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page 3 of 4
Vedanta - Avasthatraya

by Y. Subrahmanya Sarma

in 14 Sep 2006

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We are now in a position to assert that our real Self or Ātman, witness of Dream and Waking, knows no limitation of time space or causation. It is not delimited by a second which can claim the same degree of reality; for none of the entities to be found either in Dream or Waking can get out of the clutches of time or space restricted to that particular sphere. Nor can any of them in either state pass on to the other, maintaining its self-identity like Ātman. Besides, none of the states can co-exist at the same time along with the Ātman, whereas our Ātman can with equal ease manage to be alongside of both as long as it lasts. So far, then, we see that the Ātman, as the witnessing consciousness of the two states, enjoys absolute independence. But can He cut off all connection states? Can He continue to exist by His own right regardless of either manifestation or the complete effacement of both? The one answer to this question is Deep Sleep, the state which defies all analysis from the monobasic view, but yields its secrets without reserve to the all-comprising method of enquiry we have been describing.

Like Waking and Dream, Sleep also presents a Mayic aspect to the monobasic view warped by its
partiality for Waking. From that thought-position we regard Sleep as a passing cloud of ignorance in which we are daily enveloped, and as a temporary inactivity into which we are daily thrust, by nature. But so soon as we try to assume the philosophic position of the witness of the three states, this much-neglected state comes to have entirely another meaning for us, which we can ill afford to ignore. It is then seen to be an intuition of our true nature, divested of its apparent individuality and its personality, and an experience unburdened with the complex psychic machinery of the ego, mind and senses. Nothing like the Waking or Dream world or the network of time and space in which it is enmeshed, is to be met with here. We are, indeed, lifted up to our own Self which is unalloyed bliss unconditioned by the fatigue of action and enjoyment. None of the limitations of either Waking or Dream have entrance here; saint and sinner, rich and poor man and woman, child and adult, all shed their respective limiting adjuncts before they enter the portals of this, their own Kingdom of Heaven.

Without tarrying to consider the most glowing terms in which the ineffable glory of this peculiar state is described by the Upaniṣads (§) (such as Brihadāranyaka IV 21 to 32, and Chandogya VIII- 3 to 6) I shall just invite the attention of the reader to the twofold aspect of this peculiar expression of Reality, for we may contemplate on it, in its relation to Dream and Waking, or reflect upon its intrinsic worth as a distinct experience in itself. In its relative phase, we have to admit that Sleep, whose sole content is Pure Consciousness untainted by a second, is essentially the cause of Dream or Waking; the fact that this, in other words becomes Pure Consciousness intuited as unlimited in sleep, somehow manifests itself in the other two states as subject and object, appearing as the ego endowed with a body, senses and mind on the one hand, and as a world governed by the laws of time, space and causation on the other. This Pure Consciousness has to be supposed as invested with an inscrutable power in virtue of which it brings into existence this magnificent universe, and after sustaining it for a while, dissolves it into Itself without a residuum. As Mandukya says:
“This is the Lord of all. He is Omniscient, He is the Internal Controller, He is the one source of all, the origin and dissolution of all beings”.

At the same time, however, we cannot forget that the three states so called are really no states of consciousness. In the first place, the witnessing principle in us which is no other than Pure Consciousness, remains intact quite unaffected by the appearance or disappearance of these states; and, in the second place, the three states admit neither juxtaposition in space nor succession in time.
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