Dream world bound by Time and Karma -Conceiving The Inconceivable

[Pradeep Kumar]

Hare Krishna,
In your book, Conceiving The Inconceivable, you have mentioned that our access to Dream World is bound by time and karma similar to real world – my question is I am able to break the dream and come out – how I am able break free if I am karmically meant to experience that? (in real world this can happen only by only suicide?)
Another question- you have mentioned that in dreams, senses and mind roam to perceive realities directly without mediated by body. Without senses receiving input as sensations from sense objects (some information should be encoded in sense objects for this to happen) , how senses are receiving sensations and input is going through all higher layers (mind, intelligence,Ego etc)? Is there an objective dream world present or Parmatma creates a subjective dream world for everyone as needed for them to experience Karma in dreams?

[Ashish Dalela]

Obviously, if someone is suffering, they will try to break away in many ways. Just like a horse is whipped to run, and sometimes it might not want to run, or it might want to break away. So, there is some free will in you by which you can try to escape. And nature will catch you again. Some people go drinking if they are unhappy. And by that drinking, they become happy for some time. Then after some time, they suffer even more. So, your breaking the dream is like that. For some time you can imagine that I’m free. But you are not free. There is an illusion of freedom.

For the second question, you may not have understood the meaning of sense perception. If you like, you can read “Sankhya and Science”. The senses and mind are active during dreaming, but the body is not active. That means senses and mind are not this body; they are separate.

[Pradeep Kumar]

Thank you , on the second question, I did read “Sankhya and Science”, may be I have to read many times to get it. I understand that senses and mind are separate from body.  But I cannot understand where is this “dream world”? Is it manifested by Paramatma only to my mind and senses temporarily to make me experience some thing? Real world seems to more logically destroyed than dream world- Is there new Karma gets generated by our reactions to dream in the dream?

[Ashish Dalela]

The world exists as a possibility, and it is accessed by our senses and the mind. The access is dependent on our desire and karma. So everyone doesn’t see everything. The “dream world” is also real, and the dreaming state is superior to the waking state because by understanding the nature of dreaming, we can understand why the waking state is also just like a dream.

[Pradeep Kumar]

1. Are the characters/people  in the dream real? As you have mentioned that mind and senses access the possibilities that are as “real” as the “real world” that we see in waking state, what about the people and their behaviour? Are they creation of my mind or they are real possibilities that I am accessing? If they are possibilities, what if they will never act like that with their free will?
2. if I smell something in the dream and I never had that smell in real (I actually did), is this smell present as possibility in mental/sense world or it is creation of my mind?

[Ashish Dalela]

The term “real” carries assumptions from Western philosophy about reality. These assumptions don’t apply to Vedic philosophy. The correct terms are “manifest” and “unmanifest”.

There is an elaborate process by which an “unmanifest” becomes “manifest” through various stages. In the book “Time and Consciousness” I have described 6 such stages. These are called existing, thinking, feeling, willing, knowing, and acting. When you think about something, it goes from a state of existing outside your mind, to a state that is manifest in your mind. Then if you like that thought, it comes slightly closer and is seen more clearly. Then if decide that it is true, it comes even closer and you see it even more clearly. Then if you truly understand its nature, it comes even closer and is seen even more clearly. Finally, when you use it with your senses, it comes further closer. So, as the thing is coming closer, it becomes more manifest.

An atheist thinks about the idea of God, and immediately finds it repugnant. Therefore, his thinking stops at the feeling stage, and further proximity is not developed. So, God’s nature is not revealed. This is due to the nature of experience from thinking to feeling to further steps.

Now, what is “real”? It is the “existing” stage. In this stage, it exists as a possibility to be thought, felt, judged, known, and used. But “real” doesn’t mean you know about it. It can exist without being known. Even things that have never been thought before are real and existing. The nature of possibility is as big as the capacity of the mind to think. So, everything that you can potentially think of has a reality. Even false ideas are existent, and they just manifest in our minds.

The universe is described to be covered by many layers that are 10 times larger in radius than the previous layer. Something 10 times larger in radius is 100 times bigger in the area and 1000 times bigger in volume. So, based on this, we can understand that the space of all that can be thought of is 1000 times bigger than the space of things that we can potentially like. The space of things that we can like is 1000 times bigger than the space of things that can be judged to be true. The space of all that is judged to be true is 1000 times bigger than the space of things that can be constructed logically. And the space in which things can be constructed is 1000 times bigger than the space in which they are constructed. This space, which is 10^-21 times smaller than the existent space constitutes a single visible universe and it can be further divided into waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. That deep sleep stage is the unconscious and 2x2x2 = 8 times bigger than the conscious. This called the aloka varsa. Within this is the 8 times smaller loka varsa. Within loka varsa there are distinctions of dreaming and waking. Within waking there is a distinction between hallucination, misperception, illusion. Each of these is many times bigger than the next one. All these things exist, but they are not true. Finally, after eliminating all these things, we come to a knowledge that is true. This truth exists in this universe, but finding it is like locating a needle in a haystack of the size of a galaxy. It is impossible to find that truth on your own. But if we accept God’s guidance, then He leads us to this needle by giving us a devotee.

So, now if you say “I dream this” and is it real? Yes, it is real, because it is possible. But is it true? That depends on whether someone in the spiritual world is smelling the same smell. Only those things that are being experienced in the spiritual world are true. All the other things are false. So, the same smell can exist here and there. But one who knows these two worlds can tell whether the thing is true or false. It is not a generic answer. It is very specific, based on details.

The problem is that people are thinking that what they are seeing with their eyes is the only reality. They don’t know that the reality is many orders of magnitude bigger than all that everyone is seeing right now. This is the Vedic conception of the universe. It is enormously bigger than everything science has imagined so far, and they cannot imagine unless they study the nature of the senses, mind, intellect, ego, moral sense, and deeper realities. At each step, the universe will become many orders of magnitude bigger. So, when we talk about Krishna, we are talking about so much greatness that people cannot imagine. God is great. But how great? Cosmology is meant to tell us how great. Then when our mind is boggled, then we say: I cannot understand this myself, please help me. At that time Krishna will guide the humble seeker. The science of this world is meant to make the arrogant person humble by baffling them.

[Pradeep Kumar]

Thank you, it is very clear now. I understand that the experience of dreams can be from any of the layers and hence they are unimaginably vast and they may not be true, correct or good. Now I can make sense of out of world things that appear in dreams. Thank you.

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