Q: I feel strongly that life is a long dream but I cannot see through the dream. For many years it has been like this.
If you really believed that all life was a dream, nothing in the world would ever trouble you. If you still have problems and worries, like not being able to see through the dream, it means that you have still not completely ceased to identify with what temporarily appears in your consciousness.
You should enquire, 'Who is not able to penetrate through the dream?'
The true 'I' is not identified with the dream. If you don't forget your real Self, waking, dream and sleeping do not affect you. The things around you are always changing, but what we really are remains changeless.
Pure existence, 'I am' without anything predicated or attached to it, is common to all. No one can deny his own existence. In this 'I am' there are no limitations, but when we wrongly identify this 'I am' with the body and the mind and create a limited identity for ourselves, misery begins.
Only in this human birth are the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep provided along with the sense of something that is beyond them, something that can be experienced and lived.
We see a dream, yet on waking up the dream disappears and we exist in the waking state. On going to sleep the whole world disappears. By observing these three states we come to understand that it is their nature to appear and disappear. If we investigate the matter further by carefully scrutinising the nature of this thing called mind, we can have the direct experience that consciousness alone is what we really are. When we cease to identify with the body and the mind we become aware that this pure consciousness is unaffected by any of the changes and events that appear to take place within it.
The only purpose of life is to learn how to abide in that consciousness. We have to learn how to rest in turiya, the fourth and primal state which is the witness of the other three states.
Doing any form of sadhana without first understanding that the individual self is non-existent is self-indulgence. It is a form of spiritual entertainment in which the illusory 'I' plays games with itself.
Saint Tayumanuvar once said, 'Why all these maha yogas? All these yogas are maya!'
If you try to meditate without understanding that your real nature is Self, and Self alone, your meditation practice will only lead you to more mental bondage.
Bhagavan once said, 'To keep the mind in the Self all you have to do is remain still'
To realise the Self you don't actually have to do anything except be still. Just give up identifying with the mind and hold onto the Self. That is enough. Be still and cultivate the awareness 'I am the Self; the Self is all'. What difficulties can arise from doing a simple practice like this?
If you really believed that all life was a dream, nothing in the world would ever trouble you. If you still have problems and worries, like not being able to see through the dream, it means that you have still not completely ceased to identify with what temporarily appears in your consciousness.
You should enquire, 'Who is not able to penetrate through the dream?'
The true 'I' is not identified with the dream. If you don't forget your real Self, waking, dream and sleeping do not affect you. The things around you are always changing, but what we really are remains changeless.
Pure existence, 'I am' without anything predicated or attached to it, is common to all. No one can deny his own existence. In this 'I am' there are no limitations, but when we wrongly identify this 'I am' with the body and the mind and create a limited identity for ourselves, misery begins.
Only in this human birth are the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep provided along with the sense of something that is beyond them, something that can be experienced and lived.
We see a dream, yet on waking up the dream disappears and we exist in the waking state. On going to sleep the whole world disappears. By observing these three states we come to understand that it is their nature to appear and disappear. If we investigate the matter further by carefully scrutinising the nature of this thing called mind, we can have the direct experience that consciousness alone is what we really are. When we cease to identify with the body and the mind we become aware that this pure consciousness is unaffected by any of the changes and events that appear to take place within it.
The only purpose of life is to learn how to abide in that consciousness. We have to learn how to rest in turiya, the fourth and primal state which is the witness of the other three states.
Doing any form of sadhana without first understanding that the individual self is non-existent is self-indulgence. It is a form of spiritual entertainment in which the illusory 'I' plays games with itself.
Saint Tayumanuvar once said, 'Why all these maha yogas? All these yogas are maya!'
If you try to meditate without understanding that your real nature is Self, and Self alone, your meditation practice will only lead you to more mental bondage.
Bhagavan once said, 'To keep the mind in the Self all you have to do is remain still'
To realise the Self you don't actually have to do anything except be still. Just give up identifying with the mind and hold onto the Self. That is enough. Be still and cultivate the awareness 'I am the Self; the Self is all'. What difficulties can arise from doing a simple practice like this?
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