Maharshi - The Jnani, #5

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Q: Does a jnani have dreams?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi:

 

Yes, he does dream, but he knows it to be a dream, in the same way as

he knows the waking state to be a dream. You may call them dream

number one and dream number two. The jnani being established in the

fourth state-turiya, the supreme reality- he detachedly witnesses the

three other states, waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep, as pictures

superimposed on it.

 

For those who experience waking, dream and sleep, the state of wakeful

sleep, which is beyond those three states, is named turiya [the fourth].

But since that turiya alone exists and since the seeming three states do

not exist, know for certain that turiya is itself turiyatitta [that which

transcends the fourth].

 

Q: For the jnani then, there is no distinction between the three states of

mind?

 

A: How can there be, when the mind itself is dissolved and lost in the light

of consciousness? For the jnani all the three states are equally unreal.

But the ajnani is unable to comprehend this, because for him the

standard of reality is the waking state, whereas for the jnani the standard

is reality itself. This reality of pure consciousness is eternal by its nature

and therefore subsists equally during what you call waking, dreaming and

sleep. To him who is one with that reality there is neither the mind nor its

three states and, therefore, neither introversion nor extroversion.

His is the ever waking state, because he is awake to the eternal Self;

his is the ever dreaming state, because to him the world is no better than

a repeatedly presented dream phenomenon; his is the ever sleeping

state, because he is at all times without the ‘body-am I’ consciousness.

 

 

from BE AS YOU ARE , David Godman