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Yellow
is, in India at least, the colour of the dead. The
dead carcass has got a yellow colour. The yellow
robe or the yellow costume implies that the man who
puts on these yellow clothes has crucified his
body, has altogether discarded his flesh, risen
above carnality, is beyond all selfish motives;
just as when the Roman catholics have to ordain a
monk, they put him in a coffin and read over his
head the chapter from Job, they read over him the
songs and psalms and sermons which are usually read
over the dead, and that man being placed in a
coffin, is made to believe and realise that he is
dead, dead to all temptations, to all passions,
dead to all worldly desires. The buddhists have to
wear yellow clothes which mean that the man has no
more to do anything with worldly desires, with
selfish aims and objects, is dead to the world, as
it were, and the flame colour of the vedantins
means the colour of fire. This colour
[indicating the dress of the speaker-Rama]
cannot represent exactly the colour of fire, the
colour of these clothes; but this colour was about
the nearest colour to the colour of fire that could
be had in America. In India we have a colour which
is exactly the colour of fire. When an Indian monk
is sitting somewhere, from some distance you cannot
recognise whether it is a man or a heap of fire.
This colour stands for the colour of fire, and this
means that the man has cremated his body. You know
in India we do not bury the dead, we cremate them,
we burn them. So this red colour implies that the
man who has worn these clothes has sacrificed his
body, has placed his body on the altar of Truth,
all the worldly desires burnt, burnt, burnt. All
the worldly desires, all the worldly ambitions, all
the worldly hungering and hankering are consigned
to the flames.
The colour of the cross is also red. The blood of
Christ is also red. christians also want something
red; this is also red, and it has the double
meaning of being blood as well as fire. But it has
another significance too. Yellow also could express
the idea of the death of the body, of the death of
the carnality, but vedantins do not wear yellow
robes, they wear red robes of the colour of fire.
That means that it is death from one standpoint and
life from another. You know, fire has life, fire
sustains life, fire has energy, fire has power. The
red robes imply that all the lower desires, all the
selfish propensities, all the little ambitions have
been consigned to fire, have been put to death; but
on the other hand, there has sprung out of them
life, fire, energy, power. That red robe has a
double meaning. It has the meaning of the death of
carnality and also the meaning of the life of the
spirit. Be not afraid. Be not afraid. Vedanta
preaches the baptism of fire instead of the baptism
of water. It preaches the baptism of flame, the
baptism of power, energy; oh, be not afraid that
this is fire and it will consume us. You read in
the Bible too: "He who would save his life
must lose it." Lose this lower life and you will
save the real life, that is the principle. Oh,
people in this world, what a great havoc do they
make of their lives! Their worldly life they make a
life of imprisonment, a life of death, a life of
hell. You will excuse Rama, that is the truth. On
their breasts, on their bosoms lies the mighty
Himalayas of grief and anxiety, a mighty mountain
of grief and anxiety. We should not say Himalayas.
The Himalayas is all power and grandeur. We will
say a mighty mountain of grief and anxiety. They
keep themselves like a pendulum, always oscillating
between a tear and a smile, always baffled by the
frowns and favours of somebody, or by the threats
and promises of somebody else. By their imagination
they always create around themselves a prison, a
dungeon, a hell.
Vedanta requires you to get rid of this lower
nature, this ignorance. Burn this ignorance, burn
this lower egoism, burn this lower selfish nature
which makes a hell of your body and let in the fire
of knowledge. Knowledge is always represented as
fire by the hindus. Let in the knowledge of fire,
and let all this chaff and all this dirt and dust
be consumed. Come out as all ablaze, as all fire,
heavenly fire, that is the meaning of the
colour.
Somebody asked Rama: "Why do you attract
attention?" Well, Rama told him: "Brother, brother,
please see yourself if there be any harm in these
clothes." He said, he could not find any harm in
them, but that others did. But you are not
responsible for the ignorance of others. Be mindful
of your own intellect and brain. Find out any fault
with these clothes if you have to find, and if
others find fault, you are not responsible for
that.
