Reality Dream

Why do we think the way we think? How does our reactive mind work and what can we do to make our thinking much better than it is now?

I will present a few truths about this. We can analyze them with questions and answers, and then we will go for a technique to make these truths a practical reality in our lives.

The ancient Masters, the rishis, have done a lot of research on the mind, how it works and how we can develop it to use the system in a much better way; how to handle it better for our success. They have discovered many techniques and methods to express the power of the mind in the outer world.

Ancient Masters are inner world scientists. A scientist is a person who discovers something new and creates a formula to reproduce the same thing in the outer world. A Master is a person who discovers something new in the inner world and creates a formula to reproduce the same experience within others. Masters and scientists both work along the same lines but, the difference is, a scientist works in the outer world, while a Master works in the inner world.

There are two statements you need to understand. First, whatever we think of as the world is made of the same stuff of which our dreams are made. This is an important statement. If we understand this statement, we can use it for many purposes. For example, the power we use to create our dreams, can be used to create the real world, too. Our dreams are the energy out of which our world is created. Second, whatever we see is created by us, so we have the capacity to change the whole thing!

We always think our life is an accident. No! It is not an accident, it is an incident. If we understand this one statement, our life can change in so many ways. It can change our visualization, our thinking patterns and our imagination that creates our dreams. Most of the time, we create dreams that contradict themselves and this causes confusion. The energy wasted in unnecessary dreams could be conserved and put to proper use; then, the reality that we see would be much better than the reality we live in now.

We will have the important ability or power to realize our dreams, and more importantly, we will realize that everything we see as reality is also one more dream! These two things

together can transform our lives: the capacity to make our dreams into reality and realizing that all reality is nothing but a dream. The powers of intention and creative visualization and the power to use our dreams are very important to create and achieve whatever we want in our life, to create the energy and mood to live, to achieve, to get whatever we want. However, that is only one side of the coin. An important thing that science has missed is the intelligence, the intelligence to realize that whatever we see as reality is nothing but our dream. Only when you understand that truth, you settle down with yourself.

The other day, Dr. Murali Krishna, an American doctor and a friend of mine, shared this with me when we were discussing this same concept. He said, 'In our brain, we have something called a D-spot, where the pleasure chemical, Dopamine, is created. Dopamine can be activated just by imagination; you don't even need the reality to feel pleasure.'

That is why the ancient sages say, whatever you experience is reality. If you go deep, you will understand it is only a higher level dream, not reality. There are two ways to approach any situation: one is collecting arguments and passing a judgment based on all the arguments; the other is having a judgment and then collecting arguments to support it. Most of the time only the second approach is used.

• -A small story: Two women were comparing notes about their husbands. The first one said, 'I have noticed your husband sometimes; he would seem to be lost in thought.' The second one replied, 'That's not surprising. He is a total stranger there!'

The lady has already formed a judgment that her husband has no power to think properly! So she says it is not surprising that her husband is lost in thinking! This is exactly what I mean when I say you form a judgment and collect arguments to support the judgment.

In the night time when we dream, we have the capacity to create our whole dream world; we live it and, when we have had enough, we pack up. We have so much energy and capacity to create a world with this mind, we can do wonders but we don't know how to tap into that energy and use it in real life. So many times, in our own lives, we experience the power of our mind but the difficulty is that, from the beginning, we are brought up with certain concepts and ideas, because of which, we miss the real miracles that are happening in our lives all the time.

For instance, sometimes when our cell phone rings, we suddenly remember a friend that we have not been in touch with for awhile; when we answer the phone it will be him on the line! When our doorbell rings, we suddenly remember a friend's name; when we open the door, he will be there. You are at a party and you suddenly think something will

happen in the next few minutes and it actually happens. Suddenly, beyond our intellect and logic, something will erupt from our being and we will see that it becomes reality! How many of us have experienced this at least once? If it happens rarely to one person, it can be termed coincidence but, from all of our experiences, we can say that it has happened to many people many times. So it can't be coincidence! Without our conscious awareness, our being is expressing its capacity. Our being is capable of much more than what we can imagine. Our capacity, our power, is much more than what is told to us. From the beginning, we are taught that we are limited!

I was living with a tribe in Bharat for some time, during my days of wandering, before enlightenment. You would be surprised to hear that people of that tribe give birth to children without pain, without an attendant, and without any medicine! I myself witnessed it. I asked them, 'Don't you feel pain?' They didn't seem to understand what I was talking about! They didn't even know the idea of pain. Even after talking to them for four to five days, I was not able to make them understand the idea of pain. From the beginning, they had not heard about pain.

Then I realized how many times we all hear these words, pain, suffering, etc. When they go into our system again and again, they create an idea of how we are supposed to respond to things with pain and suffering, and we do things in exactly the same way. Then I studied with them and learned some of their techniques: how they respect life, women, and the knowledge of the ancient Masters. Recently, we have successfully created a system of delivery that is helping women give birth painlessly. After this, I understood how, in this one zone, we create unnecessary suffering and boundaries for ourselves by believing we are too small. There are so many understandings that need to be questioned in the same fashion.

