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If I’m the sleeper ego, the blissfully limitless subtle being, then why doI sacrifice that status for all the limitations and insecurities of the waking ordream worlds? The dreamer identity is insufficient because I always sacrificeit to become a waker or a sleeper. So my status as any one ego or ego aspectis limited and my true identity open to question.IF I'M REAL, I HAVE TO EXIST ALL THE TIMEThe answer to "Who am I" is that I am not any off these egos or egostates. If I'm real, I have to exist all the time. I can't suddenly be one thingone minute and something else the next. Irrespective of my state, Iexperience life as a simple single complete conscious being because I exist inthe waking, dream, and deep sleep states independent of the waker, dreamerand deep sleeper.As what?As the Self, the Awareness, witness to the three states. 25 Outside ofmeditation, the Self is probably easiest to recognize in the dream statebecause the physical senses are inactive. The dream is playing on the screenof the mind like a movie. Though physical light is absent and the eyesclosed, the dream ego and the dream events are clearly illumined, aphenomenon referred to as “lucid” dreaming. The lucidity is the Selftemporarily functioning as the dreamer, “the shining one.” However,identification with the dream ego and its doings prevents us from properlyappreciating the dream light, the Self.The Self is unknown in the waking state for the same reason.Preoccupied with the happenings in our worlds, we are unaware that thesense objects and our thoughts and feelings are bathed in Awareness.In deep sleep the waking and dream egos are dissolved into theirsource, the dormant seeds of their past actions, so they aren’t aware ofanything external. However, even though one doesn't exist as an externallyor internally conscious ego in the deep sleep state one can report a good sleepbecause a very subtle ego remnant remains, permitting the experience oflimitless and bliss. 26Like the appearance of silver in mother of pearl, the world25 Note in fig. 1 that the Self remains unchanged irrespective of the state it illumines.26 The Sanskrit term for bliss, ananda, means limitlessness. When we experience ourselves without limits weare completely happy.18
seems real until the Self, the underlying reality, is realized.”(7)On seeing the non-dual Self, the underlying reality, one wakes up fromthe dream of life.A street drunk woke up one bright morning with a terrible hangoverand searched his pockets for change. Not even enough for a cup of coffee!The day was hot, the pavement gooey under his feet. Rubbing his eyes andlooking around, he spied a quarter near a drink machine in front of aconvenience store. Figuring someone must have dropped it when buying acoke, he happily thought, "There's my morning cup of coffee!" Rushingover, he reached down to pick it up, but it was only a coke bottle cap pressedin the warm pavement and worn shiny by the tires of passing cars.Just as the apparent quarter borrows its luster from the real brightnessof the bottlecap, the shiny and attractive world of the senses seems anindependent self-sustaining reality, but its attractiveness is borrowed from theSelf, luminous Consciousness. When the bottlecap is seen for what it is, thequarter vanishes, because it's only in the mind. In meditation and/or atintense life interfaces, our personal view is often superseded by Self’scausing our apparent reality and all its limitations to disappear."Like waves in the ocean,the worlds arise, live, and dissolve inthe Supreme Self, the substanceand cause of everything."(8)At times we’ve all looked at the inner and outer worlds with wonderand awe. Their beauty, like the beauty of this verse, is impossible to dismiss.Where do they come from? The author likens them to waves and the Self toan ocean. The waves are nothing but the ocean, though seemingly separateentities. According to Vedanta the whole material universe is merely a finitewave in Consciousness. Out of Consciousness it emerges, sustains itself fora few trillion years and subsides back into It. Though it appears solidbecause we are perceiving it through material instruments, the senses, it isactually formless Spirit.As above so below. We can't see the physical universe pass through acomplete cycle, but observing our own inner universe can give us an idea ofthe process of creation. In the limitlessness of sleep a dream arises, plays19
Page 1 and 2: SELF-KNOWLEDGE"I am composing this
Page 3: REMOVING THE WALLIf happiness or un
Page 8 and 9: "Action cannot remove ignorancefor
Page 10 and 11: lowing blissful cosmic experiences,
Page 12 and 13: Something tells me this knowledge s
Page 14 and 15: ody.We aren’t our feelings and em
Page 16 and 17: The belief that I am a waker comes
Page 20 and 21: itself out and disappears back into
Page 22 and 23: imaginations; ego, filled with self
Page 24 and 25: The next few days saw many experien
Page 26 and 27: here, however, the subtle part, the
Page 28 and 29: state manifests as awareness and ac
Page 30 and 31: At this point in the text the “No
Page 32 and 33: time when it was appropriate? Greed
Page 34 and 35: Simply knowing that everything is a
Page 36 and 37: in the light of the Self.”(19)Tho
Page 38 and 39: ationalized or self-validating cred
Page 40 and 41: through which the Enlightened Being
Page 42 and 43: Of course the idea of a deluded Sel
Page 44 and 45: Since ultimately all transactions,
Page 46 and 47: Nearly everyone has, at moments of
Page 48 and 49: The complex process of experience i
Page 50 and 51: can't. The creative process is, acc
Page 52 and 53: eautifully mixed by the Mind (see "
Page 54 and 55: (Intellect's preoccupation with the
Page 56 and 57: attentioninwardsubtle bodystilledag
Page 58 and 59: attitudes, especially those which e
Page 60 and 61: specific results. For example, we t
Page 62 and 63: DESIRE IS STRESSOne major source of
Page 64 and 65: Meditation and Self knowledge go ha
Page 66 and 67: Put together, the sattvic elements
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Sleep is a symbol for ignorance, an
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THE BODYNo particular physical posi
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THE BREATHThe breath, as you’ve u
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If the ego insists on intruding, ma
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of objects in the Self alone and ex
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(40)One symptom of enlightenment si
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“As dawn dispels darkness before
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Listen carefully to the next conver
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This, the last, and the next five v
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Imagine Consciousness arranged in l
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nothing more is to be seen, and whi
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The word, it is said, "killeth." Ho
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agitationattentionfactor“Third Ey
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OM TAT SAT94
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