The greatest sadhu, the greatest Indian monk, the
greatest swami in this world is the Sun, the rising
Sun. The rising Sun comes to you everyday dressed
in the apparel, in the costume of a vedantic monk.
In tonight's discourse, this Sun will represent to
you the Immutable with reference to the changeable
bodies. We shall take the Sun, the Swami, the
sadhu, the red-apparelled Sun, symbol of the true
Atman, the real Self, which is unchangeable, which
is immutable, the same today, yesterday and for
ever. With reference to the Sun we shall point out
the changeable, the variable things, which stand
for the changeable bodies in man. Man has got the
changeable things in him, and there is in man the
immutable, the unchangeable, the eternal real
Atman. The real Atman is like the Sun, and the
changeable elements are the three bodies, the gross
body, the subtle body and the seed body. These are
names that Rama gives to these bodies. In Sanskrit
they are sthula, sukshma and karana sharir; and
Rama translates them as the gross body, the subtle
body, the seed body. These three bodies – the
seed body, the subtle body and the gross body
– are the changeable elements. These are not
the self but the non-self. These are variable,
fickle, these are not your Self. Your Self is the
immutable, the unchangeable. This is to be
shown.
In order to give you a clear idea of the three
bodies and the true Atman, we shall resort to an
illustration. You will kindly attend very
carefully. Tonight there will be talked to you no
logic, no great argumentation. Tonight the
proposition of man, as proved by the hindus, will
be made clear to you. It will be clearly enunciated
so that you may at once comprehend it, and
afterwards, if time be, we shall enter into
philosophy and reason out every side of the
question. You know before bringing out logic to
bear upon a theme, we ought to understand what the
proposition is. So tonight the meaning of the
proposition will be made clear, and you will see
that even in this enunciation or this clearing away
of the clouds and the understanding of the
proposition, there will be, as it were, a proof by
themselves. As Pope puts it:
Virtue is a fairy of such beauteous mien,
As to be loved needs only to be seen.
So the truth has such a glorious beauty that in
order that it may enter deep into your hearts, it
is necessary only to see it clearly. The Sun
requires no other proof of its existence. To see
the Sun is to prove the Sun. Everything, that be,
is seen in some outside light, but light itself
does not require some other light in order that it
may be visible. So tonight the proposition is
simply to be laid before you, without any arguments
and without any logic, so-called. Now we come to
the illustration.
You will kindly take yourself with Rama to the
Himalayan glaciers. There we see all-dazzling
scenes, diamond-mountains, all white, an ocean of
white glaciers so dazzling, so sparkling, so
beautiful, splendid, inspiring. There we find no
vegetation, no animal life, no man, no woman. There
is upon these glaciers to be seen one source of
life, the Sun, the glorious Orb, that shines upon
these fairy scenes. Oh, what a splendid sight!
Sometimes the light of the Sun sifted through the
clouds falls upon the land and makes the whole
landscape blaze up in the colour of fire, makes the
whole scene assume the swami's garb, converts the
whole scene into a sadhu, an Indian monk. After a
while the whole scene becomes yellow, etc., but
there is one thing and one thing only on the scene,
nothing else. That is the Sun.
Now you observe that in these glaciers there are
the greatest rivers of Hindustan, concealed,
latent. All the big rivers of India emanate and
flow out from these glaciers. Here in these
glaciers is the source or the seed body of the
river. You will kindly come down with Rama to the
second stage of the river life.
