The Mandukya Upanishad

by Swami Krishnananda

Dream is not merely a metaphysical problem; it is also a psychological occurrence. It is a reversion of the mind into its own abode, from the world of sensory operations. That is why it is called Antah-prajnah, and Praviviktabhuk. It is Antah-prajnah, or internally conscious, because the mind can project a world in dream, independent of the operation of the waking senses. The eyes may be closed, but yet you will 'see' in dream. You may plug your ears and go to bed, and yet you will 'hear' in dream. Though the tongue does not actually work, you can 'taste' in dream. You can have all the sensory functions in dream, though the waking senses are not active then. The mind projects itself as the senses of dream and becomes capable of contacting dream objects which, also, are a partial manifestation of the same mind. The mind divides itself into the subject and the object, the seer as well as the seen. You are the beholder of the dream, and you are also, simultaneously, the world which you behold. The world of dream, together with the beholder in dream, vanishes, when there is waking, in which the dream subject and the dream objects coalesce, come together to form a more integrated consciousness. A similar union takes place in Isvara-sakshatkara, or God-realisation. The world that you see outside, and you yourself as the beholder of this world, come together in a Universal Consciousness. It is called omniscience or all-knowingness in almost the same sense that the waking mind can be said to be aware of everything that is in dream. The world of dream was not outside you really, and so also is the world of waking not outside God. And, just as you withdraw the dream-world into the waking mind, the waking world may be said to be withdrawn into the Cosmic Mind of Isvara. And, individually, microcosmically, from the viewpoint of Jivatma, the dream experiences may be regarded as the consequences of the impressions of waking perception, that is, dream may be considered an effect of waking. But, it is a different matter altogether when you judge this condition from the point of view of the macrocosm. Even as you have the states of individual waking and dream animated by a consciousness called, respectively, Visva and Taijasa, there are, from the cosmic point of view, Virat and Hiranyagarbha, pertaining to the cosmic waking and cosmic dreaming states. While the dream world of Taijasa may be regarded, tentatively speaking, as an effect of the waking world of Visva, we cannot say that Hiranyagarbha is an effect of Virat. This is the difference between individualistic perception and Cosmic Knowledge. While Visva may be said to precede Taijasa, Virat does not precede Hiranyagarbha. On the other hand, the reverse is the case in the cosmic state. The dream consciousness which is Taijasa has certain characteristics of Visva, also. The subtle body has the same contour as the physical body. If the physical body is a form, the subtle body is the mould in which this form is cast. The subtle body has, thus, a reference to the physical body, and, almost in every respect, it corresponds in form, shape and structure to the physical body. This is why the words, Saptanga and Ekonavimsatimukha, are repeated, both in the waking and the dream descriptions.

The Visva, or the Jagaritasthana, is Saptanga and Ekonavimsatimukha; and so is Taijasa, or the Svapnasthana. Hiranyagarbha and Virat seem to have the same structural formation, though Hiranyagarbha is subtler than Virat. Hiranyagarbha and Virat are both cosmic, and their difference is one of a degree of subtlety, but not of structural formation. Hiranyagarbha also would be beheld by us in the state of realisation as the Virat, only with the distinction that Hiranyagarbha is subtler than the Virat. The seven heads described of Visva or Vaisvanara can also be described as of Hiranyagarbha or Taijasa. Taijasa individually and Hiranyagarbha cosmically are Antahprajna, internally conscious because of their objects being not physical but subtle, constituted of Tanmatras – Sabda, Sparsa, Rupa, Rasa and Gandha. Though waking and dream have their similarity of character in respect of Saptangatva and Ekonavimsatimukhatva, the dream consciousness is Praviviktabhuk, both individually and cosmically, it absorbs subtle things into itself in both cases. And that distinction we draw between Visva and Vaisvanara, we can also draw between Taijasa and Hiranyagarbha. The relation between the Virat and Visva, and the relation between Hiranyagarbha and Taijasa are the same. The dream world is very complex when it is judged from the point of view of the Jiva, the individual; but it is simple from the point of view of Cosmic Experience.

Great analyses of the dream world have been made by psychologists and psychoanalysts, these days. Such scientific analysts as Freud, Adler and Jung in the West have come to the conclusion that dreams are due to certain complexes of personality, Freud attributing them to sex, Adler to inferiority feeling and Jung to a general urge for growth and harmony between the extrovert and introvert natures in us. The opinions of these psychologists are partially true, and we have much to learn from their discoveries. But they are not wholly right. The psychoanalysts have gone from the conscious level to the subconscious and to some extent to the unconscious level also, but they have not reached up to the spiritual level. To the psychoanalysts, there is no such thing as the Atman Universal. Everything is mind – unconscious, subconscious or conscious. You may give some credit to the psychoanalysts in that they have gone deeper than the ordinary general psychologists who are restricted in their operations only to the waking world. The psychoanalysts discovered that there is something deeper than the conscious level in man, viz. the subconscious and unconscious, which are filled with complexes of various kinds. Our personality is more than what appears on the conscious level. Psychoanalysis has gone to the extent of holding the view that there is no such thing as freewill; because freewill is only as much real as the freedom of choice seen in a hypnotised individual. If the physician is to hypnotise a patient, the patient would act according to the will of the physician, not knowing that he has been hypnotised, and all the while feeling that he is acting according to his own choice or freedom of will. The psychoanalysts hold that we seem to have freedom in the same way, not knowing that we have been hypnotised by the impulses from within, the complexes of which we are made. There is no use saying that we are free. The patient also says that he is free. When he becomes healthy and recovers his normal consciousness, he may act differently. When he is freed from the clutches of the influence of the physician's will, he will act otherwise, altogether. And so also we will not act in the way we do now if we are freed of the psychological complexes in which we are enmeshed these days, in the situations we are placed in throughout our lives.

