World-view as dream (fwd)

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

forwarded message from Bhadraiah Mallampalli

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Sri Srikrishna,

>>As a corollary the objects we see in waking state are no way related >>to
>>each other and they are no way related to objects we see in dream >>state,
>>even if they have same names.

>?????????  In dream the dreamer ate 'sweet mangoes'. On waking up >the
>'waker' identifying himself with the 'dreamer' says he had 'sweet
>mangoes'. Is the 'dreamer sweetness' different from 'waker >sweetness' ??
>If so, the waker should have used a word different word >from waking state
>sweetness. But, it is not so.

You are right, sweetness is same in both states, because the same smara of
sweetness is active in waking and dream states. But the point to be noted
is, the mango is not the same in either of the states (real vs fake), and
the enjoyer is also not the same (Vishva & Taijasa).  When I say the objects
are unrelated I also include their relevance and context.

If you insist that the objects must be related because it was the same
person who experienced both states, a question arises how the observership
of this person changes from Vishva to Taijasa or vice versa. 1. How do you
day dream while in waking state? 2. And how do you get into the usual dream
state?

Day-dreaming: As Taijasa is higher than Vishva, we day-dream by offering
Vishva into Taijasa. I prefer the word 'offer' to 'surrender'. 'Surrender'
is a dvaitic word, wherein the surrendering entity continues to live under
the control of the entity to which it surrenders; whereas in the case of
offer the offering entity can dissolve in the entity into which it is
offered. (Offerer can also stand apart, and we will discuss that matter
later.)

In the western paradigm, a split personality is a dirty word. Whereas in our
traditions, we are individuals only in external social interaction, but we
have no right to impose the name Bhadraiah or Srikrishna on ourselves. We
are an assemblage of billions of living cells and scores or hundreds of
devas, each playing his/her or its role.

In the hierarchy of Ch.U.7, Name and Speech generally fall under the region
of Vishva, because Speech is obsessed with worldly objects and the names.
Entities from manas to Asha fall under the region of Taijasa, so Taijasa's
creative activity is higher. Prana alone is Prajna. This classification is
not written on a palf-leaf, but I am giving it just to indicate the
dominance of different entities in the three states.

So in order to day-dream, we offer Vishva, the entire range of names and
Speech to the world of Taijasa. However, just to prevent an 'undesirable'
nirvaana or samaadhi through such offer, we cleverly direct the activity of
Taijasa towards the smara we are interested in dreaming about! (At this
stage if we offer Taijasa into Prajna we get Saguna Brahman.) In day
dreaming, if Vishva is not fully offered into Taijasa (this is what
generally happens when the person is not an experienced yogi) the remnant of
the Vishva is 'backedup' in the form of Speech (Vaak) which works like
temporary memory backup.

Regular dreams: On our way to deep sleep, first Name and Speech get merged
in manas, then manas and all higher entities get merged into Prana. Dream
happens during the period after speech merges in manas but before the smara
merges in Prana. There is no more Vishva in Taijasa of regular dream, but
loukika (worldly) knowledge is not there because Speech is absent. However,
certain amount of worldly knowledge "is" very much present, to the extent it
is internalized by Prana. If you needle a sleeping person, the person still
moves involuntarily, and may not remember what happened.

If Taijasa is higher than Vishva, experiences in waking world must be
included in dream world as a subset, right? But why do we not perceive
waking world objects in dream? The problem here is, even though Taijasa is
higher, practically speaking our body is not strong enough in the
regular-dream state. But in the day-dream situation Taijasa is indeed
inclusive of Vishva, unless we over-indulge in day-dreaming to the extent of
neglecting real world. Likewise if Prajna is higher than all other states,
it must be able to create the entire universe, right? Why does it not really
happen? Why does a sleeping person have no intelligence? It is because our
body in deep sleep is practically too tired and too small compared to the
real world. But then in the waking state, Prajna does include all other
states, because the alertness and concentration of a martial arts fighter is
same as Prajna.

If you ask what use is Taijasa and Prajna if worldly knowledge is limited in
those states, the answer is, even creation itself is not continuous. Some
times this entire creation ends after suffering heavy destruction and may
lapse into  long periods of wilderness. So yes, even Taijasa and Prajnaa are
some times useless. Why even Brahman is useless (as per M.U.)!