Here we come to another phase, we come now to
another kind of sights and landscapes. We are still
in the mountains, but not at the snow-capped
summits, lower down we are. Here for miles and
miles, for dozens and scores of miles we have
magnificent roses covering every spot and the whole
air fragrant, redolent with the sweet, delicious
scent of the roses. Here we have beautiful
nightingales and other birds singing, indicting
valentines all the year round. Here we have
magnificent warblers filling the air with their
sweet notes, and also we find amongst the
magnificent, beautiful, charming trees, the most
attractive Ganga, or some other stream, treading
its winding course in a zig-zag way, playing,
frisking about in the mountains. Oh, beautiful
brooks, beautiful rivulets we find here. Here in
these beautiful brooklets are the shadows of the
trees on the banks reflected, and these streamlets,
brooklets are going about in a most charming, in a
most playful way, now taking this trend and now
that trend, going around and around, turning this
way and that way, and singing all along, flow these
rivers, brooklets, rivulets.
What is this? This is the second stage of the
river's life. Here the river is in its subtle body.
This rivulet or brooklet form of the river is the
subtle body of the river, so to say. This subtle
body emanated from the seed body of the river, it
came from the seed body of the river. You know upon
the seed body of the river was the Sun shining, and
through the action of the Sun's heat and light upon
the seed body of the river came out the subtle body
of the river. This is the subtle body. It is very
fickle, vague, meandering, zig-zag. It is now
jumping down and taking long leaps in hot haste and
in great fury, then it subsides into a lake or a
calm. It is very vague, fickle, changing.
Let us descend a little to the plains. Now in the
plains we have different scenes. The same water,
the same river we saw present in the seed form upon
the snow-capped glaciers and which adopted a most
fantastic and most poetic aspect in its subtle form
lower down on the mountains, the same waters, the
same river now becomes a muddy stream upon the
plains. In the plains, the same river, the same
Ganga becomes a mighty stream. It has undergone a
great change. It has put on new clothing, new
colour; it does not keep its original transparency
and its original limpidness; it becomes dirty,
turbid and it becomes changed in colour. Muddy it
becomes and at the same time it changes its speed.
It becomes now slow, very slow, and on the other
hand it becomes more useful now. Upon the surface
of this mighty river float boats, float ships,
traffic is carried on. People come and bathe, and
the water of the great river now is utilised in
canals and aqueducts for irrigating the lands and
for fertilising the country around.
This third stage of the river's life is the gross
body of the river. And what about the life of the
river? What about the real motive power of the
river? The real motive power of the river is the
Sun, the glorious Orb. Now let us apply this
illustration to man.
Where are your three bodies and how are they
related to one another and to the real Self, your
true Self, or the Atman?
What are you in reality in your deep sleep state
where you are unconscious of everything else, where
you know nothing about the world, where father is
no father, mother is no mother, house is no house,
and the world is no world, where there is
ignorance, ignorance and nothing but ignorance,
where there is a state of chaos, a state of death,
a state of annihilation, so to say, a state of
nothingness?
There, vedanta says in that state which you have
never examined, which most of you have never
examined, in that state we have the seed body of
man, the seed body of man lying prostrate and flat
beneath the true Self or Atman of man. There we
have the true Self like the Sun shining over the
glaciers, man's life being compared to the river's
life.
You will kindly attend most carefully. Here is
something very subtle going to be stated. It was
said the other day, but the occasion requires that
it should be repeated.
In your deep sleep state this world is not present;
nor it is present in the dreamland; there is only
dreamlessness. When you wake up, you say that in
that deep sleep state is present nothing, nothing,
nothing. Vedanta says, indeed, in that deep sleep
state is present nothing. But you know as Hegel has
clearly shown [the hindus have anticipated
Hegel, that German philosopher] and have proved
that this nothing is something; that this nothing
is also the seed body; this nothing – which
you describe in your wakeful state as nothing, this
is the seed body, this is the glacier of your life.