Let me now come back to the first statement – the world is made of the same stuff of which our dreams are made. As of now, most of our dreams, be it daydreams or night dreams, are of no use. Night dreaming is not under our control. In daydreaming, the starting point is under our control but it goes on without our control. We start to dream of something and then it takes its own course and by the time we come back to awareness, it takes so many turns. We start with one subject and land up with some other subject. Only the starting point is under our control. Once we choose the starting point and fall into the track, we get lost!

But in daydreaming, major points are under your control. For instance, sometimes you will find yourself lost in some thoughts, so suddenly you will decide not to think about that track and you will change the track. In night dreaming, nothing is under your control.

Too much energy and power is wasted in dreams that are not directed. In the West, now, they talk about harvesting the power of dreams. You can use the power of dreams. For

example, at night before falling asleep, if you contemplate some problem that you want the solution for, and then fall asleep, you will have the solution to the problem! All you need to do is trust that your mind has the capacity. It is our mind that creates the trouble; naturally it has the power to solve the problems, also. All we need to do is trust that we can do it, and then contemplate the problem before sleeping. It will go directly into our unconscious and get processed at night. The next morning we will see that we have the clarity.

We don't know the power of dreams. They are so powerful that many times we come upon the dreams that can guide us regarding our future but we don't recognize them. People ask me how to distinguish the dreams that are guidance from general dreams. Here's the technique. When you wake up in the morning, if you can remember your dream vividly in multicolor, if you can smell the same smell you experienced in the dream, if it feels like a real-life experience, be very clear that it's a message for you from your being. On the other hand, when you wake up, if you are not able to remember the dream so vividly, if it's not in multicolor, if it's just in black-and-white, then it's not a message or guidance, it's just related to your fear and greed.

Anything related to your intelligence will be solid and vivid; anything related to your fear and greed will be in black-and-white. Even in this world, if you take a deeper look at your life, those memories that make your being blissful, the memories that are the path for your life, will be a solid visualization when you close your eyes and remember them. Any memories related to fear and greed will make you uneasy.

I'm speaking of subtle truths. If you are a little introspective, if you are already a meditator, practice yoga, etc., you can understand what I say. The moment you get some thoughts based on fear or anxiety, you can feel butterflies in the stomach, because there is an energy center in the navel that is directly related to depression and worries, and fear and anxiety-based thoughts lead to depression and worry.

There are many energy centers in our body that are directly related to certain emotions. If we can handle the emotions with the proper techniques, through what I call meditation, we can open up new dimensions or powers in our being. Even in our day-to-day lives, the moment we remember any thought which is going to help us, we feel at ease and have a cool feeling in our being. On the other hand, thoughts that are not ours, but are imposed on us, or that we have unconsciously picked up from others because of jealousy and comparison, will make us feel uneasy.

Sometimes, thoughts can be imposed on us even without our knowledge, through advertisements and media. Media gives us many ideas that are not ours. We are just beautifully exploited without even realizing that we are being exploited! For instance, look at many of the cosmetics products. Advertising agencies know where to touch us; they know that sex is our weakest point. That is the reason Reality Dream

why, with any product aimed towards youngsters, you will notice there is sex appeal and this will be directly recorded in your being.

If you can be a little more intelligent in your thinking system, you can avoid these traps. Whenever you think, whether while driving or talking to friends or reading, just try to witness your thinking system. Create a gap between you and your thoughts and try to witness them. You will realize you are creating self-contradictory thoughts and dreams. You will realize how you are draining all your energy. First, you will have a thought, 'I should go here and see this person.' Immediately after that, you will have another thought, 'No I should not go; it won't work out.' Before you even consciously know what's happening in your mind, there will be self-contradictory thoughts.

When these happen continuously in your being, you live in a space called hiranyagarbha in Sanskrit, which I call 'ultimate chaos'. You are neither moving in this path nor that. You continuously feed both sides. Many times people ask me, 'Swamiji, should I sit here and attend the discourse?' If I tell them, 'Okay, attend it', immediately they will give me all the arguments why they can't. They will tell me, 'Oh! I have so many pending chores to do,' etc. If I tell them, 'Okay, please attend to your work,' immediately, all the arguments as to why they should stay and attend will line up in their mind, and they will say, 'Oh, but I will miss the lecture and all the wonderful things you talk about. This is more important. I think I had better stay!'

Our mind is such that whichever side we stand on, all the arguments for the other side will come up. Continuously we are in a space called dilemma. If we can give ourselves at least ten minutes everyday, we can sit and see how our mind works back and forth. Just sit and watch it. Don't try to control it; meditation has nothing to do with control. Just sit and watch, like watching a television. Create a small gap between you and your thinking system. You will understand that whatever you think of as reality is made up of your dreams.

