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Ma Durga
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Ma Durga
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Ma Durga
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In the last article, we understood the first level of nidra (sleep) – waking-sleep. The next level of sleep which human beings go through is dream-sleep. Just like the waking-sleep, there are also two types of sleep in the dream state: sleeping during thinking and sleeping during dreaming. The first thing you realise about your dreams is that in the dream state, you experience completely confused identities For example, you may have a dream that you are going to school with your colleague, the mixed identity, or you could have mixed two separate incidents which happened when you were ten years old and forty years old and see them together in one dream. This shows that when you are dreaming, there is a discontinuity which happens in the dream.
According to a living incarnation, Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji), he said that ‘if you are able to be aware even while the dream continues, you will be able to use your dream to enrich your life. If you can master this art, your whole life will be totally different. You can straight away achieve whatever you want. Mastering your dream means being aware even while you are dreaming and not letting the disconnection or the pause happen while you dream.’
Do you know that the Aghoris are the people who master dreams? Aghori means ‘compassionate, soft’. Aghoris belongs to a great spiritual tradition in India which works only on dreams. They use dreams state to solve all their problems and to find out the mysteries of the planet earth and the Universe. The Aghoris believe that dreams are an extension of the waking state, so they would go and ask for forgiveness of a person in waking state even though the incident happened in their dream.
Another thing you need to know about deep sleep. Deep sleep is the time when you go back to the source which you created this body. Your body was create when your mother was fast asleep, the energy which was there inside your mother’s womb when she was fast asleep, in that space, you were created. Every night you fall asleep, you actually go back to that same energy, recreate your body by doing the repair work inside your system and feeling rejuvenated and come back to live the next day. So this sleep is no way going to lead you to anguish or pain. Those who suffer from insomnia, they are depriving themselves from this natural self-renewal capability from within.
Here’s the sacred secret – if you are not daydreaming or falling asleep during your waking state, your dreams and sleep will also be continuous. If you are able to maintain the continuous flow of awareness during waking state, you will also be able to maintain that continuity in the dream state.
How to master dreams?
Swamiji gave a powerful technique from Tantra which Patanjali also speaks about in Sadhana Pada and Vibhooti Pada in Yoga Sutra.
He said – Whatever makes you feel very pleasant – it could be something, someone – just remember that, alive inside you while you fall asleep. For example, if you feel very pleasant by remembering your master, you can meditate on him, connect with him and feel him. Feel him inside your inner space visually, alive. Just remember that when you lie down on your bed – alive, vivid, visually in multi-colour, 4-D and continue to be with that intense visualization till you fall asleep. In 10 days, you will see he is there continuously, you will see his form in the dream clearly in multi-colour. If you try this technique for 10 days, you will see that the vivid visualization will penetrate your dream state within 10 days and will continue to be there throughout your dream. It means that you have mastered that dream and created a continuity in the dream. You have mastered the knowledge of how to avoid dream-sleep – this is the technique to get out of dream-sleep.
If you continue to practise this technique for 3 months, you will start experiencing his presence and his energy in the deep sleep state as well. The moment you wake up, you will know you have been with your master throughout, even though you do not remember his form, the colour of his dress etc. You know you were with him and you have been with him the whole night. This is exactly what Lord Krishna says in Bhagavad Gita – ‘A Yogi is a person who does not sleep when everybody sleeps’. It means you are awake throughout, your consciousness is awake throughout.
If you try this technique step-by-step, you will master waking-sleep, dream-sleep, and deep-sleep. There will be a continuity in all the 3 states of consciousness, then you experience the 4th state – Turiya state. If you are continuous, unbroken, conscious in all the 3 states, what you experience is called the 4th state – Turiya. Being continuous in the 3 states will lead you to joy, otherwise it will lead you to anguish and pain. One more important sacred secret: that continuity itself is a deep restful awareness that you don’t need any separate rest. This is the ultimate break you can give to yourself. The continuity is the ultimate brake from sleeping, dreaming and waking. Only when you can break your break, only then it is a real break! Living in the 4th state – Turiya is living enlightenment (Jivanmukti).