As the Bible puts it that out of nothing was
something created by God, so the hindus have also
shown that out of this seed body, which you
describe as nothing after waking up, out of this
seed body which you describe as nothing, out of
this seed body or nothing, there springs forth or
comes out the whole world. If philosophers come out
and say that out of nothing something can never
come out, vedanta says that this which we have
called nothing is in reality not nothing, it is
called nothing by you only when you wake up. You
know the same word we can interpret, in anyway we
like. This is not in reality nothing. It is the
seed body. This is like the glaciers. Now you will
say, well, we have understood that out of that deep
sleep which we describe as nothing something comes
out, and that apparent nothing is the seed body;
but realise the Sun within, realise God within,
realise Atman which creates out of this glacier of
the seed body this whole universe. Realise that Sun
or God or Atman. You will ask what this means.
Listen please.
When you get up, you say, "I slept so profoundly
that I saw nothing in the dreams." There we say,
please write this statement on paper. Then vedanta
comes up and says that this statement is just like
a statement made by a man who said that at the dead
of night, at such and such a place, there was not a
single being present. The judge told him to put
that statement on paper, and he did that. The judge
asked him if this statement was true. He said,
"Yes". "Is this statement made on hearsay, or is it
founded on your own evidence? Are you an
eyewitness?" He said, "Yes, I am". "All right.
Then, if you were an eyewitness and if you wish us
to understand that your statement is correct, that
there was nobody present, then in order that your
statement may be right, you at least must have been
present on the scene. But if you were present on
the scene, this statement is not literally true.
Literally, the statement is not true, because you
being a human being you were present; at least one
human being was present on the scene. Thus the
statement that nobody was present, that there was
not a single human being present on the scene, is
false, that is a contradictory statement. In order
that it may be true as you wish us to understand it
to be true, it must be wrong. It must be wrong
because at least one human being must have been
present on the scene."
Similarly when we make this statement after waking
up, "Oh sir, I slept profoundly and I enjoyed such
deep slumbers that nothing was present on the
scene;" Rama says, "Sir, you were present. If you
had been asleep, if your true Self, the real Atman,
and the real Sun, the real Orb, the real God, had
been asleep, then who would have borne witness to
the nothingness of the deep sleep or chaos of the
dream? As you bore witness to the nothingness of
the deep sleep or chaos of the dream, you must have
been present there." Thus in your deep sleep state,
vedanta says that there are two things at least to
be seen, the nothingness which is like the glaciers
or like the seed body and the Witness Light, the
Sun, the glorious Atman, the resplendent Self or
God, which is witnessing all that and shining even
upon the desolation of the deep sleep state. There
that true Self is the Sun immutable and that
nothingness of the deep sleep state is the seed
body which is changeable, mutable, alterable and
fickle. Why is it changeable and fickle? Because
when you come down to the dreamland, when you fall
down into the dreaming state, that nothingness is
gone, that nothingness is no more. If that chaos or
nothing of the deep sleep state had been your real
Self, it would have lasted for ever, but it
changes. When you descend into the dreamland, the
very capability of changing implies that it is not
real. That seed body is not real. You will be
astonished, you will say how this phenomenal world
of ours did emanate from that nothing. It is a
fact. You have been thinking matters differently in
Europe and America; you have been taking matters in
a topsy-turvy state. Believe Rama, this is a truth
which must permeate every individual, which must
enter the heart of each and all in this universe,
sooner or later.
Here people are accustomed to take things from the
bottom to the top. They want to make rivers flow
uphill, the unnatural course. And so you will be
astonished at this statement just now made by Rama
that out of that nothingness of your deep sleep
state comes out your dreamland experience. You will
be astonished. But just examine, just reflect. Is
not that the plan of nature? Wherefrom did this
earth of yours come? This earth of yours was once
in the nebular state. All this was once in a state
which had no form, which was akin to your deep
sleep state. It was in the nebular state, it was in
a chaotic state. Out of that chaotic state have
sprung up, by slow degrees, your vegetable kingdom,
animal kingdom, and man. Vedanta tells you that
what you find in the whole of nature, what you find
true from the physical standpoint, the same is true
from the metaphysical standpoint. If this whole
world springs from chaos or nothing, so to say,
your dreamland and wakeful state also sprang from
that deep sleep state or chaotic state, the state
of nothingness. Your wakeful and dreaming states
sprang from that. Just so, it is found in the life
of every man. When a baby, he is in a state most
resembling the state of nothingness, as it were.
