Download PDF - Stillness Speaks

The dreamer (lower right third of fig.1), Consciousness turnedinward, enjoys a world similar in some respects to the waking state worldand radically different in others. In the dream state The Self illumines onlysubtle objects. Subtle objects are dreams, the samskaras, appearing in thesubtle body in pictorial form. Like the waker, the dreamer believes he or sheand his or her world is real, and is equipped with dream senses to consumedream objects, a dream mind to emote and feel, a dream intellect to thinkdream thoughts, and a dream ego to experience the dream life. In the ancienttexts the dreamer is referred to as the “shining one”, 24 a term indicating itsnature as Consciousness. Dreams appear bathed in light, even though thewaking senses are inactive, because the Self, Consciousness, shines throughthe dreamer, just as it shines through the waker.The sleeper is called pragna or mass of consciousness. In waking anddream states, consciousness flows either outward and inward but in sleep itlooses direction and becomes formless. The sleeper ego is extremely subtle,its presence only known through inference: when we return to the wakingstate we know we slept well, experienced the Self as limitlessness/bliss.Since the Self is the only other factor in the deep sleep state (there are nosubtle or gross objects) It has to be limitlessness/bliss, the object of thesleeper’s extremely subtle ego.The deep sleep state is free of the waking and dream egos and objectsbecause the samskaras that projected them have become dormant, hence it isreferred to as the “seed” state. When the “seeds” sprout, one becomes awaker or a dreamer and experiences the appropriate worldExperience contradicts the view that the sleep state is a void. Sanskritliterature refers to it as “the womb,” because our waking and dream worldsemerge from it. When one wakes up in the morning one’s whole life is neatlylaid out, consistent with the past, to the degree that we even remember thesame language spoken the day before, suggesting that previous experiencehad simply entered a dormant state.These three states and egos are known to everyone and constitute thetotality of our experience. An interesting question posed by this analysis is"Who am I?" If I'm the waking ego, which I’ve been totally conditioned tothink I am, what happens to me when I become a sleeper? I’ve quitewillingly surrendered everything essential to my idea of myself (my body,mind, intellect, and all my physical possessions) to turn into a mass ofconsciousness and experience limitlessness.24 Taijaisa17