Beyond Our Wildest Dreams

[suchandra]

Srila Prabhupada talks about this as follows: "Because of sinful activities, at night we have bad dreams, which are very troublesome. Indeed, Maharaja Yudhisthira was obliged to see hell because of a slight deviation from devotional service to the Lord. Therefore, dursvapna--bad dreams--occur because of sinful activities. A devotee sometimes accepts a sinful person as his disciple, and to counteract the sinful reactions he accepts from the disciple, he has to see a bad dream."

 

 

Beyond Our Wildest Dreams

 

posted 12 November 2007

Q & A with Swami B.V. Tripurari

http://www.swami.org/pages/sanga/2007/2007_9.php

 

"Baladeva Vidyabhusana explains that the figures appearing in dreams

are created by God to distribute the results of the minor good and evil

acts one previously performed."

 

Q. As I understand it, when a person is initiated into the order of

sannyasa he receives a special mantram by aural reception. I was told

that Srila Prabhupada heard the sannyasa mantram from his sannyasa guru

Srila Bhakti Prajnana Kesava Maharaja, who heard it from his sannyasa

guru Srila Bhakti Raksaka Sridhara Maharaja, who heard it from Srila

Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura.

 

However, I read that Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati took sannyasa from

a picture of his guru Srila Gaura Kisora dasa Babaji Maharaja, so my

question is how exactly did he receive the sannyasa mantram? Obviously,

he didn't hear it from Gaura Kisora dasa Babaji as he was no longer

physically present. Was the mantram revealed to Saraswati Thakura in a

dream or did he hear it at some point from Bhaktivinoda Thakura?

 

A. Most of the mantras used in our sampradaya are found in the

Hari-bhakti-vilasa, having been collected from the tantra sastras,

agamas, and so forth by Sanatana and Gopala Bhatta Goswamis. The

sannyasa mantra is no exception. This mantra is given to renunciates,

be they babajis or tridandi sannyasis. Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati

Thakura gave it to his sannyasa initiates. He did not hear it from

Gaura Kisora dasa Babaji during his manifest presence, rather he

received it from him in a divine vision after Srila Gaura Kisora had

left the world.

 

Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura did not always repeat this

mantra verbally to his sannyasa initiates. On many occasions he gave it

to his sannyasa disciples written on a piece of paper. Pujyapada B.P.

Kesava Maharaja did not speak the mantra in Srila Prabhupada's ear when

he gave him sannyasa, rather he gave it to him written on a piece of

paper. Similarly, Srila Prabhupada gave the sannyasa mantra to many of

his disciples in the same way.

 

It is important to note here that the will of the Vaisnava, his or her

intention and blessings, is the essence of divine transmission.

Furthermore, initiation through divine vision is not unprecedented in

our sampradaya. Gaudiya literature tells us that Sri Syamananda

received initiation into gopi bhava in a divine vision. Originally his

claim to initiation was contested, but eventually it was accepted on

the strength of his personal spiritual power. Baladeva Vidyabhusana

also confirms in his commentary on Vedanta-sutra that mantras are

sometimes conveyed from guru to disciple in dreams.

 

Q. In Swami B.R. Sridhara Maharaja's book Subjective Evolution of

Consciousness, it says that although the characters in Bhaktivinoda

Thakura's book Jaiva Dharma are apparently imaginary, they actually

exist somewhere within the universal mind. Does this mean that dreams

and visions are in some way a reality? Does this also mean that through

spiritual practice (sadhana) we can perceive true spiritual reality in

regards to the universal mind of God?

 

A. In the first chapter of Subjective Evolution, Pujyapada Sridhara

Maharaja makes a passing reference to the characters in Bhaktivinoda

Thakura's book Jaiva Dharma. Therein he says that perhaps they appeared

in another day of Brahma. In chapter 6 he also says that the characters

are real and that what appears to one person at some point as his or

her imagination appears as a concrete reality at another point in time.

Furthermore, he concludes that all so-called imagination is a concrete

reality from the perspective of the universal mind.

 

Elsewhere when addressing this question, Sridhara Maharaja replied that

whatever appears in the mind of a suddha-bhakta (pure devotee) is

reality. Thus he was of the opinion that the characters of Jaiva Dharma

were in some way real. Regardless, the fact is that these characters

usher us into the spiritual realm that exists far beyond the mythic

world of the mind. Thus it is correct to say that sadhana, or spiritual

practice, gradually grants us access to the mind of God. What is

reality in the mind of God? This is the important question, one that is

well addressed Jaiva Dharma, a treatise that clearly defines the

eternal relationship between the soul and the Supreme Soul.

