From Dreams Towards Truth
Discourse Date: Fri, 27 February 1969 00:00:00 GMT
I have just been to the Girnar mountains, where the temples glisten in the morning sun. Seeing these temples, it occurred to me: The soul too has such high peaks where temples shine even brighter; for the Lord's light is more keen and intense than the Sun's light. But we are such; we lose ourselves in the temples outside and get no hint of the temples within. We might spend a whole life climbing mountains, unaware of the heights of our own consciousness. As there are tracks that lead to the Girnar peaks, so there are paths leading to the peaks of consciousness.
There is a difference however, in these two paths. In the realm of consciousness no foot-prints are left behind. Just as the birds that fly in the air leave ho trail behind - each bird flying its own path, so also in the path of Truth there are no cut and hewn roads. Each one must carve his own path, which takes shape as he walks along. There is no definite direction that one can follow. If the paths were ready-made, all we had to do was to follow one of them and reach the top. But there are no paths.
As man walks, his foot-steps get erased behind him and are lost forever. Though each one has to make his own path, a few hints can be given in connection with them. In this last discourse, we shall talk about these pointers.
We have already discussed the first two rules. Today, we shall talk on the third rule. This third rule is somewhat symbolic. The first fact to be understood about this rule is that life, as we normally take it to be, is not real; and as long as we consider it to be real, our eyes will never turn in the direction of Truth.
Those who wish to set out in quest of Truth, have perforce to know that this life is no more than a dream - this is the first tip. This long journey from birth to death - is it a reality or a dream? We shall have to ponder on this. Normally we take it as real but that is because we have never thought much on it. When we dream at night, the dream appears real. It never occurs to us while dreaming, that what we are experiencing is not true. Dreams look very real, while dreaming. How many times do we dream? All through life we dream but never has the unreality of the dream been experienced or known during the dream its falsity never comes to our mind. Those who have awakened to greater truths, claim that the world we see with open eyes is also no more than a dream.
A king's one and only son lay on his death-bed. The doctors had given up hope - death was lurking close, perhaps it would come that very night. The king and the queen kept vigil by his bed-side.
When it was almost dawn, the king fell asleep on his chair. In his sleep was forgotten the ailing son, the large kingdom, the magnificent palace.
And he dreamt: He dreamt that he was the master of the whole world. He had twelve sons - healthy, handsome, strapping youths. His palaces were made of gold with steps inlaid with precious stones.
He could not be happier. And then - all of a sudden, the twelve sons died. His queen began to wail and he was shaken out of sleep. Everything was lost - the mighty kingdom, the golden palaces, the robust sons - all vanished He found the queen weeping but there was not a tear in his eye. He burst out laughing. The queen was shocked. "Your only son is dead and you laugh!" she cried.
"There is a reason for it" he told her. "A moment ago I ha& twelve sons, a palace of gold, and a vast kingdom. Your cries destroyed them all! And this son, whose very existence I had t forgotten in my dream, along with you and the palace, is now dead. As long as the twelve existed, this one was lost to memory and now that I see this one, the twelve are lost to me. Now for whom shall I cry? This one or the other twelve? And a thought comes to me: perhaps both belong to the dream-world. One dream I dreamt with my eyes closed, the other with my eyes opened. Each was forgotten when the other existed."
There are dreams we see with our eyes opened, and there are dreams we see with our eyes closed.
Both are dreams.
Chwang Tse was a fakir of China. He was always seen laughing, never sad. One day his friends found him sitting in his hut, looking very sad. His friends were surprised. "We have always seen you laughing, no matter what the problem. What is it that disturbs you today?"
"It is a problem I cannot solve," said Chwang Tse.
"But there Was never a problem you could not solve for us. This must be a special problem that worries a person like you. Please tell us about it," they begged.
"I will," said Chwang Tse. " But you will not be able to solve it and I feel I shall never never find an answer to it: Last night, I dreamt that I was a butterfly in a garden. I saw myself flitting from one flower to another!"
"What is so difficult about that?" they asked. "This is nothing new. Man becomes a lot of things in dreams!"
