Dream Analogy

[Guest guest]

" Dreams arise when the body and mind are asleep.

They are usually experienced as if they were " real " ,

 

-- Sri Vyaktananda

 

Is the Absolute asleep to itself? I can only tell you

what Vedanta would say, which would be, " No, the Absolute

is not asleep to itself. "

 

If the Absolute were asleep, and then it were to awaken,

then it would be subject to change, and to time, which

Vedanta would hold to be impossible.

 

Vedanta would say that all of `duality' (that which changes)

is a projection of Maya, and that Maya is inherent to, and

projects from, the Absolute. But when Maya projects the

creation, the Absolute itself goes through no modification

whatsoever.

 

So what is this creation then, which seems to have

an apparent reality? Vedanta calls that reality mithya,

apparent, dependent, and having no reality of its own.

 

It is true that the dream analogy is often used in the

teachings of Vedanta, and it is said that the mind of the

individual which projects a dream is similar to the power

of Maya which projects all of creation.

 

The mind of the individual projects a dream with many

characters, landscapes, events, etc., upon awakening it

is seen that nothing has happened to the dreamer. The

dreamer has actually gone through no modification

whatsoever.

 

So how is it and what is it that awakens within this dream,

which is Maya, and recognizes that the reality of the

individual is actually the Absolute? The teachings of

Vedanta say it is the mind of the individual.

 

It is said that the 'truth' of the individual is always

the Absolute, as is the 'truth' of this whole creation.

As none of the apparent and ever changing phenomena ever

takes place away from the Absolute, the Absolute is ever

present to all of it, including the mind of the individual.

 

The individual mind makes the mistake of taking itself

to be the Self, because no thought ever takes place away

from, or outside of the Self. What the mind does is called

`mutual superimposition.' The mind says `I am the Self.'

The Self, (the Absolute), doesn't make this mistake. It is the individual's mind

which does.

 

Thus through teaching or through careful pointing out,

it is eventually seen by the mind of the individual that

while all phenomena changes, comes into being and goes out

of being, that which the `I' thought actually refers to

does not.

 

So this clear differentiation between that which changes

and that which does not, actually according to Vedanta,

occurs in the mind of the individual. This differentiation occurs as a

particular thought in the mind of the individual.

It is called the `akhanda akara vritti,' the `thought' in the

form of the formless.

 

This is a vritti, a thought, where the content of the entire

thought is nothing but the Absolute. When that clear

differentiation is made by the mind, between what changes and

what does not, then that differentiation is never not there a after that. And

that is called moksha or liberation.

 

Who is it that gets liberated?

 

It isn't the Absolute.

 

The Absolute is already totally free. Liberation, moksha,

is the removal of ignorance from the mind of the individual,

which mind had previously taken the Self to be one with, and

actually a product of, the body and the mind.

 

Liberation is the clear seeing by the mind that this is

not the case, never was the case, and never can be the case.

The Self, the Absolute, which the `I' thought has actually

always referred to is ever free.

 

So it is actually the mind which realizes that,

" This waking state, all of duality, is actually, as it were,

a dream, " using the dream analogy. Nothing ever has or ever

will happen to `me.' That `me' now clearly having been

seen by the mind to be the Self, or the Absolute, which never

changes or goes through any modification whatsoever, just

as the individual when awakening from a dream projected by

the mind can say, " Nothing ever happened to me. "

 

So then it can be seen that all of 'this' duality,

which comes and goes, has no being of its own. All of this

phenomena is ultimately unreal. But what is not unreal, or what

is absolutely real is Being itself, which Being all of this

phenomena has in a sense 'borrowed,' to appear as real.

 

The Absolute never sleeps, nor dreams,

nor wakes. It never changes or modifies in any way. That which changes and

modifies is a dream, if you like to call it that,

or it can be called mithya, `apparent or dependent reality',

It has no reality of its own.

 

So that's a huge topic, and I don't know if I clearly

explained what Vedanta teaches in this regard, but I do

think that it is an important distinction, because

otherwise people will think that the Absolute is actually

changing, and going through modification,and this as far as I

understand, is not true.

 

To say that Abolute changes would be to give the 'dream,' a

status of ultimate reality, which it does not really have.

 

(Of course, there is tons more to be said on this topic)

But that post was long enough, n'est-ce pas?

 

Durga