Out of that state, by slow degrees, he comes into
the other state, which you call higher, though
higher and lower are relative terms.
What is the rule in the whole universe is the rule
with the ordinary life of every man. Out of the
deep sleep state springs this dreaming state.
People want to explain the dreaming state as
dependent on the wakeful state. You will be
astonished when vedanta puts matters to you in
their true light and shows that all the European
philosophers, all your Hegels and Kants cannot
explain thoroughly the phenomena of dreams. We have
no time tonight to dwell upon the subject, but this
will be proved to you either in a lecture or in a
bookform.
We come to the dream state. In the dreamland we
come, as it were, from the glaciers to the lower
mountains. You are still on the mountains, asleep.
Here the subtle body, the dreaming self, finds
itself in a fantastic land, in a poetic region; the
dreaming self of yours is now a bird, is now a
king. Immediately it becomes a beggar. It is now a
man who has lost his way on the Himalayan mountains
and then it becomes the citizen of a big city like
London. It is now in this city and then in that
city. How changeable! Just as the streams in the
mountains are changeable, meandering, fickle,
taking different turns every now and then, such is
the state of your dreaming self. In your dreaming
state, you are quick about everything, just as the
streams are so quick when in the mountains, the
rivulets, the brooklets are so quick and so rapid,
so gushing, and so playful. So is your dreaming
self so playful and rapid. You live in a land of
imagination. There the dead becomes alive and those
people who are living, you find sometimes dead
– strange land, the land of fantasy and the
land of poetry! Is it not quite like the stream in
its subtle body on the mountains where it is in the
land of poetry and fantasy? After the dreaming
experience, passing through the mountains, as it
were, in your second stage, you come down to the
plains, you wake up. In your wakeful state you make
up the gross body, just as the river acquires a
gross body when descending upon the plains. You see
the deep sleep state is called the seed body, and
the body of your dreamland is called the subtle
body, and the body of your wakeful state is called
the gross body. You know when the rivers come down
from the mountains and enter upon the plains, their
subtle body remains just the same, but it puts upon
itself a red or muddy mantle. You know the water
comes from the mountains. That fresh, pure water
remains hidden in mud and in the clay and soil of
the plains. There the subtle body of the river, as
it was seen in the mountains, has not changed, but
it is simply wearing a new clothing, it has put on
a new costume, and thus when the subtle body of the
river has descended to the plains and put on a new
muddy costume, we say, the river is in its gross
body. It was not so when the subtle body came from
the seed body; then the seed body had to melt down
and produce the subtle body, and now in the wakeful
state, subtle body had not to melt or change, it
had simply to put on new garments, new costumes.
That is what actually happens.
In your wakeful state, the subtle body, that is to
say, the mind, the intellect, which was working in
the dreamland does not disappear, that remains the
same, but these material elements, material head
and material all that, these are put on, as it
were, like costumes; and when you have to go to
sleep, this material gross body is simply taken
down, as it were, hung upon that post, and the
subtle body is divested of it.
Just as when going to bed, people take off their
clothes, so you take it off and only the subtle
body works in your dreams. Now what is the subtle
body? It will be shown that that is also material.
The relation of the subtle to the gross and the
gross to the subtle will be pointed out. You know
the rivers in the winter season [the winter
season is like the night], usually put off
their gross body, strip themselves of their gross
body and keep only the subtle body with them, that
is, in the winter season rivers are reduced in
size, and the mud and clay and the red muddy
vesture that they have, they put off. They go to
sleep, as it were. Just as the rivers put off their
gross body and keep the subtle body only, similarly
everyday when you go to bed at night [your
winter] you put off the gross body and keep
only the subtle body.