When there are many levels of functionality involved, there will always be
some confusion as to who controls who. We know that our parents and teachers
are higher than us, but we do indulge in acts where we control them. For
instance we may order "Mom, give me coffee, FAST" or "Dad, give me 100
bucks, NOW" or we may argue headstrongly with guru. All this happens under
ignorance, as beautifully said by Arjuna "sakheti matva prasabham yaduktam,
he krishna he yadava he sakheti, ajanata mahimanam tavedam, maya pramadat
pranayena vapi - As a friend I have called You - O Krishna, O Yadava, O
friend - without knowing this magnificence, I have addressed You out of
carelessness and affection". Unless we fix the hierarchies one by one, the
adhyaasa won't go away. At times the realization that we had a wrong
hierarchy can be highly emotional as in case of Arjuna. We need to not only
discriminate about the correct hierarchies, but also recognize the doership
of the living cells and devas within us. When we do this, our doership gets
transferred to them, and we become a sort of Brahman for these cells and
devas :-)

>Also, we know that the 'dreamer' is not 'REAL' and it is >the
>'Consciousness' which was projected as Dreamer, dream object, >dream
>experience/knowledge. It is essentially this reason that made us >say 'I
>dreamt'. In the absence of this 'commonness' the 'dreamer' >would be
>'unknown' to the 'waker'.

With Ch.U.7, we can explain this more easily. The portion of dream that is
stored as smara is recalled in waking state, so we say "I dreamt". But we
can not recollect everything we did in the dreams, because some smaras get
washed away while we wake up. And the most dominant smara in our life is the
recollection that I am such and such, which is the reason why we wake up
into the same world (also mentioned in the M.U).

>We are not just worried about the 'names'. On what basis names are >given,
>anyway, in dream ? We are just establishing the 'continuity' of >the
>knower. The 'Knower principle' under the influence of tired mind,
> >projected as a 'tired person' can not apply itself so consistently as >in
>waking state, as it were due to identification.  But, it still has the same
>store house of knowlege. Just like when a tired man can >not have same
>sharp reflex like
>a well awake person.

I recognize every doer and every knower as independent. Considering this
argument there was never a continuity for the concept of myself as
Bhadraiah. The internal universe is a highly complex do-as-you-go system.

But yes, from loukika (worldly) point of view, I am Bhadraiah and you are
Srikrishna, and our continuity is established as persons. But the reason for
this continuence is on shaky grounds, because I am just driven by the
powerful smara that "I am Bhadraiah", my experiences from last births, and
my experieces since childhood etc. But then technically any smara is just a
piece of cotton fibre in the whirlwind that is Prana, as proven by the fact
that when we go into deep sleep we forget our name.

>There are no 'objects' other than the 'mind'. There is no fault of >the
>'objects'. If one wishes, one may attribute the fault to >the 'mind'. Yes,
>'mind' as the 'cause' is more important than >the 'object', the 'effect'.

Yes.

>'Consciousness' is not like 'flash flood'. If so your statements are >no
>different from 'Kshinika vada Budhism'. There can not be a 'flood'.
> >Consciousness is homogenous and is in contact with 'all objects' 'all
> >the time'. Otherwise such as obect would not have 'existed'.

I realize that error. I was just illustrating a different point: lack of
relationship between the objects seen by the consciousness. I should have
used the word Praana instead of consciousness. Just as a river flows
unhindered between the events of hitting two different rocks, Praana moves
unhindered between perception of any two objects, or put it more correctly,
between experiencing concepts of any two objects. Praana sees an object when
it gets stuck (with illogic). When the illogic is removed it moves again
till it crashes with another illogic, and then it sees another object. So
the objects themselves are seen due to illogic.

>In your above sentence by using the words 'known, knowable and >unknown',
>you have negated the 'time limitation'. What is 'unknown or >known' gets
>negated by time, in the presence of 'Consciousness'. >Consciousness 'sees'
>all things at all times.

I like this question!

Well, the word 'known' has time built into it. Br.U uses the word
'vijnaatam' which also has time built into it. So Br.U must be wrong, is
that what you are saying?

Well, to say the truth, why only 'known? All entities upto smara have time
built into them, in the sense they all play with things of the past. Asha is
also bound by time, but concerns future. Prajna can go either way, but it
still has movement.

> > Yes, your original proposition is to some extent
> > correct, that what the
> > consciousness sees depends on the material knowledge
> > (known)! But this
> > dependency is only partial.
>
>I believe, the Vedanta proposition is diagonally 'opposite' to what you
>state. Consciousness is 'all knowing'. Probably you can >say, 'Conditioned
>Consciousness' sees depending on the upadhi's >material knowledge. Mandukya
>Karika elaborates on this >word 'Conditioned'.

Yes.

