Same soul returns from sleep

[atanu]

Brahma Sutra

SECTION - II

Topic-1: Dream State
1. In the intermediate stage (of dream) occurs (real) creation; for the Upanishad says so.
2. And some (following a particular branch) consider the Self to be a creator (of things desired); and sons and others (are the objects desired).
3. But the dream creation is a mere Maya, because of its nature of not being a complete manifestation of the totality of attributes (found in the wakeful state).
4. A dream is also an omen, for so it is known from the Upanishads and experts say so.
5. From the meditation on the supreme Lord, however, becomes manifest that which remains obscured; because the soul�s bondage and freedom are derived from Him.
6. Or rather that covering occurs also on account of connection with the body.

Topic-2: The Soul in Deep Sleep
7. The absence of that dream (ie., dreamless sleep) takes place in the nerves and the Self, as it is known to be so from the Upanishads.
8. For the same reason, the soul�s waking up is from this supreme Self.

Topic-3: The Same Soul Returns from Sleep
9. But the very same soul returns from sleep because of the reasons of action, remembrance, scriptural authority and injunction.

--------------------
Got me thinking. We truly join Supreme Self in deep sleep. But what would it be like had every time a new/different soul returned from sleep?

Om

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~


Namasté atanu,

Brahma Sutra

SECTION - II
Topic-2: The Soul in Deep Sleep

7. The absence of that dream (ie., dreamless sleep) takes place in the nerves and the Self, as it is known to be so from the Upanishads.
8. For the same reason, the soul’s waking up is from this supreme Self.

Topic-3: The Same Soul Returns from Sleep
9. But the very same soul returns from sleep because of the reasons of action, remembrance, scriptural authority and injunction.

--------------------
Got me thinking. We truly join Supreme Self in deep sleep. But what would it be like had every time a new/different soul returned from sleep?

A good question - I will leave my POV for a different time. My question for you and our esteemed HDF members: If we are absorbed in the SELF night-after-night, why then do we return to ignorance when our eyes re-open?

praṇām

[atanu]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~
Namasté atanu,
A good question - I will leave my POV for a different time. My question for you and our esteemed HDF members: If we are absorbed in the SELF night-after-night, why then do we return to ignorance when our eyes re-open?

praṇām

Namaste yajvanji,

Well that is answered in the Brahma Sutra verse itself:

Topic-3: The Same Soul Returns from Sleep
9. But the very same soul returns from sleep because of the reasons of action, remembrance, scriptural authority and injunction.

--------------

My query was, what it would like to be a different person every dawn?

Om Namah Shivaya

[saidevo]

namste Yajvan.

When I did a google search on 'sUtrAtmA' for a possible answer to your question, I found this beautiful article on the three states of consciousness, written from the angle of Theosophy:

Esoteric knowledge of sleep
http://www.esotericscience.org/article12a.htm

Besides the direct Sanskrit terms used in the article, several other terms too have their Hindu correspondences: jivAtmA--monad, linga sharIra--etheric double, sUkShama sharIra--emotional/mental bodies, kAraNa sharIra--causal body and so on. Is the mechanism of these three states of consciousness explained in the way the article does in any Hindu scripture--shruti or smRti or shaiva that deal with birth, death and sleep?

namaste Atanu.

On a lighter vein, in the case of having a different soul when we wake up from deep sleep, which amounts to switching shells as Shankara did, I (as Atanu) will have a single face that is close to the base on everything around and you (as saidevo) will have two--an external face that has strong feelings on the adharma witnessed all around and an internal one that tries to look more and more deeper inside.

[atanu]

namste Yajvan.

namaste Atanu.

On a lighter vein, in the case of having a different soul when we wake up from deep sleep, which amounts to switching shells as Shankara did, I (as Atanu) will have a single face that is close to the base on everything around and you (as saidevo) will have two--an external face that has strong feelings on the adharma witnessed all around and an internal one that tries to look more and more deeper inside.

Ha Ha.

But u just need to go one step further and include another shell to which saidevoji is averse but atanu is not. Then see the riot.

Ha ha. Scored over u?