But the Sun which was shining upon the seed body,
the same Sun shines equally upon the subtle body of
the river; and the same Sun which shines upon the
seed body and subtle body of the river, shines
equally upon the gross body of the river.
The true Atman or real Self, which was seen shining
upon the deep sleep state's body shines also upon
your dreamland and upon your wakeful state –
upon the gross body, as it were, but where lies the
difference? The difference lies in the reflection
of the Sun. When the Sun was shining upon the seed
body of the river, upon the glaciers, the image of
the Sun was not seen there. The action of the Sun
was intense upon the glaciers, but the reflection
or image of the Sun was not seen; but when the Sun
began to shine upon the subtle body of the river,
the Sun is reflected.
When the Sun was shining upon the subtle body of
the river, there the Sun's image was seen. No image
of the Sun was seen upon the snow-capped peaks or
upon the glaciers; but in the subtle body of the
river, in the mountains, in the rivulets, is the
image of the Sun seen. What does this image imply?
This image in origin is the real Self, the true
Atman, the Unchangeable, the Immutable in you, the
true Divinity, Atman or God. The same God is
present in you when you are in the deep sleep
state, that God shines upon your seed body, but
examine, in the deep sleep state, no egoism is
present, you have no idea of "I am asleep", "I
grow", "I digest the food", "I do this"; that is,
there is no ego; the real Self is there, but no ego
is there. This false apparent ego which is looked
upon as the self by people is not there.
In the dreaming state it becomes apparent. The
dreaming state is like the second state of the
river, the subtle body of the river. There it
becomes apparent, and it becomes apparent also in
the wakeful state. You know, your wakeful state is
like the state of the river when it is upon the
plains, the gross body of the river. There the Sun
shines clearly; it was shining clearly upon the
glaciers, but it reflects its image only in the
stream; in the muddy river is the image of the Sun
seen; so in your wakeful state, the image of the
Sun is also seen. This egoism – I do this, I
do this, I am this, I am that, all this egoism
– this selfish apparent self makes its
appearance in the wakeful state also. But you see
there is a difference in the ego of your dreamland
and the ego of your wakeful state. In your
dreamland the ego which has been to you as the
reflection or shadow of the true Atman or God, is
fickle, changeable, vague, unsettled, hazy; exactly
as the reflection of the Sun in the stream when it
is upon the mountains is vague, meandering,
changeable; and in your wakeful state this ego is
definite, permanent, as in slow stream, slow river,
when it is flowing upon the plains.
Here is something more to be told. People ask what
right you have to call the gross body as the
after-effect or resultant of the subtle body.
People ask what right you have to place the dream
state above the wakeful state. Mark it. Of what
elements is your wakeful experience composed? Your
wakeful experience rests upon time, space, and
causality. Can you think of any substance, anything
in this world without the idea of time, space and
causality entering into it? Never, never. You
cannot conceive of anything without these. Now this
time, space and causality are like the web and weft
of your world. Mark them. They are in your
dreamland and they are in your wakeful state. You
know, Max Muller, in his translation of Kant's
Critique of Pure Reason while giving his
introduction says that Kant teaches the same
philosophy as vedanta. He says that Kant has
clearly shown that time, space and causality are a
priori and the hindus have not shown it. Rama is
going to tell you that Max Muller did not read
enough of the hindu Scriptures. Rama is going to
tell you that the hindus proved time, space and
causality to be a priori, to be subjective, and out
of that it is shown that the wakeful experience of
yours is from one stand-point the after-effect of
your dreamland experience. You will patiently
listen. In your deep sleep state you have no idea
of time, no idea of space, no idea of causality.
