreal. M: Even so is your world real while you are dreaming? So long as the dream lasts, everything you see and feel is real. D: Is then the world nothing better than a dream? M: What is wrong with the sense of reality you have while you are dreaming? You may be dreaming of something quite impossible, for instance, of having a happy chat with a dear person. Just for a moment you may doubt in the dream, saying to yourself, " Was he not dead?" But somehow your mind reconciles itself to the dream vision, and the person is as good as alive for the purposes of the dream. In other words, the dream as a dream does not permit you to doubt its reality. Even so, you are unable to doubt the reality of the world of your wakeful experience and the dream world. Both are but creations of the mind, and so long as the mind is engrossed in either, it finds itself unable to deny the reality of the dream world while dreaming and of the waking world while awake. If, on the contrary, you withdraw your mind completely from the world and turn it within and abide thus, that is, if you keep awake always to the Self, which is the substratum of all experience, you will find the world, of which alone you are now aware, just as unreal as the world in which you live in your dream. The Spiritual Teachings of Ramana Maharshi ..Shambala Press Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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