The Dreamstate -- a most robust metaphor

August 27, 2009

Nisargadatta and Ramana insist that waking life is easily defended to be as if a

variant of the dreamstate and vice versa.

If one takes that notion and seriously tries to nurture it by dwelling upon it

again and again and again, repeatedly turning it over in the mind and seeing

what pops out by this iteration process, it becomes clear that how a dreamstate

" works " is hugely instructive about how waking life works -- despite the fact

that most of us awaken in the morning and think that the two states are

distinctly different.

So, what is going on here -- why are Nisargadatta and Ramana so " pro-dream? "

Let's look at a typical dream.

If you dream that you are talking to someone, and that dream-person asks the

" dream-you " to explain the law of gravity, we would expect the dream-you to

explain that mass obeys a law of mutual attraction to other mass in a

mathematically precise and predictable way. The dream-you might drop a coin to

demonstrate that gravity is operative in that dream world, and sure enough, if

we get a dream-physicist to measure dream-gravity's metrics, we'd find that that

coin was sure-as-shootin' sucked to the floor by good old gravity at work.

To dream characters the dream always makes sense. Suddenly you're in another

room, but no one questions how that came about -- discontinuities are

conveniently ignored. Nisaragadatta and Ramana would insist that in waking life

we equally ignore discontinuities -- most egregiously when the ego contends that

it is " always existing, " yet we know that ego is nowhere to be found in the

dreamless state of consciousness. The ego blithely ignores this disproof of its

assertion of continuity.

But now, let's suppose that you are not an ordinary dream-you but are instead a

lucidly dreamed dream-you who is now having this same dream conversation about

gravity. This lucidly dreamed dream-you is fully able to control the contents

of the dream -- such as, say, a couch can be made to be a red color instead of

its tan color, the sun becomes the moon, whatever. That's the presumed power of

the ultimate expert lucid dreamer. This lucidly dreamed dream-you is the

equivalent of what spiritual seekers around the world usually are found to be

seeking: personal power over the details of experience with the manipulative

skills of Da Vinci in doing so. But, a careful consideration of what a lucidly

dreamed dream-you's status is will yield a surprise: it is not enlightenment.

The lucidly dreamed dream-you will be godlike in power. This dream-you can fly,

turn invisible, become small as an atom, have the strength of an elephant -- any

of Patanjali's siddhis can be expected to be adroitly manifested by a perfectly

lucidly dreamed dream-you.

Think about that. This dream-you can dismiss the law of gravity for instance.

That dream would have all the objects and characters floating around, right? No

problemo for such a dream to be concocted. But look at that -- yikes -- that's

proof to the dream characters that their world is an arbitrary construction.

Here's you -- a lucidly dreamed dream-you that can turn off gravity -- it means

that gravity is not a law, but instead it is an artistic choice of the creator

of the dream world. Since gravity is so easily proven to be an illusion in this

dream world, a logical and scientific character in this dream world would be

convinced that everything in the dream is equally illusory and as easily

changed. In fact, a dream character, seeing gravity turned on and off like a

faucet, would be quick to see that his own existence must be arbitrary also,

that he is a construct of the dream also like the law of gravity is shown to be

discontinuous.

With no laws of physics to count on, no true continuity that has momentum and

heft will be found to have any independence from the dreamer's intent.

What then of any dream character's ownership of destiny, karma, action, thought,

et al? Can this dream character assert any free will? Can this dream character

understand anything in the least if the dreamer of that character doesn't decide

that such understanding would be part of the dream? Does Mickey Mouse have

anything to say that Walt Disney doesn't want it to say?

Now, examine waking life. Ego is found to be discontinuous. Sometimes it's

there, other times not. Even in waking life, ego is sometimes just not

operating, but will insist if challenged that it was always there -- but the

fact is that the ego is ignoring the discontinuities -- it is in a state of

ignorance such that it thinks it is an all time reality.

The discontinuities of waking life -- if observed -- are exactly like the law of

gravity in the lucidly dreamed world being turned off -- proof that all actions

are coming from a source that is not affected by the qualities of the dream. A

dream fire will not harm the dreaming brain. Dream water will not wet one's

bed. A dream-gun will fire dream-bullets at the dream-speed of 2500 dream-=feet

per dream-second, but nary a one will harm even a single neuron of the sleeping

brain that constructs the dream. A dream atom bomb exploding will not wake up

the sleeping brain. Get it?

Each of us awaken each morning with the chance that we might remember a dream.

We know from those dreams we can remember that the qualities of the dreamstate

are as partially indicated above. And what does that knowledge do for the

awakened person?

It let's him off the hook for any karmic consequences of any action of any

character in any dream.

