Satsang with Swami Viditatmananda Saraswati
Question:
Can you please elaborate on avasthātrayam?
Answer:
Jāgrath (waking), svapna (dream) and suṣupti (sleep) are the three states of experience, known as avasthātrayam. Waking is vyāvahārika sattā or objective reality. It is īśvara sçṣñiþ or the projection of the Lord. Dream is prātibhāsika sattā or subjective reality. It is jīva sçṣñiþ or the projection of the individual.
Waking represents a higher degree of reality than the dream. There is continuity in the state of wakefulness, while there is no continuity in the state of dream. The waking world of yesterday is what I find to be there today too. But the dream of yesterday is not the dream of today. Svakāle satyavat bhāti prabodhe satyāsat bavet, [Ātma Bodha, 6] in its own time the dream appears real. It appears to be real as long as it continues, but appears to be unreal when one is awake. If we were aware of this apparent reality being a dream, we may relate to it differently, but we do not have the awareness of this in the dream state. Unfortunately, because we do not know that it is a dream, we seem to experience the same kind of pleasure and pain in dream as we experience while awake. Right now, even as I am talking to you, what is there to say that it is not a dream? Perhaps what we call waking is not substantially different from dreaming.
What is a dream? It is a projection. Why? This is because it is negated. When I wake up in the morning, the whole world of my dream is negated and falsified. Therefore, we say that the dream is a projection. But waking is not substantially different from dream. Right now you may say that you saw the same house yesterday that you are seeing today and therefore this wakeful state is not a dream. But you could well be saying just this in a dream! As far as the dreamer is concerned, he seems to experience the same kind of continuity in the dream, as you say you do, in your wakeful state. Therefore it points to a possibility that what we call waking, could also be a dream. By dream we mean something that can be negated; something that resolves into a higher reality. Negation means the resolving of a lower reality into a higher reality. Dream is a lower reality, resolving into waking, which is a higher reality. But then waking shows the same kind of pattern and therefore, it shows a possibility that it can also resolve into higher reality. Waking is the most important state because it is the state in which we can learn and grow. The other two states, namely dream and deep sleep, are also very important because they reveal something about us.
The dream state becomes an excellent example of mithyā. Mithyā is an existence that is dependent on something else. Nobody has any problem in understanding that the dream state is mithyā. Each one of us has had the experience of waking up in the morning, to know that it was not real. Everything that was in the dream is mithyā. In the dream, there was a duality of subject and object, which is also mithyā. Whatever maintains a duality of subject and object is mithyā. There is subject-object duality in waking, and hence, waking is also mithyā. Therefore the state of dream helps us to understand the reality of the wakeful state as also being mithyā. For this reason, dreaming is a very important experience. It also shows us how a lower reality gets resolved into a higher reality.
The deep-sleep state also is very important. After this experience, we are well rested when we wake up in the morning. We say that we slept blissfully and that we did not know anything. This common experience goes to establish that there is an experience of happiness in the deep-sleep state. It shows us what our true nature could possibly be. If I experience happiness in deep-sleep state, where did it come from? What desire did I satisfy in deep sleep? What object of enjoyment did I have in my deep sleep? Nothing. The deep-sleep state marks the absence of all conventional, recognized sources of happiness. Even though there is no means of happiness, it is very much there in deep sleep. Where is it coming from? The only one who is there is myself and therefore the happiness that I experience in deep sleep must be my own nature! Therefore the experience of deep sleep shows us the possibility of the fact that happiness is our nature. It also tells us that to experience happiness, we should either be in deep sleep or we should create a condition similar to deep sleep.
How is it that I am happy in deep sleep? There is no subject-object distinction in deep sleep. There are no likes and dislikes. There are no worries and anxieties. “Swamiji, it is the nature of my mother to worry. If she has nothing to worry about, she will worry about why she has nothing to worry about!” Thus, if there is a worrier, he will be worried nonetheless. How is it that there are no worries and anxieties in the state of deep sleep? This is because the worrier, the person who gets anxious, is not there.
What is the reason that I do not experience happiness? It is because we always have some worry, anxiety, insecurity, fear, sorrow, sadness, grief etc. These afflictions are like a cloud that veil the sun of happiness. To be happy we need not do anything but remove this cloud. For the sun to shine through, we don’t have to do anything to the sun. All we need to do is to remove the cloud. Similarly, to be happy, all we need to do is to remove the cloud of unhappiness.
Where does all the unhappiness come from? It comes from our sense of individuality, the ahaïkāraþ or ego. This ego, which is the source of unhappiness, is absent in the state of deep sleep. What is there when unhappiness is absent? It is happiness. Unhappiness clouds happiness, and when this cloud of unhappiness is removed, what remains is happiness. Therefore we experience happiness in deep sleep because that tremendous burden of the ego, which obstructs the experience of happiness in the waking and the dream states, is not there. I carry the heavy cross of the ego on my shoulder in the waking and dream states. I just dropped it in the deep-sleep state and am therefore totally relieved. Thus the deep sleep state tells us what our true nature is.
What is ego? The ego is the self, identified with this upādhi, this body-mind-sense complex. What is ātmā? Ātmā is the ego minus the identification with the body-mind-sense complex. If we consciously become free from our identification with the body-mind-sense complex, we will own up to that happiness, that ānanda, which is our nature. But that ānanda becomes clear only when this ego, which obstructs it, is given up. This happens naturally in the deep-sleep state. We should practise this, consciously, in the waking state. This is what Vedānta teaches us through avasthātrayam.