You come down to the dreamland. There time makes
its appearance, space comes into existence, and
causality also comes into existence. The hindus
tell you that the time, space, and causality of
your dreamland come out of your deep sleep state in
the same way as the tiny sprout comes forth from
the seed in its feeble, weak form; and in your
wakeful state, time, space and causality ripen into
the state of a mighty tree. They become strong and
ripen into the state of a mighty river; they assume
their gross form; just as you develop, the ideas of
time, space and causation also develop with your
understanding. Thus the subject is nothing else but
a resultant of time, space and causation as they
develop, in your dreams you have time, but compare
the time of your dream with the time of your
wakeful state. The time of the dream is fickle,
vague, hazy, dim, unsettled, indefinite, and the
time of the wakeful state is naturally the ripened
form, Rama says, the strong developed form of your
time in the dreamland. In your dreams, you know the
dead become alive and the living become dead
sometimes. It is not so in your wakeful state, the
time is definite. The past becomes future, and the
future becomes past in your dreamland; it is not so
in the wakeful state. You may have heard of
Mohammad who in his dream spent a lot of time in
ascending to the eighth heaven, but when he woke
up, he found that only two seconds had passed.
Similarly the things of your wakeful state are
different not in kind but in intensity, in degree,
from the things of your dreamland state. In your
dreaming state the things are changeable, fickle,
vague, indefinite. They can be changed, just as a
sapling can be made to grow anyway you like, but
when it becomes a gigantic tree, it cannot be
changed, diverted, or moulded into any other shape.
In your dreamland you now see a woman, and in a
second she becomes a mare, a horse. You now find
before you a man alive and in no time it becomes
fire. The things which you find in your dreaming
state were not present in the deep sleep state. Out
of the deep sleep state, they sprang up, as out of
the glaciers spring up the small rivers, fickle
rivulets, and in your wakeful state these a priori
forms of time and space ripen into a stiff, rigid
form, become definite and get a rigidity of their
own.
The wisdom of your dreamland, the intellect of your
dreamland is related to the wakeful state. Rama
knows by personal experience that oft-times in
dreams, when a student, he solved the hardest
problems on which he had been meditating, but on
waking up did not know how to solve them. Oh, there
was some fault in the arguments. The arguments of
your dreamland are also fickle, changeable, but
related to the arguments of your wakeful state as
the more developed tree is related to the fickle
sapling, to the changeable buds, the changeable
small tree.
Oft-times Rama wrote poetry in dreams, but when he
got up and looked at that poetry, the lines did not
scan and it was not coherent; there was want of
continuity, unity. The reasoning of the dreamland
is related to the reasoning of the wakeful state as
the subtle body of the river is related to the
gross body, and the space of your dreamland is
related to the space of your wakeful state in the
same way. Space is rigid, constant, invariable. Now
you will say, no, no, how is it that in our dreams
we always see the same things which we see in our
wakeful state? Our dreams are only the
reminiscences, are only the remembrances of our
wakeful state. Rama says what of that? Let it be
so. What is the seed? Out of a seed comes up a
beautiful sapling; it is changeable and fickle, and
out of this changeable, fickle sapling grows out or
develops forth a gigantic, strong, rigid tree. All
right. Again, out of this rigid tree come some more
seeds, the same kind of seeds as gave rise to this
tree. Now in the seeds, the whole tree is
contained. The tree has put all its essence and all
its power back into the seeds. Then should we argue
that the tree did not spring from the seed? Have we
any right to argue that the tree did not come out
of the seed? No, no, we have no right to argue that
way.
Similarly vedanta says that the Shushupti, Rama
says the seed state of yours, the deep sleep state
is like the seed. Out of that comes the dreamland
and from that flows out, as it were, or develops
the wakeful, gross body. And again if your wakeful
experience can be condensed back into your sleep,
it is but natural. If your wakeful experience can
be condensed or forced into your dreamland, into
your dreaming experience, it does not contradict
Rama's statement. Let it be. Still that will not
entitle you to say that your wakeful state did not
develop out of your subtle body or the dreamland.
