S.S. Cohen - Guru Ramana - Memories & Notes, Maya, 15th April, 1937

[Guest guest]

15th April, 1937

 

A frequent visitor to the Ashram is cogitating over the

problem of Maya and its relation to the waking and dream states.

V. Is there any genuine difference between the experience of

jagrat and that of dreams?

 

Bhagavan: None, except that jagrat appears to be more enduring

than the other to the person who is in jagrat, thoughnot so to the dreamer himself. The person in jagratrelates his dream to have sometimes covered hundredsof years, hence he calls it transitory, whereas actuallythere is not the slightest difference between the natureof the two states.

 

C. There is this difference: each time we return to jagrat, we

come to the same place, same people, same activitiesand interests, which is not the case with going to thesvapna state.

 

Bh. This is because things move very rapidly in dreams, as

they appear now to you in jagrat. But each time you goto the dream world do you feel being a stranger in it? Doyou not feel thoroughly at home with the people andplaces as you do here? Don’t you sometimes dream ofbeing a minister, or meeting your father who had diedin jagrat long ago, or seeing God seated on a throne,etc., without noticing any incongruity in it? The dreamis as real then to you as jagrat is now. Where is thedifference? If you call the dream illusion, why do younot do so to jagrat also?

 

V. Arjuna saw the Divine Form of Sri Krishna. Was that vision

true?

 

Bh. Sri Krishna started the discourse in Chapter II of the

Bhagavad Gita with: “I have no form,” etc., but inChapter XI, He said: “I transcend the three worlds . . . ,”yet Arjuna saw these in Him. Again Sri Krishna said: “Iam Time.” Does time have a form? If the universe is Hisform, should it not be uniform and changeless, He beingthe Changeless One? The solution to these apparent

contradictions lies in His statement to Arjuna: “See inMe all you desire to see. . . ,” which means that His formvaries according to the desires and conceptions of theseer. Men speak of divine visions, yet paint themdifferently with the seer himself in the scene. Evenhypnotists can make one see strange scenes andphenomena, which you condemn as tricks and jugglery,whereas the former you extol as Divine. Why is thisdifference? The fact is that all sights are unreal, whetherthey come from the senses or the mind as pure concepts.This is the truth.

 

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Guru Ramana - Memories & Notes, S.S. Cohen

 

 

 

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