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The just-born little bundle of joy recognises the mother’s warmth as its humble abode. Then recognises the father and everything around that offers comfort – a natural process. In the lure of the outside, the growing little child loses itself in the grandeur of the variegated universe and takes as real what is seen and experienced.
Once at a threshold, an inner flutter takes birth to know – Who am I?! The body and the mind, believed to be the self, have changed continuously. What has changed until now, changes even now, and will continue to change into the future cannot be my real self, and so what and where is the constant?
In our own experience, we forget our own possessions, our body, and our mind – but when? In our daily deep sleep, body frailties and the existence of family members as well as possessions are not known. This is everyone’s deep-sleep experience. Here the body and its sense organs are dormant while the mind is quiescent.
Sleep also creates a dream world that offers a variety of experiences – tasteful sweet dreams or a harrowing nightmare. The body and its sense organs are dormant while the mind is active, which also creates a dream body to experience the dream contents.
When one wakes up, there is undeniably a desire to go back to the same silence with remembrance of two things – one, the deep sleep was the best, and two, the dream was full of content. The former is common to all, while the latter is personalised to the individual.
The awake person now starts to experience the external world with their sense organs.
A dive into the three states makes it evident that the mind is a common factor – dormant in the former and active in the latter two. Vedanta draws a conclusion – mind is responsible for the world that we individually view, cognise, and experience. The three states are witnessed by the True Self. A well-cultivated mind (through meditation) in an awake state puts to rest the content seen by inquiry. This is the realisation of knowing one’s own self through clarity in understanding the reality of the world outside as a dream! Truly waking up in the awake state.
Can we start to delve into our experiences from inside to outside – ready for a U-turn?
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.