>
> >The other parts are
> > knowable, and more
> > importantly the unknown. The presence of the unknown
> > makes a mockery of
> > whatever certainty we have about the material
> > knowledge being the cause of
> > objects seen in dreams.
> >
>
>Not knowing Physics, can not make mockery of what I know >about 'Anatomy'.
>My knowledge of 'Anatomy' is certain. In the parlance >of 'knowledge' of
>the 'Knower' who himself is a 'projection', why >should we be concerned
>'how certain' the 'knowledge' is ? Ofcourse if >we are talking from the
>'absolute' stand point we should negate 'both' >the 'projected Knower' and
>the 'Certainity of his Knowledge'.

>From loukia point of view this is correct. My statement implies that any one
who does not know something can ridicule that field of knowledge. We can not
build a bridge without knowing civil engineering, otherwise it will collapse
while we build.

But this unknown we are talking about, is "the basis" of the known and
knowable.

Let us go back to the Ch.U hierarchy. Name and Speech are what are 'known'.

The entities ranging from Manas to Asha are what is knowable.

Prana is what is unknown.

What we see depends not only on known things such as smara, but also on
unknown entities such as Prana. So the presence of Prana in the equation
makes a mockery of the the influence of smaras.

> > As they say, the unknowable in always in the
> > background. It neither
> > experiences nor is experienced.
> >
>
>Yes, the 'Unknowable' is the 'Atma' which is in the 'background'. It
>neither experiences nor is experienced, as it is neither an obect of
>experience nor an 'experiencer'. Experience of the 'mind' is >superimposed
>on the 'Atma'.
>
> > I am not denying the karma theory here. If the river
> > indeed hits the rock a
> > little hard the rock may even move. Material
> > knowledge is always logically
> > perfect, because we are limiting the focus to what
> > is known, and
> > conveniently avoiding what is unknown.
>
>No. We are not avoiding the unknown. We are accounting 'appropriately' >for
>the unknown, in the sphere of material knowledge.
>
> >So it appears
> > as if it we recycle the
> > same objects in dream or waking state. What is known
> > is always conserved,
> > because if something is known to exist once it
> > should exist forever, because
> > nothing is ever born.
>
>Ignorance 'exists' until 'knowledge' dawns. I know that 'I am ignorant'
>of 'how you look'. Once I see your picture, that 'ignorance of how you
>look' will not exist for ever.
>
> >Existence itself is never
> > born, so its dream is also
> > never born, in other words the dream if it existed
> > once always existed.
> >
>
>'Existance' existed 'always'. 'Sadeva Somya ..'. In that >existance 'all'
>mainifested, including what we call the dream.
>
> > But then we also say "Oh, I forgot about that!".
> > That is what is unknown.
>
>How can it be ?? If I forgot the Schrodinger's equation solution which >I
>learnt 16 years ago, does it become 'unknown' ?? Or the number of >stars in
>the galaxy is 'unknown'. In the first case you did not >say, "Oh, I unknown
>about that!". You only said, "Oh, I forgot about >that!". Forgetfulness is
>the word used to indicate temporary loss of >what is known once.

Br.U uses the word 'unknown' in a tactical way. The unknown is what helps us
and protects us without our knowledge.

Please don't use the regular loukika definition of 'unknown' as something
that we don't know as a form of ignorance. This 'unknown' is ignorance. If I
don't have the manners to talk to a guest that doesn't become unknown in the
sense of Br.U.

The loukika unknown is passive, and does not protect. The Br.U's unknown is
active, it protects even if we don't know it. If you are an expert driver,
you can steer your vehicle well even if some obstruction comes in your way
suddenly. The skill that protected you in that instance is the involtary
nervous system which has digested the driving skills, that is Prana, that is
the unknown Br.U refere to.  Not the lack of driving knowledge of a new
driver.

>
>Even in Vedanta we say, "We forgot our own nature, and we can get back >to
>it". Just like I can take my old modern physics book and refresh
>my 'memory' of Schrodinger's equation.

Well, we did indeed forget our true nature, but what we forgot is not
difficult to find. Just look around, all thse Vaks and smaras are nothing
but an accumulation of what we forgot. Knowing their true nature at once
reveals what we forgot. We don't even need any shastras.

>
> > Looking into the cause of perception or its loss is
> > more powerful than
> > studying the recurrence of the objects during
> > perception.
> >
>
>We are making the same attempt. To establish  the 'recurrence' of the
>waking/dream state objects in dream state perception, as the cause of
>perception in dream state.

Recurrence happens because of smaras. But no recurrence may happen to the
extene a dream is directed by Asha. In fact hardly any event in our life
repeats exactly, so Asha is also a dominant player.

Best regards
Bhadraiah

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