An excerpt from Experiencing the Teaching

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An excerpt from " Experiencing the Teaching " by Ramesh Balsekar,

Chapter 5 (Dreaming and Awakening), p. 43-47:

 

Questioner: " Life has often been cavalierly compared to a dream

and enlightenment to the awakening from the life-dream. Now,

my difficulty is this: If the individual human being is merely a

phenomenal object in someone's consciousness, how can this

phenomenon

dream, and how can it be awakened?

 

Ramesh: What a beautiful question! The sentient being as an object

is only a phantom, a mere psychosomatic mechanism through which

only illusory images can be produced. The interpretations of these

images are generally known as person and events in life. This means

in effect that all actions and movements that are sensorially

perceived - in fact, all phenomenal existence can only be figments

of imagination (of mind, in consciousness).

 

 

Questioner: In other words, although we may think of ourselves as

autonomous entities, we are actually nothing more than dreamed

characters. While the dreamed characters are seen as such when

we (as the sleeper) wake up, we are still asleep in the living

dream. But who wakes up from the living dream?

 

Ramesh: " Nisargadatta Maharaj gave me the answer when I asked him

this specific question, but not before chastising me with the

remark, " you should know better than to ask a silly question like

that " . The answer, of course, was " Who can it be but the

consciousness, the personal consciousness as the dreamer, which has

identified itself in split-mind with its own dreamed object, (the

individual psychosomatic mechanism) as the pseudo-subject? "

 

It is therefore always the identified, individualized dreamer that

awakes,

never his dreamed object whether in the personal dream or the living

dream. How can there be awakening for the dreamed object?

 

Questioner: In other words, it can never be the sentient being who

awakes?

 

Ramesh: Not quite correct. It is correct if by the " sentient

being " you

mean the being, the psychosomatic apparatus, but wrong if you

understand that the sentient being is really sentience. An

apparatus

without sentience is dead matter. It is sentience or consciousness

that has mistakenly identified itself with the apparatus (which is

the

dreamer) which awakes when there is realization of the mistaken

identity.

 

Questioner: So then awakening is in effect a sort of dis-covering

(by removing the cover of _maya_) that what _appears_ to be

objective is in fact subjective.

 

Ramesh: Awakening is the disappearance of appearance, like the

disappearing of the illusion of the substantiality of a mirage or a

rainbow, with knowledge of the nature of the appearance which causes

an optical illusion.

 

Questioner: Does it mean then that in either dream the dreamed

object

is totally different from the dreamer?

 

Ramesh: No. Awakening means realizing that what is apparently ob-

jective is truly subjective. The dreamed-object cannot be anything

other than its source; the dreamer, the consciousness, that is

dreaming. The point is that the dreamed-objects cannot have any

nature of their own other than that of their source. The shadow

has no nature of its own other than that of the substance without

which the shadow cannot occur.

 

Questioner: So everything in the dream is the dreamer thereof.

Thus

the dreamed object (the illusory individual sentient being) is

the sentience of consciousness (the dreamer).

 

Ramesh: Quite correct. But let us not forget that the dreamer,

the consciousness, itself is not an object and so does not have

any nature of its own, other than as a mere reflection of its

own source, the Noumenon (source of phenomenal manifestation). It

is for this reason that the Masters have always asserted that there

never

has been any creation or destruction. As Nisargadatta Maharaj

constantly

repeated, the whole universe and everything in it is an illusion,

like

" the child of a barren woman " .

 

Questioner: What does " awakening " , in the final analysis, actually

mean?

 

Ramesh: " Awakening " means that total disappearance of all

phenomenal

problems, resulting in a perpetual feeling of total freedom from

all worries. It is a feeling of lightness, of floating in the air,

untouched by the impurity - and confusion - of the split mind. It is

as if the very root of all problems has been demolished, as if the

Hydra has been fatally pierced in the heart to prevent the heads

from growing again and again.

 

Questioner: In other words, as you have said elsewhere, the

problems

will never cease from the viewpoint of the individual, but, from

the viewpoint of Totality, problems can never arise.

 

Ramesh: Quite so. You might say that awakening is in effect the

experiencing of the Teaching.

 

Questioner: One last question. You said that asking someone if

he is enlightened is like asking him if he has stopped beating his

wife, though he had never beaten his wife. He was never other than

enlightenment itself. Nevertheless, I would like to know what

happens to the " phenomenal object " after there has been " awakening " .

 

Rameesh: On awakening, the _identification_ with the phenomenal

object

disappears. The phenomenal object itself continues to live

phenomenally

during its alloted span of duration, at the end of which it " dies "

and

is disposed of by burial or cremation. The consciousness that was

in

movement merges with the consciousness at rest. The awakened, after

being awake for the rest of phenomenal life, finally falls into the

deep sleep of the Noumenon - phenomenal presence becomes phenomenal

absence and noumenal PRESENCE.

 

During the continuation of the life span, the dreamed character -

the

dreamer - exists only as an object in the living dream of " others "

who

are as yet unawakened. The awakened knows that " he " himself is

the awakening. There is the apperception that he is the pure

unconditioned subjectivity by means of which he and all sentient

beings

were dreamed. In fact, the dreamer, on awakening, finds that there

never was a dreamer, only the phenomenon of dream-ING.

 

Questioner: What this means then is that the living dream is merely

an objectivization in consciousness, in which neither the dreamer

nor the apparent dreamed entities could possibly have any

independent

existence.

 

Ramesh: Quite so. You started your question by saying that life

has

often been " cavalierly " compared to a dream. Actually, almost all

Masters have compared the manifestation to a dream, not cavalierly

but

veryseriously and quite literally. Indeed, the sage Vasishtha has

categorically stated that there is no difference between the

personal

dream and the living dream. The dreaming takes place in

consciousness.

All objects, all appearances are dreamed. Perception and its

conceptual

interpretation takes place through the sensorialized phenomena who

are

also dreamed objects.

 

Questioner: Are you saying that objects are essentially nothing

more

than organs of interpretation, through whose interpretive operation

the univers appears?

 

Ramesh: Yes. The living dream is dreamt by the sentient beings.

Their

personal dreams are microscopic reproductions of the living dream,

which each sentient being dreams in his personal life.

 

Questioner: Does it mean then that the sentient being is the

dreamer

of both his personal dream and the living dream?

 

Certainly not! There is no dream_er_ as such - That is the whole

truth. Indeed, it is the essence of the apprehension of what we

really

ARE. It would lead to a lot of confusion to think we are only

" dreamed " because we are both dreamed and dreaming. There is no

such

dreamer separate from the dreamed. There is only dreamING, the

functioning of Cosnciousness. There is no entity to perform, nor is

anything performed. There is only spontaneous actING, a sort of

non-

action because there is no actor. "

 

Questioner: Could you make it a little simpler?

 

Ramesh: Perhaps it could be conceptually considered as this:

(a) There is only ONE DREAM without a dream_er_.

(b) THAT-WHICH-WE-ARE is the dreamING.

© Each " me " is dreamed, and each " me " dreams a personal dream

based

on the personal " self " .

 

Briefly, " I " am the dreaming of the universe, and " you " perceive it

as a sensorialized phenomena, a dreamed object. " I " being the

dreamer and

the dreaming of the universe, would necessarily be awake in order

that the

dreaming occur.

 

Perhaps you would prefer to have it put another way:

 

You wake up from your personal dream into the living dream. It is

only

in deep sleep that there is no dreaming at all because in deep sleep

there is no " me " . And the apperception of this fact means

awakening from

the living dream to WHAT-IS. "

 

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