Search:
Bhakti List Archives

Re: waking/dream/deep-sleep

From the Bhakti List Archives

vchandra • April 10, 2000 


Dear members,
    namaskArams. I was away the past 10 days. So catching up with the bhakti mails. Please bear with me if this posting has come from me at an odd time.

> Sri Mani wrote:
>    (b) While dreaming, the jIva is oblivious to the external
>    world but aware of the internal world.  These internal
>    experiences, in Ramanuja's philosophy, are not "random".
>    They are yet another manifestation of one's karma, and
>    the objects within the mind are not illusory -- they
>    are very real objects in a different plane of consciousness
>    created by God in accordance with some aspect of the jIva's 
>    karma.

   I am not clear how objects that appear in the dream are "real" even if the plane of consciousness is different. How do we define the term "real" here and hence "reality"? As Sri Vijayaraghavan has rightly said in one of his later mails, thinking in the physical lines as a starting point to better understand these profound ideas, I am tending to think of it, this way:
   Incidents happening in our dreams in the swapna state are nothing different from the thoughts that wander in us during jAgrat state. Dream is a result of memory and intelligence. The memory feeds the intelligence and the latter cooks up various incidents without proper control of itself. This is how we see some queer cases where people get notion of past/future in their dreams and some people solve problems in their dreams... So I tend to think that dream is intelligence working on the information stored in the memory and hence things are wholly imaginary and hence, (if my understanding of the term "real" is correct), unreal.
   It's as good as one remaining in jAgrat state itself and close his eyes and think of a tree, say. When he thinks of a tree he just imagines the form of a tree. This tree that appears to the thinker is verily imaginary and hence illusory. Similarly the dream.
   I am not clear about the purport of Sri Mani's describing it as "real". Sri Mani, kindly explain more these thoughts. I think we need to define the term "real" and "reality" here in a more explicit fashion.
   Also, how can we attribute the creation of objects in dreams to God? It's afterall, the ego-centered "I" that creates these incidents using intelligence and memory, or atleast it appears thus. And what role does one's karma have to play in an imaginary world of dreams?

   Thanks so much. In this regard Sri M.S.Hari's indulgence in this topic is most welcome.

   adiyEn,
   chandrasekaran.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can win $1000!
Just one of 1000 great reasons to visit eGroups!
Click here:
http://click.egroups.com/1/2865/2/_/716111/_/955378694/
------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------
           - SrImate rAmAnujAya namaH -
To Post a message, send it to:   bhakti-list@eGroups.com
Visit http://www.ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/ for more information