In essence, to experience the ultimate state – the Turiya state, we have to start transcending the waking state from all kinds of daydreaming and the lack of continuity in the dream state and deep sleep state. Then you simply fall into Samadhi – sleeping with awareness. Namaste 😀
Source – 108 truth of Yoga of Enlightenment by Paramahamsa Nithyananda
After expounding on imagination in the last article, let us move to the 4th modification of the mind – SLEEP. Patanjali gives a deeper insight into sleep in the next Yoga Sutra. The first thing we need to do is to expand our understanding about sleep, not in the narrowed way as we experience as a layman, but from the level of consciousness. If you are able to grasp this knowledge and apply in your daily life, the whole quality of your life will be transformed.
Here’s the 10th verse of Yoga Sutra “The subtle state where thoughts are not visualised is sleep or nidra”. Patanjali is not referring only to the normal sleep we experience at night, he is also talking about two other sleeps that we are not aware. The word ‘Nidra’ means disconnect.
As human beings, we all go through 3 kinds of sleep: 1) sleep which we experience during waking state, 2) the sleep which we experience during dream state, 3) sleep which we experience during deep sleep state. We go through 3 types of sleep – waking-sleep, dream-sleep and deep-sleep.
First of all, you need to know that you experience sleep during waking state. Many times you would have experienced this in your life – you are there but you are not there! Your body may be moving and doing things but you are asleep. For example, you would have started the car and driven to office for 30 mins, but only when you park your car at office and get out, you will suddenly remember that you have driven for half an hour. But you don’t remember the details how you get there, it means you were sleeping even when you were awake. I have experienced it a few times during Guru puja, a Vedic ritual to offer gratitude to my Guru, I actually forgot if I had done certain steps due to absent-mindedness.
The truth is the entire humanity is sleepwalking because we go through part of our waking state sleeping till we are enlightened. Paramahamsa Nithyananda, a living enlightened master (fondly known as Swamiji) cautions that not being available in the state in which we are, is what he calls as sleep. He says that if we can just be available in the waking state, there is no problem which can’t be solved. The key is – we need to be available there because all problems are created when we are not available and we end up messing up the whole thing. This happens when the reflection of consciousness is not there. Due to absentmindedness, people miss many things in life such as relationships, decisions and life itself. When we are absentminded in the outer activities, we may lose the things like success, fame and wealth. But if we are absentminded during inner planning, inner visualization, we will miss the links in our life, the flow which is happening inside us will be missing. That’s the worst thing that can happen to any Being! It means a kind of sleep is happening in the thought flow which does not allow us to keep the passion alive. The sleep which we experience during the thought- flow or action-flow is what leads us to anguish, we suffer due to missing too many things of the inner world. Absentmindedness in the outer world is responsible for the planning not becoming a reality. You need to know that absentmindedness in the inner world is responsible for all indecisions, addiction and the inability to keep the intensity alive in your life. The addiction here means any action performed repeatedly without awareness, it does not just confine to visible dangerous addictions such as alcohol, smoking or drugs.
How to come out of this nidra – the disconnection with life?
Whenever the nidra or waking-sleep happens, remember and bring awareness. You can try this technique. For the next 10 days, whenever you eat, be aware of how you feel in the stomach, how you feel with the whole process of digestion and cleaning. You can clearly understand what makes you feel uncomfortable and what makes you feel relaxed. Suddenly your body will tell you the right quantity, right quality and you will be able to create a diet base on that awareness. Next, be aware of your breathing, the natural breathing cycle and your breathing pattern. How your thoughts which are triggered by anger or desire affect your breathing? How your breathing elongates when you are relaxed? Start to become aware of your body, feel that you are alive inside this body, your hands and legs and your face – the different parts of your body. This technique will bring you back to awareness in waking state.
