2015/02/16

Brhadaranyaka Upanishad - Book 4. Chapter 3

This extraordinary passage follows on from the previous post. The word Brhadaranyaka means literally Œdeep forest; by which one is to understand that it embodies an esoteric wisdom appropriate to those who have differentiated themselves from the common herd, but also as an Upanishad, or
song of praise, that it should turn meditatively in the mind, mindful of the great Mind by whom it was inspired.

7] What is the self, Yajñavalkya?
Among all the senses there is an inner consciousness which consists of intelligent understanding, like a light within the heart: this is the self. A constant presence, this consciousness, which ultimately transcends death, moves freely between the two worlds in sleep, transcending our physical constraints by appearing to contain both the power of thought and movement.

8] At birth this consciousness is formed within temporal reality. At death it relinquishes it. 
9] This consciousness has two states: that of this world and that of the other world. Yet there is also an intermediate state, the twilight world of sleep. From it we see the other two, this world in which we live now, and the other world that is beyond it. Entering the intermediate /dream state we see into the other world and encounter both positive and negative messages.When you fall asleep, you carry with you all the matter of your waking experience. (But within dream) it is actually your own self which creates and destroys whatever appears. And here the light of your own consciousness is your guide.


10] There are no chariots, no distances, no roads; yet within there appear chariots, distances and roads. There are no joys, no pleasures, no delights (yet you experience them nonetheless). There are no baths, no lotus-pools, no rivers; yet you find baths, lotus-pools and rivers - for your self is the creator.

11] On this there are these verses:
In sleep you sift and blend physical sensations: 
and conscious in the world of dreams you see all. 
Like a lonely crane on a long flight you absorb 
this pure energy and so return to your body transformed.

12] Having placed protection around your earthly nest (your sleeping body) 
you are free to soar to the realm of the immortals. 
Wherever you choose to go you are that high-flying bird 
searching for transcendence and transformation.

13] In dream you visit both heavens and hells with the powers of a god – 
amazing the manifold forms of which you’re creator. 
You take your pleasure with partners, laugh – 
or else encounter nightmares: everything appears real. 

People you know may appear in this world at your pleasure: but you they never see.

14] They say you should not waken a deep sleeper - for someone whose spirit doesn’t reunite with hir body can become deranged. Some claim there’s no difference between sleep and waking – for one sees similar things whether awake or asleep – yet everything you see in sleep is created by your own imagination.

Worthy sir, continue! said King Janaka. I will give you a thousand cows for guiding me toward liberation.

15] Serene in sleep, you follow your bliss and encounter many experiences, both good and bad, yet before returning to your body you will have encountered truth (whether you recognise it or not). Here whatever you see does not imprison your soul, for this state is free from all attachments. 17] Awake, you [also] follow your bliss and encounter many experiences, both good and bad, before returning to your dreamworld. 18] So as a great fish swimming freely hither and thither between the banks in sleep your consciousness swims freely between the other world and everyday life.

19] Eventually, as an eagle tired after a high flight folds its wings and swoops back down onto its nest, so too this inner self hastens back to your sleeping form, desiring nothing further and forgetting what it has seen. 
20] A 1000 times smaller than the arteries (hita) of the heart are the meridians down which the body’s energies run – [which we call] white, blue, yellow, green, and red.
Now when it seems you’re about to be killed, or captured, or chased by an elephant or that you fall into a pit this is only the ignorant mind reliving waking fears – but when, like a god or king, you experience wholeness then that is the highest state of being. 21] This is a person’s deepest place, beyond desire, free from evil, free from fear.Just as someone making love to their partner is oblivious of everything else, so in this inner embrace of self and soul humans experience the fullest wisdom of which they're capable. Here all wishes are fulfilled for one is preoccupied with the transcendent self alone, and thus having no material desire no sorrow follows as a consequence.