Om Namah Shivaya

[mukunda20]

Namaste Everyone,
every individual who undergoes the process of eating for survival(gaining energy for future usage) during daytime, does get energy from the Prakruti\Cosmos through the Sahasraarka Chakra(top of head) while being asleep. The amount of energy obtained from the Cosmos depends on the nature of sleep. in case a person has had undisturbed sleep, even though that person is a voracious eater, he\she wont feel the need to eat during the 6-8 hours of sleep since an alternative energy is being supplied. this is also precisely the reason that a disturbed sleep leads to hunger(for lack of energy).
in a parallel activity, the sleep of a person starting from start of sleep->sleep with dreams->dreamless state->sleep with dreams->end of sleep.
The dreamless state is the state where every individual gets the maximum amount of Cosmic energy and reaches the Para Brahman state.
in this state all the lower levels of an individual are of no consequence
Ex: Body, Indriyas(senses),Mind and Intellect are being transcended and the Atma is in the Para Brahman state. its this state where everyone of us have experienced that we didnt know how long we slept or where we were etc(these are the effects of transcending over the lower levels of the individual).
Yajvanji asked ,why then do we return to ignorance when our eyes re-open?
But once the deep sleep state is over, the Individual starts regaining the lower levels and picks up from where it left when it transcended.
This is the summary of what happens during sleep.
However, the main goal of every Individual is to attain the state of Para Brahman while being awake. That is when the cycle of this Samsara ends.
Atanuji asked,what it would like to be a different person every dawn?
Isn't the same thing happening every time if one considers one life as a day and one body as a cloth.
we are changing clothes(bodies) each day(life) but still that We/I(Atma) is the same every day(every life). what we are using as measurements (day\life etc) is just our perception or Maya.
But what would it be like had every time a new/different soul returned from sleep?
would it really matter to the cloth(body) as to on whom(Atma) it is being worn?
in other words, its impossible for a body(lower level in the hierarchy) to realise that a different Atma is in it(highest level).
Also in the sleep, its the Atma which has transcended over the lower levels and not vice versa, so at the end of sleep, its the Atma which reconnects with its lower levels. so the changing of Atma before end of deep sleep is a bit incomprehensible for me.
In the case of Adi Shankara, he went into the samadhi state and the Atma went inside the King's body just as the King's Atma left it(the moment he died). so in that meantime, Adi Shankara's body was a dead body during that period.
please correct me if wrong.
Best Regards,
mukunda

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~

Namast�

thank you all for your responses, if I may let me ask or comment on a few that were offered.

saidevo,
this site http://www.esotericscience.org/article12a.htm was interesting.
What caught my attention was figure 12-D. May I ask, if you have the time, to offer your POV on the implications/definitions of 'Unity' on the Y axis, and 'Enlightenment' and '5th Kingdom' on the X axis.
As it goes though my filters of what I know ( know here = intellectual understanding) I assign my understanding, which may not be in aligment with the author or this knowledge set.

Perhaps starting a new thread so we do not impede atanu's ideas here?

mukanda20,
Yet I see your point. I have read the body refreshes all ( 98%) of its cells every 7 years. Some are much faster ( the skin, the eyes, finger nails, etc). So, we are anew all the time. Yet what keeps the continunity there? The SELF ( some prefer calling it ātman).
you mention

the main goal of every Individual is to attain the state of Para Brahman while being awake

Yes, I concur. Yet I would say it in the manner of experiencing (stabilizing) this awareness of para-brahman, as there is nothing to attain as I see it ( please see my response to atanu below). It is here all the time. It is just one of symantics. You were perfectly clear in what you have communicated.

So, now the question is how to do this? And we have written about many approaches here on HDF. Perhaps when you have time, you may wish to share your knowledge about this?


atanu,
Thank you for the brahma-sūtra references. The 3rd chapter, sādhana adhyāya is very interesting indeed.
A tenable position offered by a pūrvapakṣin� (and then refuted) may say: A drop of water merges back
into the ocean, on what account can one say the same drop is able to return? How can one be certain it was the same drop?

You offer the answer ( via the brahma-sūtra-s) :karma ( unfinished business), memory ( ah yes! I recall this body!) scriptural authority and precept is the reason forreturning to the same-self body after suṣupti (sleep).
This sutra is commentary on the various parts of the chāndogya upaniṣad.

I concur with this wisdom, yet my question was why not return Fully Awake (established in brahman)?
I take my answer (too) from the chāndogya upaniṣad (6.9.2) - āruṇi's teaching to śvetaketu, he says, My dear, bees from various trees collect their essences and reduce them to one esential content with no room for discriminating ' I am the essence of this tree or that' . So do all beings, always unifed with sat, they reamain unaware of being so.

And what contributes to this unawareness ? Granthi ( the knots).

praṇām

words

• pūrvapakṣin - one who makes the first objection to an assertion
• granthi - knot , tie , knot of a cord ; 'a knot tied closely and therefore difficult to be undone' ; difficulty , doubts

[atanu]

Namaste Everyone,
Atanuji asked,what it would like to be a different person every dawn?
Isn't the same thing happening every time if one considers one life as a day and one body as a cloth.

