My understanding of crises has become somewhat clearer in recent months as a result of much reading on the subject, and through deeper reflection on the various points of crises experienced in the past and in daily living.
I have come to understand that crises, whether of a personality or soul nature, are necessary triggers in the course of one’s life and are essential for the purpose of waking up. The dream-like state in which we are all immersed, and the dream-life that we have all collectively created as a race on this planet over millennia, are common to each and all. We are born into a ready-made world with all its hampering limitations and its latent possibilities, and it is up to each of us to overcome for ourselves those aspects of the matrix which keep us locked in the mind-set of the time.
It is clearly evident that some of us are beginning to wake up to the fact of the ‘dream-like’ state in which we live and of the gravity of the situation in which we find ourselves. The present mind-set, as it now stands, has evolved over aeons and continues to dupe the human race into believing that this waking world is the only reality. Until there is a dynamic awakening within the collective consciousness that there is more than this world, the hypnotic grip of ‘make-believe’ which conditions most of our lives, will continue to keep the collective mind entrenched in ignorance, and the collective heart engaged in the superficial.
I am reminded of a short but pertinent story in the Yoga Vasistha (a book written a very long time ago by a sage called Vasistha), in which a certain man of very good repute was told by his guru to dive into a river to search for something valuable that he had lost.
During the short space of time that he was under the water he had a dream that was created by the power of his guru. In this ‘dream’ he experienced in full consciousness all the successive events of another life, events which were as real and significant to him as was his present life.
On surfacing a little later, he was struck deeply by the gripping reality of the experience he had just had, realising that his consciousness had undergone, in measured detail, a complete life-span other than the one he was presently living. Perplexed by the incident, he began to question seriously the concept of time and space and the nature of Reality. He began to awaken. I believe that many of us have had experiences in our lives which trigger something similar within us to look more deeply at life’s great mysteries, forcing us to shift outdated paradigms into more realistic points of view.
In Eastern Teachings we are given knowledge of the Four States of being to which we, as human beings, are contained. It states:
‘We wake, we dream, we sleep deep’.
These three states of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep consciousness constitute our daily living. We partake of these changing states in the course of every day we live in human form. The teaching states that our true reality lies in the fourth, out of which these three other states arise. It is here in this Fourth that we have our true existence.
We are all familiar with the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep, and many of us perhaps have an ingrained faith in the mysterious fourth, even if we do not understand it. To date, the human race gives more significance to the waking state, ignoring for the most part the fact of the dream and deep sleep states. It is as if the collective consciousness is as yet incapable of exploring more fully the latter two, even though they comprise a large percentage of time spent during the life-span. We give little credence to the dream states we experience, considering them as normal effects of the restless mind when the body sleeps, and we ignore as irrelevant those significant glimpses we sometimes have in the state of daydreaming while in the waking state. On the whole, very little attention is usually given to what is actually occurring in consciousness throughout the course of a day. Needless to say, we have much less to speak of in regard to the deep sleep state which we blissfully experience every night. One may wonder just where the consciousness is seated while in deep, blissful, rejuvenating sleep!
We must thank heaven, literally, for the insights that are given to us by the sage Vasistha in regard to these three states of consciousness in which we are thoroughly engaged throughout our lives, and of the mysterious fourth from which these three subsist.
The story of the man above is perhaps a realistic interpretation of a human being entering into full consciousness of the dream state which, as evident from the story, is as significant as the waking state consciousness. The two states of being, waking and dreaming, belong to different dimensions in time and space. The vivid events we all experience on occasions within the dream state are sometimes registered clearly in the consciousness. . . as clearly as events registered by the man in the story above and should not be dismissed as ‘airy fairy’ nonsense. As the great Teacher once said: ‘In my Father’s house there are many mansions’. These mansions are clearly referring to higher dimensions beyond the physical and are just as real as what we perceive in the waking world. We are told that they are all part of the Great Dream of Life–the Great Maya.
The challenge for us today is to learn to shift our small and limited view of reality so as to encompass the various dimensions, which we do access in some degree (whether we are conscious of it or not) through the dream state at night or induced through deep meditation. The inability or refusal to shift our view of the universe is the dead anchor that keeps us earth-bound and limited to the fixed beliefs and limitations of one dimension, the waking world.
Perhaps what makes the waking consciousness appear more real to us is our dogged belief in the collective ideas that have been passed on to us for generations and the heavy weight and substance of related feelings that keep too grounded in this view of the universe. To the waking mind of the collective consciousness, they are considered normal. These paradigms which we have blindly accepted as reality bind us together like sticky glue and keep us earthbound.
Personality crises which we all experience as a result of identification with things in the waking state, are caused by fixation on form, but the fixation is really projected from the internal world, the dream state that is conditioned by the belief that the waking world is the only true reality. We become unhappy and dissatisfied when we do not get what we desire from the physical world, or when things do not go the way we expect. We are unhappy when our feelings are not reciprocated or when our fixed ideas and beliefs are not appreciated by others. The interesting point here is that feelings, thoughts and imaginings are actual emanations of the dreamworld in which we spend much time and energy while moving about in the waking world.
How we handle personality crises in the waking state depends on our willingness to see things for what they really are. If we are blindly immersed in the dream-state and cannot see what we are creating there, we will continue to go round in a circle never registering the deeper truths we are here to learn. If, however, we are willing to find the cause of personality crisis, by learning to shift the view of habitual thoughts and feelings as they occur in the dream state, then the process of waking out of these fixations can begin. Personality crises, intelligently perceived as emanating from the world of dreams, will lead eventually to liberation from the unrealities of the waking and dream states.
As we slowly emerge from the illusions inherent in these two states, we enter into the domain of the Soul which lies in another dimension, one that is closer to Truth. This arises as a result of higher visions piercing the veils that separate the waking and dream states from the higher dimension. They bring glimpses of another reality, one that lies beyond the ring pass not of the waking and dream states. These visions are life-changing and difficult at first to understand, but eventually bring joy and liberation from the limited circles of daily life experience. Clashing diametrically with the long-standing fixations of the waking and dream states, these soul awakenings precipitate a necessary battle between the familiar and the unfamiliar. When handled rightly and with some degree of skill and understanding they transform the consciousness, lifting it beyond the confines of the lower states and into higher dimensions of thought and revelation.
REFLECTIONS 