22] Here the father is no longer a father, mother no longer a mother, ecstasy no longer ecstasy, the Vedas no longer Vedas. There a thief is no longer a thief, an abortionist no longer an abortionist, an outcast no longer an outcast, a mendicant no longer a mendicant, an ascetic no longer an ascetic. Each one now attracts good not misfortune, for all are beyond heart-sadness.

23] Tho in this state your eyes cannot see, yet in your inner vision there is no distinction between seer & sight since both are part of one integrated being. For there is nothing else, nor can anyonelse see what you see.

25] Tho in this state your cannot taste, yet in your inner world there is no distinction between taster & what is tasted, since both are part of one integrated being. There is noonelse to taste anything.

27] Tho in this state you cannot hear or speak, yet in your inner world there is no distinction between what is heard & what is spoken, since both are integrated. Noonelse can know what has been uttered.

28] Tho in this state you cannot think or touch, yet in your inner world there is no distinction between thinker & thought, or toucher & what is touched, since both are one integrated being. Noonelse’s senses or understanding is involved.

30] Similarly, encountering wisdom within oneself is an indivisible experience. 31] When someonelse is present you can compare your comprehension of what you’ve experienced. 32] But in great ocean of dreams you become one unified being, without duality: this is the world of Brahman (universe /universal consciousness). This is at once the highest path, the highest attainment, the highest reward and greatest satisfaction a human being can know. It is this bliss from which all other activities borrow: yet in those, people declare themselves thrilled by the merest fraction of what can be encountered within.

The Great Symphony

This is a sequence of dream and interpretation posted on https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/The_Dream_Catcher/. It began with my dream.
The earliest written music is being rehearsed in a large gothic church or cathedral. It’s very light with lots of sunlight casting patterns & colours of the windows on the floor. The piece is, or begins with, the chords G Em G A. I am in an organ loft while it is played by an orchestra in the nave below. I have a score but it is indecipherable. However having heard it rehearsed I figure the chords. The conductor stops the orchestra to complain that theyre not nearly loud enough so I pull out all the stops (which are arranged in a very strange way in little groups all around the organ cabinet) & join in with full organ when they start again. I play a wrong note in the pedal but luckily the conductor is too busy correcting the orchestra to bother with me.

It felt very exhilarating to combine successfully at full blast since organs are normally a played solo (I am, or was, and organist) even if I made a slight slip. Why is the conductor (the facilitator) remote? Evidently not integrated, tho he has the ability to ‘orchestrate’ the whole thing.
Guy Huntington replied to a further comment:
I am an energy soul who inhabits a body and not a body that has a soul.  There is a difference.  If we are souls who inhabit bodies than we exist at other energy vibrations at the same time as we lower them to occupy our bodies. This is a very different perspective from folks who think their body is the main vehicle and that they have a soul that is freed after death.

I am also being taught that we carefully construct our personalities before we incarnate.  We effectively wear “belief suits” that filter our reality and “creates” our version of reality.  These suits effectively make us forget who we really are.  Somewhat ironically, we then spend each incarnation struggling to recall who we are.  That’s the point of the earth plane we live on. It’s like a gigantic test lab for ourselves to learn about choices we make.

Dreams play a big role in this.  They continually let us know who we are i.e. the spiritually “bigger” us.  From my perspective, we come from our dreams.  We occupy many different universes simultaneously.  Our ideas, creativity and modelling probable realities all occur in our dream state.  

Regarding music, Paul Mccartney woke up one day with the song “Yesterday” all composed in his mind.  He had to create the words BUT the music was all there.  In my perspective, he choose a set of beliefs to create his personality where he was more “in tune” with himself!  He would let music creativity flow through him from the other vibrational levels to his physical self. 

My take is that many people have very “narrow” or “tight” or “restricted” belief filters that effectively block out most connections with their greater self. They then are left to sort of wander around the dreamscape trying to make sense of it.  These folks interpret their reality from their physical bodies point of view.  AND, it is a a TRUE REALITY for them since that’s what their belief filters produce.

