The Mandukya Upanishads - 4.7. Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Friday, October 09, 2020.06:15. PM.

Section 4: The Mystery of Dream and Sleep-7.

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1.

Every human being has a complex; not merely one complex but several ones. Frustrated feelings become complexes, later on. In the beginning, you have a desire, and all desires cannot be fulfilled because of there being what the psychoanalysts call the 'reality' principle. There is the reality of society, the reality of the world outside, which opposes your desires. The society has a law of its own, which will not allow the expression of all individual desires. So, the individuals suppress the desires within by repressive activity. Repression and suppression are the mechanisms used by the mind to appear harmonious with the reality of society outside by putting on an appearance that is not real. When you suppress a desire, you become an artificial person. You are not what you are. And when you go on doing this for a long time, the suppressed impressions become complexes. These psychological complexes can, at times, become physical diseases. One may have such physical difficulties as stammering, deafness, blindness, loss of appetite, liver trouble, even lameness and similar physiological disorders because of the action of buried impulses, the complexes which have been created within by the storing in of repression for a long period of time. This, they say, we have been doing for years, and years, together, especially if we are to consider the incarnations that we have passed through, since many lives. We are a group of tensions, complexes, artificial situations. This is Jivabhava, all artificiality, all difficulty, tension and suffering. This situation produces dreams for purpose of relief through fulfilment. The subtle desires repressed within manifest themselves in dream, when the will does not operate. The desires cannot all operate in the waking world, because the 'reality' is there, opposing them from outside. You cannot go on tom-toming your desires to people. They will oppose you, censure you and make your life hard in the world. And the desires, too, are very intelligent. They know where to express themselves, and where not. But in the dream world there is no such censure from the reality outside. There is, then, no will and intellect or ratiocination working, and there is only the instinct operating. You live in an instinctive world. Your real personality, at least partially, comes out in the dream world.

2.

Dreams, therefore, are due to repressed desires. This is one of the causes behind dreams. This is the only factor that the psychoanalysts of the West emphasise. But Indian psychologists and psychoanalysts, like the Raja Yogins and the philosophers of the Vedanta, have touched another aspect of dream. The dreams may be, to some extent, of course, the results of complexes created by frustrated desires. But, this is not wholly true. Dreams may be due to other reasons also; one such reason being the working of past Karma. The effects of past Karmas, meritorious or unmeritorious, may project themselves into dream when chances are not given to them for expression in waking life. Also, a thought of some other person may affect you. A friend of yours may be deeply thinking of you; and you may have a dream of him, or you may have a dream with experiences corresponding to his thoughts. Your mother may be far away, crying for you, and her thought can affect you; you may have a dream. All this is equal to saying that a telepathic effect can produce dream. In the case of spiritual seekers, Guru's grace can cause a dream; and catastrophic experiences that one may have to pass through in the waking world may pass lightly as a dream experience by his grace. Due to the power of the Guru, one may have a dream suffering, instead of a waking one. If the disciple has to fall down and break his leg due to a Prarabdha, the Guru will make him experience it in dream, and save him the trouble in waking. One may have a dream temperature, or fever, instead of a waking fever. One may have a calamity in dream instead of its coming in waking. This is due to the grace of the Guru. So, Saktipata can also be a cause of dream. All this the psychoanalysts of the West do not know. And, Isvara's grace, also, can bring about dreams. God may bless you and give you certain peculiar experiences in dream. You may ask, "Why should they not come in waking? Why should the Guru work only in dream, and Isvara's grace come only in dream?" The reason is that you oppose their function in waking life, due to the assertions of the ego. You counteract Isvara's working and Guru's blessing by the action of your own egoism. But, in dream, the ego subsides, to some extent. You become more normal, one may say, and you approximate yourself more to reality, rather than to artificiality, in dream. Thus, it is easier for these powers to operate in dream than in waking. The opposing will of the ego, which functions in waking, subsides, to a large extent, in dream, and so there is a greater chance provided for the diviner forces to function in the dreaming condition. The physician puts the patient to sleep first, before the healing process can take place, because the ego opposes interference in the waking life, while there is no such opposition in dream and sleep. In hypnosis, the patient is put to sleep. The nerves must be soothed; the agitation of the mind should come down; the ego should not oppose the healing forces. Dream is helpful, in this way, for the operation of the higher powers coming from the Guru, or from Isvara.

3.

Dream, therefore, can have umpteen causes. Whatever the causes be, dream in the individual is regarded as an effect of waking, and is often judged as a consequence of impressions of waking perception and cognition. The world of dream being subtle, projected only by the mind, is regarded as Pravivikta, Sukshma, non-physical; – this is so both in the case of Taijasa and Hiranyagarbha. While Hiranyagarbha has Cosmic Knowledge, the Jiva has no such knowledge, for the reason already explained. Hiranyagarbha is Isvara's form, and Taijasa is Jiva's form. Thus is the twofold mystery which dream bolsters up before us.

End.

Next- Section : 5.Consciousness and Sleep

To be continued ...

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