AM I THE SOLE DREAMER IN THE DREAM OF LIFE?
SOME FOOD FOR DREAM FIGURES IN MY DREAM TO PONDER
1. AM I THE SOLE DREAMER WITHIN THE DREAM?
‘I believe that I am Pure Infinite Absolute Consciousness- Awareness-Bliss, that is my True Nature, Brahman the Self. Unfortunately this Truth has been obscured by my many latent tendencies accumulated in this and previous lives. However, I know that I exist, and this causes the Light of Pure Consciousness- Awareness to arise and to be reflected by the mirror, formed by my latent tendencies and egotism, so that the world, body, and mind that appear seem to be real but are actually unreal, like a dream projected on my screen of Pure Consciousness.
Am I therefore the sole dreamer of that dream, the so called ‘others’ being merely dream figures in my preordained, choreographed dream of life?
Of course after Self Realisation the Jnani sees the world as Real because he perceives the substrate to be Brahman. Therefore as Shankara points out, the world is both Real and Unreal seen from different standpoints or levels of ‘understanding’.
As a provisional doctrine, the world must be perceived by the Ajnani as Unreal, and myself as the sole dreamer within the dream, to lessen my identification with the apparent World, and save precious energy for Self Enquiry, so as to remove the vasanas which prevent that Enlightenment, when the world will appear to be Real again. This practice of seeing the world to be a dream, provisionally, was recommended by Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi until Self Realisation when the substrate of the world would be perceived and the world could be seen to be Real..
Thus this is not exactly Philosophic Solipsism such as Bishop Berkeley and others have propounded, which does not admit the world to be Real in any circumstance.
2. A WARNING
While still holding on to the ‘I AM THE SOLE DREAMER’ notion keeping it in mind, one must always live and behave as if the apparent dream and its dream figures are actually Real. This is because the dream figures are conditioned in one’s preordained dream world to react aggressively if one’s behaviour does not conform with what is regarded as ‘normality’ by them, i.e. not acting as if their dream world was Real. The dream world imposes consequences on the ‘sole dreamer’ who does not conform to its preordained character, of behaving as if it was real. Such is the nature of Maya.
3. MAYA
Maya is one of the powers inherent in Brahman to create an illusion in the human being, so that the so called world is a dream like appearance. This is because, inbuilt in the organ of cognition (brain) are the a priori conditioned reflexes of Time, Space and Causality as Arthur Shopenhauer pointed out in his major work ‘The World As Will and Rpresentation’. Schopenhauer had studied the Upanishads and early Buddhist Scriptures
.Every sentient being creates his or her own universe, e.g. from the mosquito to the chimpanzee etc. according to the structure of their organ of cognition. In the human being, the inbuilt mechanism of Space creates the theatre or screen of consciousness on which the pre-programmed dream unfolds. This unfolding of 32 frames a second in perception, gives an impression of events happening in temporal sequence, and it is compounded by the observation of changes apparantly taking place, in the so called ‘Natural Forces’ which are seen in my life dream. The Causal Faculty deduces a reason for so called ‘happenings’, which may be accurate or inaccurate, and the ‘me’ acts accordingly in response.
4.NOTES ON THE DREAM OF SUFFERING IN AN UNREAL WORD
Everyone complains about the immense amount of suffering which appears to happen in their individual dream of the world. But the world cannot be viewed horizontally and judged, just as it seems to appear on the screen of consciousness. It is better understood vertically as a dense thickly populated field of Karma, where the hand of preordained destiny is constantly directing the dream figures to action, designed ultimately for their spiritual development.
These dream figures interact all the time unknowingly, and a world of suffering appears as a consequence, but internally they are being taught a severe lesson forcing them to pray to turn within, and end their dreadful repetitive cycle of dream births. Then aid arrives, and Grace descends in the form of the Enlightened Master who gives certain Non-Dual Religious and Spiritual Wisdom Teachings which show the way to escape from the prison house of the dream. But it needs persistent work on oneself, through Self Enquiry and Devotion, to remove all the old latent tendencies which cause the dream. Then the Self shines through, and the suffering soul wakes up and the dream ends forever.