Every human being has a complex; not merely one complex but several ones. Frustrated feelings become complexes, later on. In the beginning, you have a desire, and all desires cannot be fulfilled because of there being what the psychoanalysts call the 'reality' principle. There is the reality of society, the reality of the world outside, which opposes your desires. The society has a law of its own, which will not allow the expression of all individual desires. So, the individuals suppress the desires within by repressive activity. Repression and suppression are the mechanisms used by the mind to appear harmonious with the reality of society outside by putting on an appearance that is not real. When you suppress a desire, you become an artificial person. You are not what you are. And when you go on doing this for a long time, the suppressed impressions become complexes. These psychological complexes can, at times, become physical diseases. One may have such physical difficulties as stammering, deafness, blindness, loss of appetite, liver trouble, even lameness and similar physiological disorders because of the action of buried impulses, the complexes which have been created within by the storing in of repression for a long period of time. This, they say, we have been doing for years, and years, together, especially if we are to consider the incarnations that we have passed through, since many lives. We are a group of tensions, complexes, artificial situations. This is Jivabhava, all artificiality, all difficulty, tension and suffering. This situation produces dreams for purpose of relief through fulfilment. The subtle desires repressed within manifest themselves in dream, when the will does not operate. The desires cannot all operate in the waking world, because the 'reality' is there, opposing them from outside. You cannot go on tom-toming your desires to people. They will oppose you, censure you and make your life hard in the world. And the desires, too, are very intelligent. They know where to express themselves, and where not. But in the dream world there is no such censure from the reality outside. There is, then, no will and intellect or ratiocination working, and there is only the instinct operating. You live in an instinctive world. Your real personality, at least partially, comes out in the dream world.

Dreams, therefore, are due to repressed desires. This is one of the causes behind dreams. This is the only factor that the psychoanalysts of the West emphasise. But Indian psychologists and psychoanalysts, like the Raja Yogins and the philosophers of the Vedanta, have touched another aspect of dream. The dreams may be, to some extent, of course, the results of complexes created by frustrated desires. But, this is not wholly true. Dreams may be due to other reasons also; one such reason being the working of past Karma. The effects of past Karmas, meritorious or unmeritorious, may project themselves into dream when chances are not given to them for expression in waking life. Also, a thought of some other person may affect you. A friend of yours may be deeply thinking of you; and you may have a dream of him, or you may have a dream with experiences corresponding to his thoughts. Your mother may be far away, crying for you, and her thought can affect you; you may have a dream. All this is equal to saying that a telepathic effect can produce dream. In the case of spiritual seekers, Guru's grace can cause a dream; and catastrophic experiences that one may have to pass through in the waking world may pass lightly as a dream experience by his grace. Due to the power of the Guru, one may have a dream suffering, instead of a waking one. If the disciple has to fall down and break his leg due to a Prarabdha, the Guru will make him experience it in dream, and save him the trouble in waking. One may have a dream temperature, or fever, instead of a waking fever. One may have a calamity in dream instead of its coming in waking. This is due to the grace of the Guru. So, Saktipata can also be a cause of dream. All this the psychoanalysts of the West do not know. And, Isvara's grace, also, can bring about dreams. God may bless you and give you certain peculiar experiences in dream. You may ask, "Why should they not come in waking? Why should the Guru work only in dream, and Isvara's grace come only in dream?" The reason is that you oppose their function in waking life, due to the assertions of the ego. You counteract Isvara's working and Guru's blessing by the action of your own egoism. But, in dream, the ego subsides, to some extent. You become more normal, one may say, and you approximate yourself more to reality, rather than to artificiality, in dream. Thus, it is easier for these powers to operate in dream than in waking. The opposing will of the ego, which functions in waking, subsides, to a large extent, in dream, and so there is a greater chance provided for the diviner forces to function in the dreaming condition. The physician puts the patient to sleep first, before the healing process can take place, because the ego opposes interference in the waking life, while there is no such opposition in dream and sleep. In hypnosis, the patient is put to sleep. The nerves must be soothed; the agitation of the mind should come down; the ego should not oppose the healing forces. Dream is helpful, in this way, for the operation of the higher powers coming from the Guru, or from Isvara.

Dream, therefore, can have umpteen causes. Whatever the causes be, dream in the individual is regarded as an effect of waking, and is often judged as a consequence of impressions of waking perception and cognition. The world of dream being subtle, projected only by the mind, is regarded as Pravivikta, Sukshma, non-physical; – this is so both in the case of Taijasa and Hiranyagarbha. While Hiranyagarbha has Cosmic Knowledge, the Jiva has no such knowledge, for the reason already explained. Hiranyagarbha is Isvara's form, and Taijasa is Jiva's form. Thus is the twofold mystery which dream bolsters up before us.