[Advaita-l] Fw: Re: waking, dreaming, sleeping, as mutually supportive

Michael Shepherd michael at shepherd87.fsnet.co.uk
Sun Oct 18 05:27:19 CDT 2009


Dear Vishyji,

That's well put. I'm well acquainted with the theory and practice of Advaita
Vedanta, and believe I have some sense of what the fourth state might be or
is.

What intrigues me is: we could imagine a life which consists of 16 hours
waking and 8 hours sleeping, let's say. But in between these great states
which shape our lives, is that state we call drfeaming; which seems to be a
collection of mostly left-over thoughts, feelings, etc assembled into a kind
of fantasy.

Now some sages would say, let these go, pay no attention. Others would say,
it's a reminder that our so-called 'waking' state is mostly conducted in a
sort of 'waking dream' where the same ragbag fantasy accompanies every
moment of ahamkara's devices which we have built to distract us from staying
in pure atman...

And I know that the shastra identify seven sorts of dream. We live in a
scientific culture' I'm just wondering if there is more to be discovered --
not in the scientiific field alone, that's going ahead anyway; but whether
there is anything to learn from this universal state in terms of our
sadhana.

Of course, it's all 'taken care of' : turiya is the rest of unnecessary
thought in the rest of the mind; so no dream..

No big deal; just an enquiry.

Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
[mailto:advaita-l-bounces at lists.advaita-vedanta.org]On Behalf Of Vishy
Sent: 18 October 2009 10:02
To: To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta"
Subject: [Advaita-l] Fw: Re: waking, dreaming, sleeping,as mutually
supportive





--- On Sun, 18/10/09, Vishy <vishy1962 at yahoo.com> wrote:


From: Vishy <vishy1962 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] waking, dreaming, sleeping, as mutually supportive
To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta"
<advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Date: Sunday, 18 October, 2009, 1:41 PM







Dear Michealji
 
Let me try to share my inderstsnding in this rgeard......
 
What you see or experience in waking state only gets reprojected in dream
state and all these would remain latent in deep sleep state, only to make
you desire / fear such experience once again when you wakeup. As long as our
attention is focused to the material things/ thoughts , we get trapped in
this cycle and can never experience the fouth state at all.
 
All these three states are well with in the grips of Mind which is seat of
the Ego. Thus we identify everything with this 'I' as I am doing , I am
dreaming and I was sleeping. Breaking this cycle and going beyond this is to
reach the witnessing state, the fourth.
 
But to even reach this state we should use the mechanisms of the same mind.
That is to see / study the stuff that leads to the truth (shravana),
continue the same very thoughts even in your dream (manana) and let that go
down deep even in deep sleep state (niddyasana) so that cycle is broken in
course of time. Possibly palying the same tricks of the mind to encounter
itself. But we should be well aware that we are indulging in the same trick
to counter the tricks of the mind otherwise we will get sucked into the
illusion of chasing enlightenment.   
 
 
Pranams
Vishy
 
 


--- On Sat, 17/10/09, Michael Shepherd <michael at shepherd87.fsnet.co.uk>
wrote:


From: Michael Shepherd <michael at shepherd87.fsnet.co.uk>
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] waking, dreaming, sleeping, as mutually supportive
To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta"
<advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Date: Saturday, 17 October, 2009, 4:43 PM


Dear Vishyji

The 'four states' are quoted ad infinitum. What I am asking for is new
thinking  under Advaita, on how these states may interact -- as they
obviously do -- to their mutual benefit in the sadhana..

Michael



--



Connect more, do more and share more with Yahoo! India Mail. Learn more.


      Try the new Yahoo! India Homepage. Click here.
http://in.yahoo.com/trynew
_______________________________________________
Archives: http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/
http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.culture.religion.advaita

To unsubscribe or change your options:
http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/advaita-l

For assistance, contact:
listmaster at advaita-vedanta.org








More information about the Advaita-l mailing list