Essence of Vedanta - Part 5

Three State of Consciousness 

3. Deep Sleep State

If we extend King Janaka's story explained by Swami to yet another state where, after being explained by Sage Vasishta that neither the one who was attending the court / enjoying the company of his wife is real, nor the one who was chased by the tiger in the forest is real, the king retires to sleep and experiences a sound sleep where he does not have experience at all, then that state is known as deep sleep.

Therefore, deep sleep state is characterized by an absence of any particular experience! Unlike waking and dream states where particular objects (sounds, colours, etc.) are very much experienced. 

It’s like when you say: “The room is empty”. You are experiencing an absence of things in the room. And this is an experience you have; else you could never say “the room is empty”. 

So you can validly experience an absence of something. Hence deep sleep is that state in which: 

(a) I do not know anything (i.e. because there is an absence of any particular experience); 

(b) I sleep happily (everyone enjoys a deep, restful, worry free sleep! My identity with all my everyday problems is temporarily dormant in deep sleep).

In deep sleep, it is evident I do not identify with my gross or subtle bodies as nothing is experienced, hence I identify with my causal (karana) body during deep sleep.

All differences are resolved in the causal body, the mind is in an unmanifest state, and hence there can be no experience in deep sleep. 

In all the three states, on introspecting, we can observe one common thing.

·       In the waking state, there is one factor which is fetching us all the experience through our senses and intellect but that one factor is above our senses and intellect. This can be said so because, that factor is only using the senses and intellect to fetch your experience. A king who uses the service of his ministers has to be obviously above the state of his ministers. Thus, the single factor which is using the ministers of its senses and intellect has to be above the senses / intellect!!

·       In the dream state, again, that same single factor exists, which retrieves our impressions and bananas and then through our intellect, is fetching us the experience of what happened in the dream. Again, here also, the same explanation applies. The king, that single factor, using the vasanas / impressions and then the intellect, has to be above all of them!!!

·       In the deep sleep, when neither senses are working, nor our impressions or vasanas are working, still, That single factor is definitely present, otherwise, without body, mind and intellect working, who was present while the King had deep sleep, who fetches the experience that "I had a deep sleep without any experience" when the king wakes up on the next day??

We will keep this "single factor" flagged as of now and will address the same after we are though with three bodies and then  5 sheaths or pancha koshas in the upcoming posts.

Love.

Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Essence of Vedanta - Part 4

Three States of Consciousness

Dear All,

In the previous post, we witnessed 2 states of King Janaka.

One state is when he is in the royal court, discussing various administrative matters with his council of ministers and also when he is in private chamber in the company of his beloved wife.

2nd state is when he finds himself in the forest, tired and hungry, with few offering him food, with the tiger chasing them all and taking the food all to itself. 

Let us get deeper into these states on what vedanta says and explains about these states.

1. Waking state

Imagine you are walking down the streets, reaching a temple, standing in the sanctum sanctorum, praying to the Lord with your eyes closed and then returning home and then thinking about the experience you derived in the whole process. 

In this scene, your body is active, your mind is active and your intellect, your thinking process is active.

Thus, Waking state is the state when one is aware of what is going on around oneself. 

Such awareness is possible by the senses gathering the information and then transmitting them to the brain, where actual cognition happens.

Thus, King Janaka, when he is conducting a meeting with his ministers or when he is having his sumptuous dinner with his wife, is aware of the surrounding and the senses are gathering the information of what is happening around him and then transmitting the information to his intellect which then changes the information gathered by senses to experience of the intellect.

2. Dream state

So what is the difference between waking state and a dream? Well, they are actually both the same in that you perceive sound, touch, colour, taste and smells.

Even in your dream you see the beautiful green hills, you feel the cool breeze and taste the sweetness of a freshly made laddu! So the perception of objects is common to both waking and dream states. So, again, what is the difference? 

It’s all about what instrument (indriya) you use to perceive the object. In waking state you use your physical instruments (ears, eyes, tongue, etc). 

But in a dream, you do not use these same instruments to perceive objects. 

You are able to see a red flower in your dream, in spite of physical eyes being closed! 

You can hear the sound of the waves crashing onto the beach, but your physical ears are lying in a room with complete silence! 

So clearly, we do not use Jnana Indriyas (instruments of knowledge) to experience a dream.

Then how do we experience an entire world in a dream? Where does it come from? 

Where does it exist? It exists in your mind (antahkarana – part of your subtle body). The dream world is created from memories (vasana / samskara) of experiences you had when you were awake. 

In waking state, your mind has a function continuously recording all experiences you have. These are then stored in your memory (chitta) within the mind (antahkarana). This process mostly happens automatically, subconsciously so you won’t even realize it.

A dream is just the mental playback of experiences in the past you had had whilst you were in waking state. When does this playback occur? 

Only when you have withdrawn from your identification with the Gross Body (i.e. you have fallen asleep), and now only identify with the subtle body (i.e. your mind/memories).

Hence, dream state is that state in which you identify with your subtle body (mind) and experience a mental world born of your memories (vasanas) from previous waking state experiences. 

In the waking state, body is not active but mind and intellect are active, as it is clear in the above explanation.

All that King Janaka experienced in the forest are dreams, where his indriyas / gross body is at rest but his subtle body - his mind and intellect are active.

Love.