"That is all right," said Chwang Tse. "But when I got up in the morning, the problem arose. A question confronted me: 'If a man called Chwang Tse could be a butterfly in a dream, could it be possible that now the butterfly is asleep and dreaming it is a man called Chwang Tse? I have been disturbed since morning. If a man can be a butterfly in a dream, a butterfly can also be a man in dreams. Now I cannot decide whether I am a man who dreams he is a butterfly, or I am a butterfly dreaming I am a mam Who is to decide?"
Chwang Tse is correct. What we see outside is also a dream with open eyes; for the outside world vanishes as soon as the eyes are closed. We are transported to a different world as soon as the eyes close; and the world we see with open eyes has no greater value than this.
You have lived your lives - some for fifteen years and some for fifty. If you look back on the years gone by, the past events seem no more than a dream. It is at times, hard to believe those events ever took place! So what is the difference? On looking back on the events, the honour you received, the insults you bore - did they happen in truth or were they only a dream? At the time of death what difference does it make, which life was real, and which was not. How many people have lived before us on this earth? No one knows how many people are contained in the very ground beneath us! The whole world is one big cemetery, where millions and billions of people lived and died. What difference does it make today, whether they lived or not? When they existed, life must have looked very real to them also. Today nothing remains of them or their lives. All has turned to dust. A thousand years hence, other people will walk on our ashes. Today we sit here, tomorrow we too will be lost. So is the life that ultimately turns to dust, how much of reality can it hold? Of what worth is that which is ultimately lost?
This same Chwang Tse was once passing through a village. It was a dark night. As he came out of the village, and was crossing the shmashan, his foot knocked against a skull. If it had been somebody else, he would have kicked the skull out of the way and cursed it as an evil omen. But Chwang Tse picked it up, held it against his forehead and humbly addressed it thus:
"Please forgive me, for the night is dark and I could not see. It is my fault. I beg forgiveness." Now it was only the skull of some man and who knows how long it was since he had died. So Chwang Tse's friends were surprised.
"What are you doing? Are you out of your mind? Whose forgiveness do you seek?"
"It is only a matter of time," said Chwang Tse. "If this man were alive today, I would have had it!"
"But he is no longer alive!"
"You do not know that this is the shmashan of the rich. It is not in life alone that the rich keep away from the poor. Also in death, they keep their distance; therefore my concern."
"But he is no longer there so what is the difficulty?"
"I ask your pardon, but for many reasons I am going to keep this skull with me."
He carried the skull with him wherever he went. Every morning he Bot up and bowed before the skull, asking its forgiveness. His friends tried to dissuade him from this practice, fearing he might lose his head. Once was enough, but this daily ritual would surely tell on his mind! To their protests, Chwang Tzu would say: "I have my reasons. The very first reason is: it is a big man's skull!"
Chwang Tse was joking in this way to show them that all skulls turn to dust, whether of a rich man or poor. Dust makes no differentiation between them. And if big and small all turn to dust, then it is nothing more than a dream, to be big or small. If the dust reduces all dreams to naught, there is not a grain of truth in this "being big or small." It is all a part of a dream.
Chwang Tse explained to his friends: "I keep this skull with me so that I am always reminded of my own skull which also, if not today, tomorrow will lie in some shmashan. It too, will have to bear the kicks of some passer-by and I will not be able to do a thing about it. If this is what is going to happen ultimately, where is the need to be angry if someone's foot touches the head?"
Those who "know" say that which is to be, already is. If life is going to be extinct, it already is. If it is to turn to dust, it is dust already. Life is a dreams a short dream but it looks as if everything is real.
If we try to look deeper, we find that everything gets lost - everything turns to dust. And what is the reason to accept the reality of that which turns to dust? We might defend ourselves by saying: "A dream lasts a few moments, whereas life is spread over a number of years."
If we were to look more deeply, we will find that in the vast expanse of the Universe a hundred years is a very infinitesimal space of time. It is four thousand million years since the earth came into being.
It is six thousand million years since the sun was born; but the sun is comparatively a new member of the universe. There are stars so old in the universe, it is difficult to calculate how old they are.
So in the passage of time, what meaning do a hundred years have? None whatsoever. A hundred years pass, and the moon and the sun are none the wiser for it; for to them it is no more than a tick of the clock. In terms of the infinite, a hundred years are but as a moment.