5. MORE ON THE DREAM FIGURES
To imagine that there are ‘ some others who are real’ in the dream of life, is like imagining that all the dream figures in one’s private night dream are dreaming the same dream as you are at exactly the same time.
6. FIRST PERSON EVENTS
Only one’s own first person events have any validity. We have no experience whatsoever of other persons’ first person events, and only interpret them by inference which is widely open to misinterpretation by us, and cannot be relied upon with any exactitude. The ‘other’ can only be interpreted as a ‘dream figure’ because we have no reliable experiential evidence of his or her actual existence or consciousness, except as dreamed by us, and then superimposed by us upon him or her. We are left with being the Sole Dreamer until Realisation of the Self unveils the substrate of the world which then may be perceived as Real and is no longer a subjective dream.
7. OBJECTION
Most important Philosophers state that the case for solipsism is formidable. But none have ever defeated it effectively. Instead it is a viewpoint they ‘prefer’ not to accept.The best objection comes from Schopenhauer who says that ‘the object necessarily implies a subject’. But as the subject supplies the object, as has already been stated this fails.
8. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
Wittgenstein believes that Solipsism is at the core of the Metaphysical. Even the Subject’s relationship to Philosophy and other Philosophers is a Solipsistic experience. It is impossible to get beyond the boundaries of the egotistic self until one Realises The True Self of Pure Consciousness. What evidence is there of a World beyond our mental states other than the deceptive senses which are all untrustworthy? To infer there is a world from other dream figures statements is nonsensical, as it begs the question of ‘who makes the inference?’ ‘The subject, and the reply from the object, the dream figure, is supplied by the sole dreamer, oneself.
Perhaps the last word is expressed by the greatest Sage of the millennia since Adi Shankara, the Great Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi, who said “The world mocks you for thinking it to be Real”.
9. AN EXERCISE
An Exercise in Self Remembering is to feel firmly ‘I exist, I am here, now, awake in the dream of life’, and watch one’s Self Awareness arise. Then one can feel that the body, mind and world are merely reflections from the light of pure consciousness mirrored by the latent tendencies, one becomes aware of one’s awareness, which is an approximation of the Self.
10. ULTIMATE PERSPECTIVE
From an Advaita, absolutist perspective, all is One. The dream is a dream dreamed by Brahman or the Godhead, and as ‘I Am That’ it is my sole dream as only ‘I’ have the first hand experience of ‘That’. This concept can only be experienced when the latent tendencies (vasanas) are all expelled through Self Enquiry and the mind is surrendered to the Sat Guru in the Heart, and one has Realised the Self.
11. Helpful Quotations
“Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep”
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep”
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
“All that we see is a dream or a dream within a dream” Edgar Allen Poe.
“I am the one Being’s sole immeasurable Bliss: No one I am, I who am, is all that is.” Sri Aurobindo
“When knowledge of the Self arises in the form ‘I alone exist…. it puts an end to nescience’“. Shankara.
“One who sees everything as nothing but the Self, and the Self in everything one sees, such a seer withdraws from nothing. For the enlightened, all that exists is nothing but the Self, so how could any suffering or delusion continue for those who know this oneness?”
Rhada Ma; No, it’s not a multiple people’s dream, it is a single dream.” Advaita Ratnas 2nd Edition P.39
“There is nothing at all in the world or the
universe that can help you, because nothing exists”.
Robert Adams
universe that can help you, because nothing exists”.
Robert Adams
“ First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, and then the mountain is seen again to be real” Zen Proverb
“Row, row , row the boat gently down the stream, merrily merrily, life is but a dream” Folk Song
For further reading
Solipsism ( / ˈ s ɒ l ɨ p s ɪ z əm /) is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. The term comes from the Latin solus (alone) and ipse ...
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Ajata vada or the theory of non-causality. This is an ancient Hindu doctrine which states that the creation of the world never happened at all.
Alan Jacobs
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