In essence, sleep in waking state is due to a discontinuity of reflection of consciousness. The waking-sleep state not only stops you from manifesting your reality but also makes you forget about the very purpose in your life which is seeking. A state of low existence which everyone needs to get out. Namaste. 😀
Note : From 108 Truths of Yoga of Enlightenment by Paramahamsa Nithyananda
Do you know that imagination is the fantasy which moves you away from the reality?
The biggest click I got from the 9th Yoga Sutra of Patanjali is – imagination is the results of mere words – words we create unconsciously! Patanjali says anything experienced by you, other than your pure consciousness is vikalpa – imagination. Imagination is that which is created merely by words! Hence imagination brings more suffering than wrong knowledge because for wrong knowledge to happen, your consciousness needs be present and the mind needs to do something. Wrong knowledge can only happen in waking state or dream state. Wrong knowledge is nothing but wrong logic. But imagination can disturb you in all the three states – waking state, dream state and deep sleep state because imagination touches the deeper zones than wrong knowledge.
Another important truth I discovered from this sutra is that imagination corrupts your seven chakras. What are chakras? See, your mind and body come in contact with each other at 7 points in your body. These 7 points are known as the 7 energy centres or chakras. The Yoga tradition describes these 7 points as Chit-Jada-granthi – the points where matter and consciousness meet each other. Whenever you carry imagination, you corrupt these 7 energy centres and disturb their functioning.
For example, if your imagination touches your root centre, Mooladhara chakra at the base of the spine, it is called fantasy. You are caught in fantasies about others and yourself which results in distortion of your basic perception of reality. You start seeing everything as larger than life, you start expecting the things which can never happen. Projecting your magnified expectation on reality is called fantasy. This happens often in relationships, you will always feel that the other person is not fulfilling you. You start imagining things, projecting things and creating things. When you see that it is not happening through the other person, you start blaming the other person. That is why you constantly feel the other person is depriving you or suffocating you. You are not even aware that it is your fantasy which is creating the expectation of things which can never happen or which never happened.
Next, if your imagination touches your Swadhistana chakra or being centre located 2 inches above the root centre, it is called fear. You experience fear of others and fear of yourself. You start to have phobia for no reason. If your imagination touches the Manipuraka chakra, the navel centre, it is called worry. You start worrying about others and worrying about yourself. If your imagination touches your Anahata chakra, the heart centre, it is called attention-need. You suffer from continuous attention need from others and from yourself. Sometimes you put up with abusive relationships just because of your attention-need. You forget that you can be a source of love and you need not be a beggar for love and attention. If your imagination touches your Visuddhi chakra, the throat centre, it is called jealousy. You start constant comparison with others and comparison with yourself. This happens a lot when you constantly compare with yourself what you were able to do yesterday and not today. If your imagination touches your Ajna chakra, the brow centre, it is called ego. You start suffering from ego with others and with yourself. The greatest suffering is you judge yourself, you regret your own words and actions or you are angry with yourself for something. When you carry too many judgments about life, about others and yourself, it means imagination is corrupting your brow centre. Finally, if your imagination touches your Sahasrara chakra or the crown centre, it is called discontentment. You suffer from discontentment with others and discontentment with yourself. This is how we create different kinds of suffering in our life due to the inability to handle the realities of life!
Have you seen people renouncing life due to many unfulfilled fantasies about life? They fantasized about luxury lifestyle but they didn’t make it and they couldn’t tolerate the failure, the reality of their life. They started to renounce out of frustration due to not having the right understanding about their fantasy. I’ve seen people misunderstood about yoga and they created a fantasy about themselves and tortured themselves in the name of yoga. They are not able to come out of the fantasy they are caught in. That’s the endless suffering.
In essence, imagination – Vikalpa is fantasy which not only moves you away from reality, but it also makes you experience the ultimate suffering. It has to be understood with very deep awareness. It originates from the words you use to yourself and others because words have power to shape your destiny. Your ability to relax from imagination is the ultimate relaxation you can have in life. Namaste 😀
Source : 108 Truths of Yoga of Enlightenment by Paramahamsa Nithyananda