 

Otherwise, the subject of dreams is addressed in the sutras of Vyasa

(3.2.1-5), wherein it is written that dream consciousness (svapna) is

the sandhya, or junction, between the waking state (jagrata) and deep

dreamless sleep (susupti). In his commentary on the sutras, the

venerable Baladeva Vidyabhusana explains that the figures appearing in

dreams are created by God to distribute the results of minor good and

evil acts one has previously performed. Sri Ramanujacarya confirms this

in his Sri Bhasya commentary on Vedanta-sutra, wherein he writes, "The

things seen by an individual soul in its dreams are specially created

by the supreme person, and are meant by him to be a

retribution--whether reward or punishment--for deeds of minor

importance: they therefore last for the time of the dream only, and are

perceived by that one soul only."

 

In his Srimad-Bhagavatam commentary, Srila Prabhupada talks about this

as follows: "Because of sinful activities, at night we have bad dreams,

which are very troublesome. Indeed, Maharaja Yudhisthira was obliged to

see hell because of a slight deviation from devotional service to the

Lord. Therefore, dursvapna--bad dreams--occur because of sinful

activities. A devotee sometimes accepts a sinful person as his

disciple, and to counteract the sinful reactions he accepts from the

disciple, he has to see a bad dream."

 

 

Baladeva Vidyabhusana also states in his commentary that dreams are as

real as that experienced in the waking state. He cites as evidence the

fact that sometimes solutions to medical problems are found in dreams,

mantras are passed on in dreams, and objects seen in dreams are

sometimes later seen in the waking state. Furthermore, he says that

dreams often foretell of future events and that those who know how to

read them can sometimes predict the future.

 

The verdict according to the sutras, and the great acaryas who have

commented on them, is that we are not the ultimate creator of our

dreams. God is the creator of dreams and the controller of the law of

karma; dreams being one way in which we play out our karma. Moreover,

dreams are sometimes divine in that they can be an intervention that

transcends karma, although such dreams are very rare. Of course,

dreaming about Sri Guru is always auspicious.

 

However, Sri Baladeva Vidyabhusana's comments do not address in depth

the myriad of issues regarding human psychology and the nature of

dreams. As an expression of one's karma, dreams are usually the result

of one's preoccupation during the waking state. Therefore, Srila

Prabhupada generally discounted the significance of people's dreams,

including those of his disciples. In his Krsna book he writes, "This

body is exactly like one of the bodies which we always see in dreams.

During our dream of sleep, we create so many bodies according to mental

creation. We have seen gold, and we have also seen a mountain, so in a

dream we can see a golden mountain by combining the two ideas.

Sometimes in dreams we see that we have a body, which is flying in the

sky, and at that time we completely forget our present body. Similarly,

these bodies are changing. When you have one body, you forget the past

body. During a dream, we may make contact with so many new kinds of

bodies, but when we are awake we forget them all. And actually these

material bodies are the creations of our mental activities. But at the

present moment we do not recollect our past bodies."

 

Interestingly, the famous Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung studied dreams

and theorized on the connection between dreams and spirituality.

Through his influence, Wolfgang Pauli, the great quantum physicist who

went to Jung for treatment of depression, also took dreams very

seriously. In collaboration with Jung, Pauli sought to bridge the gap

between matter and spirit through scientific means. Referring to Plato,

they felt that this gap could only be bridged through the application

of Eros, or "intense yearning for spirit," and not just with a

dispassionate objective search. In their view a philosopher should have

the same passion for truth as a lover has for his or her beloved. Eros,

according to Plato, is necessary to get to the transcendental realm of

essences beyond time and space. In its fullest expression, Plato's Eros

is the conjugal union between the soul and the absolute, which is the

sum of all transcendent qualities like beauty, goodness, etc.

 

Jung and Pauli were likely referring to a transcendent ideal akin to

what we discuss as impersonal realization. However, Plato's idea of

Eros could also be seen as corresponding to the Gaudiya concept of

lobha, or sacred greed, which is the qualification for embarking on the

path of spontaneous devotion--raganuga-bhakti. In the Gaudiya view, the

absolute is Krsna, who is the repository of all transcendent qualities.

Love of Krsna is most fully expressed in the person of Sri Caitanya

Mahaprabhu. He is the embodiment of conjugal love of God and through

devotion to him we can share in his experience of divine truth, beauty,

and love. According to scripture that experience is truly beyond our

wildest dreams.