Bhagavan: Why does everyone desire sleep?

[Guest guest]

Q: Ecstatic experience implies the association with a very subtle mind state.

What is your state in sleep?

M: No ecstasy or pain, but beyond both. The natural state is just that, with

consciousness of existence added.

Q: What is turiya?

M: Turiya is mind in quiescence and aware of Self, with awareness that the mind

has merged in its source. Whether the senses are active or inactive is

immaterial. In nirvikalpa samadhi the senses are inactive. To know, implies

subject and object. To be aware means to be thought-free.

Q: I consider sleep a worse state than waking.

M: If it were so, why does everyone desire sleep?

There are different methods of approach to prove the unreality of the universe.

The example of the dream is one of them. Jagrat, swapna and sushupti are all

treated elaborately in the scriptures in order that the reality underlying them

might be revealed. The intention is not meant to accentuate differences among

the three states. Their purpose must be kept clearly in view.

They say that the world is unreal - but to what degree? It is like the son of a

barren mother, or a flower in the sky? These are mere words without any

reference to facts, whereas the world is a fact and not a mere word.

 

The answer it that it is a superimposition on the one Reality like the

appearance of a snake on a coiled rope in dim light. Here too the wrong

identity ceases as soon as a friend points out that it is a rope, whereas in

the matter of the world, it persists even after we have been told it is unreal.

How is that? Though knowing it to be unreal, it continues to manifest - but we

do not try to satisfy our thirst with the water of the mirage. as soon as one

knows that it is a mirage , one gives it up as useless and does not run after

it to get water.

 

jagrat, the waking state

swapna, dream state

sushupti, deep dreamless state

 

Snipped from Conscious Immortality