Patanjali Yoga Sutra - 38

Contemplations of visions in dream and sleep

Swapna Nidra Gnanalambanam Va





There is yet another way of bringing the mind to a state of tranquility. That is by recalling and meditating upon any clear vision of truth that we may have had during the dream state and the deep sleep state.


Though we might not be aware, dreams happen during the time just after we go to bed and even while we are fast asleep. Nidra or sleep as we saw in one of the first few Sutras is among the five activities of the mind. Not all dreas should be meditated upon. Most of them can revolve around the undigested thoughts of fear, anger, jealousy, hatred or fundamentally an unnecessary emotion.
Some dreams can be visions of truth too. Recently I experienced such a dream - of myself being a blob of liquid floating in a vast ocean in a subtle human form nevertheless. I am looking up to another similar blob of liquid - another human being for love, grace and benediction.
For a moment, I pause and look beneath my watery feet and it is a deep ocean with unfathomable, yet crystal clear water. The bed of the ocean is no sand, but an orb of light like a moon almost glimmering and from the bottom there are bubbles of love that rise to the surface. In the same dream, I contemplate and realise that the same love, grace, blessings and energy that I look forward to receiving from another person is available all around. And even the other person who will give us also takes from this same ocean to do so. This was not surprisingly a vision of the conscious mind while meditating, but something that I recall happening in deep sleep!
- Swahilya Shambhavi (Fitness, Satori)

Patanjali Yoga Sutra - VII

Sleep

Abhavapratyayalambana Tamovrittir Nidra: The mind has the faculties of cognition - Pramana, misapprehension - Viparyaya and imagination - Vikalpa. It has a fourth capability too, which happens to all at the end of day time - sleep.

Sleep happens daily at night and sometimes during the day too, when there is an absence of any thoughts, notions or ideas. The mind holds on to this attitude of a state of no thoughts when it takes rest, along with the body.

Either, when it is the time to sleep at night, or when the body is tired with hard work and exhausted and also when the mind is bored, it slips from conscious activities of working, talking and thinking and settls down like a wave that rises high and falls back into the ocean. Every living creature is a similar wave of expression that falls back to a few hours of rest.

During this period of rest, the mind is submerged in the super-conscious self and wakes up in the morning or at any time, after sleep -refreshed and rejuvenated.

(Photo: Sunset near the Aurora temple in Chicago. Even when day slips into night, it rests a while and wakes up refreshed next morning.) - Swahilya Shambhavi.

(Bhagavad Gita, Vignana Bhairava Tantra, Himalayas, Indians in Chicago, swahilya.soulmate@gmail.com).