Above all, you will understand what I mean by selfcontradictory dreams. Without your awareness, you are continuously hurting yourself. You are the cause of all your suffering. In the East, we believe that even accidents are invited by us, by our thoughts. You might be shocked when you read this. How can that be true? Why would anyone want to create accidents in their life? When I started analyzing how the mind works, I realized the great truth that even accidents are in fact our own creation.

There are a few truths that cannot be explained logically but can be realized from within.

-A small story:

One man visited the doctor for relief from laryngitis. The doctor gave him a dose of antibiotics and told him, 'This is a heavy dosage with a sedative

effect. It might put you to sleep by 9 pm. So for this one week, finish your work early.' The man was listening and looked disturbed. The doctor asked, 'What is the matter? You don't seem to be alright.' The man said, 'I don't think that is good for me because, at 10 pm, I need to take my sleeping pills.'

The man was so used to taking sleeping pills all his life, that he could not even imagine sleep without them! When the man goes to sleep by 9 pm and wakes up in the morning, he will understand for himself that he doesn't need his pills! Similarly, if you can create a gap and witness your thinking, you will understand that you create self-contradictory dreams in your life, because of which you waste much of your energy and even create accidents!

In our meditation camps, we play a small game where a person has to argue for both sides of a topic given to him. Two chairs will be placed. The participant has to sit in one chair and argue for the topic and then sit in the other chair and speak against the same topic. This is what we do in our lives; continuously inside our minds we argue for both sides, by creating self-contradictory visualization.

Your dreams are so powerful that they directly impact the outer world. I was reading a beautiful book called Messages from Water. The author of the book has done research with water, where he has proved the power of thought on just plain water. He has done a big service to the Western logical mind in showing how our thoughts impact the outer world.

In his research, he took a glass of water and started repeating to it the words 'love' and 'peace'. He then examined the crystals formed by the water sample through an extremely accurate microscope and took photographs of the crystal formation. He took another glass and repeated the words 'anger' and 'violence' intentionally to it and then photographed the crystals formed in it.

You would be surprised at the results. Photographs of the water crystals, to which loving words were spoken, were so beautifully formed, like a diamond, while the photograph of the crystals of the other glass, anger and violence, looked so ugly. He proved water responds to our thoughts. It simply changes its whole quality based on our thoughts.

An important thing you should know is that eighty percent of your body is filled with water. So, if water is so impacted by thoughts, your thoughts play a major role in your mindbody system. Your dreams play a major role in creating your real world. He explains, in conclusion, why, in the East, people use mantra, why in Bharat people repeat a particular word again and again, to create a particular mood and energy in a person.

When I read that book, I understood what really happens when a person repeats certain words. The power of words, visualization, thinking and dreams is tremendous. You can't imagine the power of your imagination. You have so much power and energy in your dreams and visualization. Not only are you not using it, you are misusing it, too! Any energy

that is unguided will become misguided. All misguided energy is dangerous for your being. You continuously create self-contradicting visualizations.

You can do one more exercise. Just speak your thoughts out, without logically analyzing or suppressing them, and record them. Play them back and transcribe it. If you read it, you will see what a big lunatic asylum you are running inside your mind! It's an asylum of self-contradicting thoughts, self-contradicting visualization, and self-contradicting imagination.

If you create a small gap, that is enough; automatically, your visualization will be brought in line, on track, and you will be on a clear path. Actually, the more you create a gap between you and your thinking system, the more you will become a witness and the more you will become intelligent. You will not lose your balance and be swept away by the chaos that is happening inside your system.

As of now, all our decisions are made only in the reactive mood, not with clarity and not with a clear mind. Continuously, information comes into our being and we process it at a high speed. We miss some information, mess it up and come up with an incorrect solution. The information that comes in is one thing; the decision that goes out is something else, because we process too much information in a very short time without creating a gap between us and our thinking. Once in awhile, let us create a gap to witness our thoughts. Let us try not to control or

suppress our thoughts; just allow the thoughts to move, and witness them and then we will understand that we create self-contradicting thoughts.

This is the main cause for all our troubles and problems, because the thoughts are unguided; they become misguided and cause a lot of confusion in our being. Above all, we don't realize the true potential of our being. Once we create the gap, we will realize that our world is made of the same stuff our dreams are made of. The moment we understand this one statement, we have the possibility of transformation in our life.

Let us analyze this statement and see how to apply it in your day-to-day life with your questions.

Q) Now scientists and doctors have come to an understanding of how the brain works and chemically, what happens in which part of the brain based on thoughts. Can you comment on it?

A) I was with a group of doctors in Oklahoma one day. They did research on my brain to see how it works during meditation and during normal times, and compared it with how the brain works for a non-meditator. The research was done using PET scan and QEEG, by a group of doctors who have been in this field for the last thirty years. At the end of their study they concluded, 'We thought we had come to an understanding of the brain but, after studying your brain, we can say we still have a lot to learn!'