Namaste mukunda,

Excellent Mukunda. Several corollaries could be drawn..

1. Supposing, the shell remains the same but only the soul changes. Then atanu as atanu fights with saidevo as saidevo. Next day atanu as saidevo fights with atanu as atanu. Next day atanu as ----- well, I am confused. It would be a massacre with there being so many souls.

2. Supposing the shells also get changed, the situation will be a bit easier. Saidevo and atanu will forever fight, untill one found out the trick.

3. Though the mind stops in deep sleep, yet the continuance of the jiva as the same jiva is ensured by something other than the mind?

Also in the sleep, its the Atma which has transcended over the lower levels and not vice versa, so at the end of sleep, Best Regards,
mukunda

On this my understanding differs. If Atma (which I call soul or conditioned individual Atma) transcends and gets in touch with the Highest Atma, then why should it come back? Is it pushed back? As Shri Krishna says "I hurl the hard of Heart into lower and lower demonic worlds"

It is not the Atma that transcends to any other loka or place. The Supreme Self is seated within the heart itself. It is the desires of the heart which cause union and separation. Again that would be wrong as per Advaita, since there was no individual atma except superposition.

Om Namah Shivaya

[saidevo]

Yajvan: If we are absorbed in the SELF night-after-night, why then do we return to ignorance when our eyes re-open?

Atanu: On this my understanding differs. If Atma (which I call soul or conditioned individual Atma) transcends and gets in touch with the Highest Atma, then why should it come back? Is it pushed back?

*****

A yogi who is able to enter the state of turIyac samAdhi at will, although he has no vAsanas--impressions, to pull his Self back to his body, invariably returns after an interval of time--and possibly his prArabdha karma--the carried over karmic balance, is the reason for such return, but if he is a jIvanmukta, is fully aware of it.

The yogi also has his period of daily deep sleep, but as sage nisArgadatta says, he is completely aware of that state. The point is that a jIvAtmA--individual returns to its shell, even if it is able to merge with its immanent Atman--Self, at will. But then does a yogi have dream sleep? What is the state he experiences when he is reported to enter the dreams of some of his devotees?

For ordinary souls like most of us, perhaps the vishiShtadvaita principle of krama-mukti gives us the answer to the question of returning from Self-consciousness to shell-consciousness. As with the afterlife existence, so with the daily life.

• People who are able to practise their niyamas--spiritual rigours, fluently, so has much less desires to be played with in the dream state of sleep, and consequently their dreams border on divinity (such as visualing a sage or god), are in the stage of sAlokya mukti--the touch and go sensation of liberation.

• People who are more spiritually advanced and regularly practise yogic meditation, enjoy sAmIpya mukti in their deep sleep, a state of complete surrender as that of a disciple to his guru. The disciple is not yet a guru, although he has the potential and does the sAdhana to partake his guru's wisdom and bliss.

• People who are well advanced in yogic meditation and reach the state of turIya with intermittent savikalpa samAdhi, reach the state of sArUpya mukti--where they experience the Self but that experience is yet to stablize.

In these three states, the jIvAtmas retain their identity, and return to the waking state after deep sleep or turiya.

• Ordinary mortals who have no spiritual sAdhana at all, return due to their strong tRShNA--desire to live and do, both from their deep sleep and afterlife.

• Advanced souls who can experience turIya and are always in nirvikalpa samAdhi, are in the state of sAyujya mukti--liberation by absorption but with individual distinction until the jIvAtma attains videha mukti--liberation by casting away the shell.

*****

Yajvan: And what contributes to this unawareness? Granthi (the knots).

Theosophy speaks of astral projection with a 'silver cord' that connects the soul to the body until it is disembodied at death. The jIvAtma thus tied to the shell is like the pashu--a tethered animal or a kite that children play.

*****

But then the answer could be simple too. A jIvAtma is tied to its koShas--shells, physical, astral, etc. and must return to them, however realized it is, so long as the shells exist. Even the most advanced yogi who can cast away his shells at will, does so only at the appointed hour that he knows in advance.

Bye the bye, this thread with such good foregone discussions needs to be moved to another, suitable forum.

[saidevo]

namaste Atanu.

Atanu: 1. Supposing, the shell remains the same but only the soul changes.

Is this not an impossibility? When the soul changes, how can the shell remain the same? With two souls and their shells, the combination is only factorial 2. But then with three souls and three shells, the possibilities are bewildering.

What about the case of another soul possessing the shell already occupied by its owner? What would be the dream and deep sleep states of such a person?

I remember to have read in VedAtri Maharshi's (auto)biography that he was possessed of the soul of the Saint vaLLalAr for some days, who guided him in his sAdhana.