You are not entitled to say that. Exactly as when
the whole tree is condensed and put into the seed,
this does not entitle us to say that the tree did
not spring from the seed. If in your dreams you
usually have the reminiscences of your wakeful
state, that does not entitle you to gainsay the
statement made by Rama that out of time, space and
causation, out of the differentiation of the
dreamland, or the dreaming experience, was
developed or evolved the wakeful experience.
The vedanta philosophy says that the dreamland and
wakeful experience originated from the nothingness
or chaos of your deep sleep. When the hindus say
that the world is nothing or the world is the
result of ignorance, they mean that the deep sleep
state in which you had a kind of nothing, a chaos,
that chaos or nothing of your deep sleep state is
ignorance, condensed ignorance; if you want to say
ignorance per se, there the deep sleep state is the
ignorance per se, and out of that ignorance or
darkness comes this world, comes this
differentiation and change, and that ignorance is
changeable. You know, in your dreamland you have
two kinds of things, the subject and the object,
and according to vedanta, the subject and object
make their appearance simultaneously. There in your
dreams, you become the seer on one side and the
object seen on the other side. If you see a horse
and the rider in a dream, both make their
appearance together; if you see a mountain in the
dream, the mountain is the object and you, the seer
or observer. There the object and the subject make
their appearances together. There by a kind of
time, the past and future of the dream is also
simultaneous with the object; the past, present and
future of the dream, the causation of the dream and
the subject and object of the dream, all these make
their appearance simultaneously.
Similarly vedanta says, in your wakeful state also
you are the object seen and you are the seeing
subject; you are the friends and foes on that side
and you are their observer on this side; you are
the enemies on one side and you are the friends on
the other side; you are everything. But all these
apparent phenomena of the dream, phenomena of the
deep sleep state, phenomena of the wakeful state,
all these phenomena are mutable, changeable fickle,
uncertain, indefinite. The real Self which was
compared to the Sun, the real Atman, shines upon
the three bodies in the same way that the Sun
shines upon the three bodies of the river, that
Atman is immutable, unchangeable. That Atman or Sun
shines upon the glacier of your deep sleep state;
by your Atman or Sun is the deep sleep state
illumined; and by that Atman or Sun is your wakeful
experience illumined. And you see again that the
sun shines not only upon the three bodies of one
river, but the same Sun shines upon the three
bodies of all the rivers in this world in exactly
the same way. Similarly what if the river of this
body is different from the river of that body? What
if this river of life flows in a different way from
the river of life in that case? But all these
rivers of life, all these streams of existence have
the same Eternal, Immutable, Constant Atman, or the
Sun of suns, the Light of lights shining over them
at all times, under all circumstances,
unchangeable, immutable. That you are, that you
are. That is the real Self, and your real Self is
the real Self of your friend, is the real Self of
each and all. Your real Self is not only present
with you in the wakeful state, it is equally
present in the deep sleep state; it is equally
present under all changes and circumstances.
Realise that real Self stands above all anxiety,
above all fear, stands above all tribulation and
trouble. Nobody can harm you, no one can injure
you.
Break, break, break at the feet of thy crags, oh
sea,
Break, break, break at my feet, O world that
be,
O suns and storms, O earthquakes, wars,
Hail, welcome, come, try all your force on me!
Ye nice torpedoes fire! my playthings, crack!
O shooting stars, my arrows, fly!
Your burning fire! can you consume?
O threatening one, you flame from me;
You flaming sword, you cannon ball,
My energy headlong drives forth thee!
The body dissolved is cast to winds;
Well doth Infinity me enshrine!
All ears my ears, all eyes my eyes,
All hands my hands, all minds my minds!
I swallowed up death, all eyes my eyes,
How sweet and strong a food I find!
No fear, no grief, no hankering pain;
All delight, or sun or rain!
Ignorance, darkness, quaked and quivered,
Trembled, shivered, vanished, for ever
My dazzling light did parch and scorch it,
Joy ineffable! Hurrah!! Hurrah!!!
OM! OM!! OM!!!
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