So, from my perspective, music, creativity et al comes from our dreams.  There we play, create, test out realities, etc. What we recall from our dreams is limited by the “belief suits” each of us is wearing.  
To which I responded
Guy¹s comment is one of the most concise, coherent and meaning-full summaries of ultra-consciousness I've read. I've lived my life as what (for want of a better description) might be called an intellectual visionary, a person of faith who is also an intense rationalist. I¹m a scorpio: my blessing/curse that I always have to know why.

After nearly 30 years studying my dreams I am convinced they are Œthe missing manual¹ supplied at birth, but cast aside during the acquisition of conceptual skills. If we can master what Marie-Louise von Franz calls 'the puzzling Chinese nonsense' we can learn to return to the perceptual language of our birth, and throu reenter mystical union with all-that-is.

As a meditative exercise recently I made my own version of the Tao. And #28 is a  relevant paragraph.
Wood grows as a natural resource:
when cut it can be transformed into objects, tools, paper.
The intelligent see the underlying unity of all matter and make use of its many forms, without attributing uniqueness to any one manifestation.
When we accept nature on its own terms the great circle is complete.
But that isn't what made me write this response. It is that despite intense skepticism I am driven increasingly by cumulative events & my own half-memories to accept the truth of the cardinal principle Guy articulates. If we have come to feel clearly that the universe is not a morally neutral space (by which I mean to say it is zoophilic, it nurtures animate life) and that there is both a unifying principle and evidence of a creative dynamic which manifests in twin channels, evolution and love, then to me it makes complete sense that the Consciousness which it embodies would also have provided a means to decode our relationship with our existential environment. 
But I also believe that this Power is Œ'dumb'. It exists as a molten stratum of Mind, like our unconscious, which lacks the power of differentiation and articulation, and can only manifest in the material world throu animate lifeforms. And thus like we humans can only truly come to know itself by the reflexion others feed back to it ­ be that by affirmation or indifference. It is in this sense that we are co-creators of the universe: for if we feed back affirmation (what used to be called worship) we give rise to positive energy ­ as-it-were solar radiation ­ in our environment; whereas if we feed back indifference or hostility we are diminishing that very Power which could alleviate the very isolation we assert. (Isn't it interesting that self-absorption is actually like the energy of a dark hole preventing the emission of light?)

In a work-in-progress about Dreaming and Consciousness I've written this: 
The Inner Otherness is Œthat of God within¹, the radioactive core within the psyche over which the Ego can never claim ownership. It is also the Œ'not-I' at our deepest point wherein lies our intuitional link to all that is beyond rational understanding.
Also to be observed within this sphere are the subconscious roots of the Ego, which is commonly call the Soul, described by Jung as the (true) Self. Much that is problematic in a person¹s conscious life has its origins in unacknowledged disharmony between these components of the deep unconscious.
The Mundaka Unpanishad (c.1000BC) depicts the relationship between these elements of our bicameral consciousness as being like two birds sitting on the same branch, one attracted to bright objects in its surroundings, the other content to express itself throu song. Thus we have an image of the  characteristic that separates homo sapiens from all but its closest genetic relatives: the competing demands of inner & outer-directed perception. Many writers see life¹s big issue as being the encounter each of us faces (or avoids) between the ego /I and the inner otherness, the 'not-I' from which alone can flow an authentic and harmonious balance between them.
I agree with Guy, the ego comes with the body: it¹s the Œintel inside¹ that
coordinates and manages the vehicle in which the true I (what Jung called
the Self) reposes for its earthly transit. Hence the number of dreams about
motion in the many forms of conveyance we know today. The more one
penetrates the symbolic language of dream the more one has a sense of
soul-experience not being limited to a single lifetime or a single
consciousness.  
Id like to conclude this far-too-long email with an extraordinary passage
from Book 4. Chapter 3 of the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad c.4500BC. The word
Brhadaranyaka means literally Œdeep forest¹; by which one is to understand
that it embodies an esoteric wisdom appropriate to those who have
differentiated themselves from the common herd, but also as an Upanishad, or
song of praise, that it should turn meditatively in the mind, mindful of the
great Mind by whom it was inspired.