He knows that his mind just concocted those worlds, those dream characters. He

knows his mind could construct any scenario and make it more believable than any

Hollywood special effects achievement could hope to approach. He sees the sheer

fiction of all-things-dreamy. What is it to a waking life person to remember

that once a dream-he robbed a dream-bank? He feels no remorse, he knows he is

no richer, he knows there is no way for anything dreamy to have any value in the

least since anything can be made on a whim. Want a dream-diamond, want to win a

dream-lottery? Not so much, eh? Any person waking in the morning knows dreams

so well that the values of any dream-person are dismissed outright. When you

awaken in the morning and had a dream interrupted, you don't want to dive back

into the dream to " make sure your kids got to school on time " -- even though the

dream-parent was being a most excellent parent.

Nisargadatta and Ramana tell us that this is how they experience the waking

world. Nothing in it has any value, because they understand waking life to be

from but a single source just as a dream is from a single mind. They know this

so well that they cannot be bribed or threatened by any pleasure or danger.

They see that a waking bullet cannot harm the source of life, nor can gold

enhance the source of life. They know that a dream-you's words would be

dismissed if you awoke, and that the waking you can also be as if woken from

this waking-life-dream such that any words you might have will be also easily

dismissed. These very words you read right now for instance.

Tonight you might have a dream about Socrates. He cannot be any wiser than your

waking brain is able to manifest wisdom. He is limited to being only what your

brain can construct. He has no free will. He is incapable of being original in

any way that your waking brain cannot also be. A dream of an intellectually

unendowed person cannot dream up a dream-Einstein who will discover general

relativity in a dream-formula on a dream-chalkboard.

Just so in waking life are we constrained to be creations by an authorial

process we know not of. We can only be as wise or good or loving as we are

created, moment by moment, as " God " wishes us to be. And that is a terrible

curse that must be broken.

And inquiry is the spell breaker.

To try to be a dream character that awakens the sleeping brain that is dreaming

it is very much like a typical spiritual goal of most seekers when they try to

awaken themselves into enlightenment. Yet a dreamed atom bomb cannot be a loud

enough alarm clock to do this.

There is however something that can sometimes awaken the sleeping brain -- the

threat of the imminent death of a dream-you can get the body so activated that

the sleeping person will awaken in alarm. All the other dream characters can die

right and left, but if the character that you are pretending is you is dying or

about to, then the dream-you has a trump card to play: it is being egoically

identified with.

Even dream-ego is deluded that it is sentient and that the dream-body must be

preserved because it is assumed that that body is the cause of the dream-ego.

This ego is and only is exactly the same ego that drives waking life. Thus, it

is no surprise to find a dream-ego being attached to a dream body and going into

panic if that body is threatened. Of course, a lucidly dreamed dream-you will

have no fear of dream-death because a lucid dreamer knows it is concocting a

dream while it is letting its waking life body sleep! A lucidly dreamed

dream-you will be like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day driving over the cliff.

Death's a big joke, see?

What then can a waking ego do to threaten itself like a dream-ego is threatened

by, say, falling off a cliff? Obviously jumping off a cliff in waking life is

not the answer, because the body will die and what is wanted is that the body

keeps carrying water and chopping wood but that one becomes a lucid-waker in

this waking-life-dream. We know that we cannot threatened ourselves into

enlightenment nor bribe ourselves to do so.

We need to do something that underlines the discontinuities.

That something is inquiry.

Asking the question: " Who am I? " always results in the body/mind coming up

empty. Ask the question and all you ever get is silence as your answer.

And it's the correct answer!

Dwell on that silence. Do inquiry again and again until you can know silence.

Get the tee shirt. Dwell on silence until you see that it has always been the

elephant under the rug in the room. Until you're slapping your forehead with

" How in the hell did I miss this PRESENCE that is always here? "

Inquiry immediately and completely demonstrates that ego is un-findable. This

is the proof of discontinuity of the ego. Inquiry immediately shows that ego is

ungraspable. And that's the irony of inquiry. You ask the ego to look at

itself, it is stymied for lack of a " mirror, " and silence prevails for an

instant or for a serious hunk of time -- depending on the skills of the one

doing inquiry. Dwelling on that silence makes it expand, grow, become obviously

part of everything. Finally, only silence can be seen, felt, heard, tasted or

smelled. Finally silence is a tsunami that washes away all constructs of the

mind.

Just buy a new car and see how fast you start noticing the same make and model

being driven by others. Those cars were always there, but now that you identify

with your car, you are sensitive to its presence elsewhere.

Just so, buy a brand new silencemobile, and just watch how it starts getting

into every perception. Do inquiry and see that at any moment you can come to a

full stop. A full stop. Whomp! Stop again and again and again and see if

stoppingness becomes Elvis in a phone booth with you -- impossible to ignore.

That's the Absolute -- proof that ALL THIS can be stopped. Where's the potency

then of anything, eh? Zippo, eh?

So, consider dreams. Think about finally waking up and the freedom from any

restraints that dreamy waking-life imposes.

Leap out of the box that God has imagined you inside of -- and scurry into

infinity laughing over your shoulder.

Edg

August 27, 2009

Nisargadatta , " duveyoung " <edg wrote:

>

> Nisargadatta and Ramana insist that waking life is easily defended to be as if

a variant of the dreamstate and vice versa.

>

> If one takes that notion and seriously tries to nurture it by dwelling upon it