Mind & Happiness 25

That which thus mistakes this Body to be "I" is our Mind. Our Mind comes into existence only by imagining itself to be a Body. In Deep Dreamless Sleep we are unaware of either our Mind or our Body. As soon as we wake up, our Mind rises feeling "I am the Body", "I am called so-&-so," &  only after thus identifying itself as a particular Body does it perceive the external World through the 5 Senses of that Body.

Exactly the same thing happens in Dream – our Mind identifies itself as a particular Body & through the 5 Senses of that Body it perceives a seemingly real & external World. When we wake up from a Dream, we understand that the Body we mistook to be "I" & the World we mistook to be real & external were both in fact only figments of our imagination. Thus from our experience in Dream we all know that our Mind has a wonderful power of imagination by which it is able to create a Body, to mistake that imaginary Body to be "I"  & through that Body (via the Senses) to project a World which, at the Time we perceive it, appears to be every bit as real & external to us as the World that we now perceive in this Waking State.  Knowing that our Mind possesses this wonderful power of creation & self-deception, is it not reasonable for us to suspect that the Body we take to be "I" & the World we take to be real in our present Waking state may in fact be nothing more than a mere imagination or mental projection, just like the Body & World that we experience in Dream ?

What evidence do we have that the Body & World we experience in this Waking state are anything other than a creation of our own Mind ?  We may be able to point out certain differences between Waking & Dream, but on analysis we will discover that those differences are superficial, "existence" concerned with quality or quantity rather than with substance.

If we compare the World drama we see in Waking or Dream to a drama we see on a cinema screen, we may say that the drama seen in Waking is a better quality & more impressive production than that seen in Dream, but both are productions none the less – productions not of some external agency but of our Mind which sees them.

In substance, there is no essential difference between our experience in Waking & that in Dream. In both states our Mind rises, attaching itself to a Body by taking it to be "I" &  through the Senses of that Body it sees a World bound within the limits of Time & Space, & filled with numerous people & other objects, both sentient & insentient, all of which it is convinced are real. How can we prove to our self that what we experience in the Waking state exists at all outside our own imagination, any more than a Dream exists outside our Imagination ?

When we carefully analyze our experience in our 3 States of Waking, Dream & Deep Dreamless Sleep, it is clear that we are able to confuse our Consciousness "I" to be different things at different Times. In the Waking State we mistake our present Body to be "I", in Dream we mistake some other imaginary Dream–Body to be "I", &  in Deep Dreamless Sleep we mistake un–consciousness to be "I" – or at least on Waking from Deep Dreamless Sleep what we remember is that "I was unconscious."

What we were in fact un–conscious of in Deep Dreamless Sleep was our Mind, our Body & the World, but not our own Existence. Our experience in Deep Dreamless Sleep was not that we ceased to exist, but only that we ceased to be aware of all the thoughts & perceptions that we are accustomed to experiencing in the Waking & Dream States.

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"There is no Creation, no Destruction, no Bondage, no longing to be freed from Bondage, no striving for Liberation, nor anyone who has attained Liberation. Know that this to be Ultimate Truth."

–  the "no creation" school of Gaudapada, Shankara, Ramana, Nome – Ajata Vada

 for very succinct summary of the teaching & practice, see:  www.ajatavada.com/