Secret of Life-10

STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Waking, Dream and Deep-Sleep

There are three stages of consciousness:

• Awake
• Dream
• Deep-sleep

When you are awake, your conscience is alive to
realities. It sees, it hears, it does, it speaks,
etc. You will say through your whole body – I hear, I
do, I speak, I perceive, I feel—etc. When you are
dreaming, you may experience something far away from
reality. In reality you may be a bachelor, but in a
dream, you may be a married man. But, both the states
of mind belong to the same person. While dreaming,
you would have talked to your wife. Whereas, when you
wake up, you find that you may not have one. But
then, what is reality?
While dreaming, you believed that you had a wife.
When you woke up, you found that you had none. What
then is true? After all, the same person makes both
the statements. Can we accuse the person of uttering
a lie? No. Then how can two contradictory positions
be true? If both have to be true, both have to be
false. That is because, while dreaming, the dream was
true and the human body of flesh and blood was false.
While awake, this state is true, and the dream false.
Which means, both are false?

There is a third state of mind—deep sleep. At this
stage, you are not awake nor are you dreaming. Your
conscience goes to sleep. You see or hear or feel or
think nothing. This again, is a state of conscience.

All these stages belong to you. So you say—"I am
awake", "I dreamt" and "I was in deep-sleep." And if
you say you dreamt, then dream and you are different.
Similarly your waking consciousness is different from
you and so also is your deep-sleep consciousness.

Awaking consciousness, dream conscience and the
deep-sleep conscience are all yours. All three are
unequal stages. Yet all are equated with you. Three
inequalities cannot be equal to equality. Therefore,
the "I", must be a fourth stage of consciousness.
This is also derived from the fact that both awaking
conscience and dream conscience are false as proved in
the previous page.

That fourth state is the real consciousness. It is
the original state. It is the SELF. It is the Atman.
It is the state of bliss. The state of ultimate joy,
happiness, bliss, perfection, freedom, etc. This is
the ultimate truth. This is the state where you
realize the purpose of your birth. You realize the
purpose of this universe.

It's like a four inches high spring. If it is
compressed to one foot, it feels a lot of pressure.
At two and three feet, it feels a little less
pressure. If it is four feet tall, it is not under
pressure. It is experiencing its usual height. It is
not compressed. It is free of all pressures when it
is experiencing its real form. Similarly, when you
assume your actual form, the real form, the real Self,
you are free from all pressures and imperfections.