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Re: Dream and Waking States

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A.Bharat • April 17, 2000 


Dear Sri Chandrasekharan

Your questions touch on so many points that it would be
impossible to deal with them all at the same length;nor
are they needed for the main subject of dreams.

ADiyEn's earlier posting made it clear that BhagavAn is the
giver of fruit for all Karma's;not the director of ALL
actions.JIva's freewill to do whatever he wants with the
equipment given to him is never disputed;provided he is
willing to take the consequences,which BhagavAn will give
strictly according to the desserts.Dreams come into this
category as consequences of actions too minute to be
given in the waking state.Mixed with them are past
impressions and future forebodings.

Secondly you seem to equate thoughts and dreams without
sufficient basis.If thoughts were dreams one could give
oneself pleasant dreams all one's life.You mention the
thought just before going to sleep;but does it STAY that
way a few seconds later?

Dream State like the waking state is a medium,a stage
where various activities can take place and they usually
take place without break,and hence the difficulty in
segregating them.It is like reading a continuous script
without punctuation.You say they are confusing.Why not?
The protocol for the Dream State is not the same as for
the waking state.If aDiyEn,used to driving on the left
side of the road here,were to complain about the topsy
turvy situation in the US wouldn't you laugh at me?
Why expect anything different between these two
States?

>In an ocean if a boat gets tossed upside down, then to
> describe more specifically the cause of the tossing, I tend to
> attribute it to the wave and not the ocean, while I completely
> agree that the wave is part of ocean and the ocean forms the
> basis for the wave.

I'm afraid your example is correct but your conclusions are
wrong.A wave doesn't stand alone.It's minutest action is the
direct result of its physical contents,its position in the
ocean,the wind position,pressure from other waves and the
basic movement of the ocean itself.IN EXACTLY THE SAME MANNER
everything that happens to a JIVA is the result of various
factors like his own karma,the karmas of people connected with
him,BhagavAn's AnugrahEchhA or NigrahEchha towards him etc.
Man's Free Will is there,but should one not grant the same
freedom to God also? This is discussed in detail in
ParAyattAdhikaraNam in SrI BhAshyam.


>    "what is unreal in this world if at all there is any such thing?";
>    "Shouldn't an object, to be called "real", be real in the
> True sense to one and all and in all states?"
>    "If I think of a tree and make a mental picture of it, can
> that tree be described as real?"

All our consciousness of reality in the waking state also
is totally confined to the mental pictures which are formed
on the basis of the information received from the sensory
organs.The same holds good in the dream state too.If you
draw a distinction that only one person can see the dream
while many people see the tree- are all of them getting
identical pictures of that tree in their minds? If there
is even the slightest difference due to the fault of the
sensory organs how can you prove that the same tree is
being seen by all the persons?What about colour blindness,
double vision,numbness of fingers,blocked nose etc.We take
so many things for granted in this world.

So SrI EmberumAnAr says- Reality is that which produces an
impression on you.And dream objects certainly do
exactly like objects cognized in the waking state.
His words are- 
(All these states of consciousness are real,from their
having a beginning and actual effects.-Tr.by Thibaut)
Then he asks himself,should those dream-objects not be
actually physical present to produce those reactions? No,he says,
Cognition needs some kind of support,() and that is present
in the dreams.So the cognition is real even though the
objects cannot be produced later.You can't deny the
cognition also after waking up. 

SrI EmberumanAr TiruvaDigaLE SaraNam!
aDiyEn
BHARAT


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