A miser died All through his life, he had stored away every single coin he had Before he died, he had read a book in which it was said that in heaven, the coin of the least denomination was worth millions of rupees. So when he died, he died with a wish to obtain one single coin of heaven. As soon as his eyes opened in heaven he began searching for the coin. The devatas asked him what he was up to.
"I am looking for a coin. I have heard that a coin of heaven is worth millions?"
"So it is," they said. "Wait a moment. We shall give you one." The man was pleased - a moment would pass with the flicker of an eyelid. Soon the moments changed into hours and hours into days; and the days began to roll into years, but no sign of the coin When will your moment end?" he called out in anguish.
"Don't you know?" came the answer! "Where one coin is worth millions one moment is made up of millions of years. Wait a moment and you will surely receive."
The scale of eternity is very vast. What significance can a hundred years have in this infinite scale?
How endless is this scale It is difficult to tell when time started, or to know when it will end.
There is a story told by Bertrand Russell. The priest of a church slept one night, and dreamt that he had reached the door of heaven. But the door was so big, he could not see where it started or where it finished. He tried very hard to gauge its size but all he could see was a portion of the door. He knocked at the door, but what sound could his small hand make against that huge massive door? No sound came in that limitless silence. He knocked again but to no avail. He felt unhappy for he had always cherished the hope that God would be waiting with open arms when he reached heaven; for had he not worshipped him all his life? But here the door was closed and no matter how hard he knocked, there was no reply.
After a long time however, a small side window opened and someone looked out. The padre was frightened at what he saw: an eye brighter than a thousand suns looked out at him. He cried out in fright: "Oh Lord, I have seen you and that is enough! Now please go behind the window and talk to me, for I cannot stand the brightness of your gaze." But the voice behind the window said. "I am not God, I am a sentry here, but who are you? I cannot even see you. What a small person you are!
Wherefrom have you lost your way?"
A thousand eyes could not locate him, so small and insignificant was he.
The padre felt so insignificant!
"I was under the impression, I should meet God. This is only his footman!" he wailed to himself.
"Were you not informed of my coming?" asked the priest.
"This is the first time I have beheld a worm like you," said the door-keeper.
"Where are you coming from?"
"I am from the earth," said the priest.
"Never heard the name before!" he said. "Where is it, this earth of yours?"
The priest skipped a heart beat - his breath nearly stopped! If he has not heard about the earth, he could not be knowing about the Christian religion or the Catholic Organization, much less of the Catholic church of his village. Then how could he ever know him, the priest of the church?
Nevertheless, he tried to explain:
"There is a solar system and the earth is one of its planets." he said.
"Have you any idea of the number of suns there are?" asked the door-keeper.
Which sun are you talking about? What is the index number? If you can furnish the index number, perhaps we can locate this earth of yours."
"Number?" gasped the priest "But we know of only one sun!"
"It is difficult to place you in that case!" said the sentry. However, I shall try."
So worked up was the priest in his fright and confusion, that he woke up with a start. He was soaked in perspiration! For the first time, he realized that the earth was of no consequence in the scheme of the vast universe.
This earth is so small but it appears so big to us! The sun is sixty thousand times as big as the earth, but ;n the galaxy of stars, it is a small body. The stars in the sky are much bigger than the sun. They appear small because of their distance from us. The sun's rays take ten minutes to reach the earth, even though they travel at the speed of a hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second. The sun is far away, yet not so far away when we know that the next nearest star takes four years to send its rays to the earth; and these rays travel at the same speed as the sun's. There are other stars, whose rays take a hundred years, two hundred years, a thousand, a hundred-thousand years to reach the earth. There are stars, which were formed four hundred thousand years before the earth, whose rays have yet not reached the earth. And there are stars yet, whose rays will never reach the earth - so say the scientists.
In such an infinite vista, where does the earth stand? And where do we stand vis-a-vis the universe - we, who are but a tiny speck compared to the world? But we attach a lot of value to ourselves; and the more value we attach to our little selves, the more restless we become; and the more we suffer and the possibility of realizing Truth gets less and less.
He who is tranquil and filled with peace, can realize Truth. The first rule for obtaining tranquillity is not to consider that life which we lead, as real. Attach no more importance to it than you would to a dream. The moment life begins to appear as a dream, the mind becomes quiet. Until then, it is impossible for we attach such importance to trivial things. We take even dreams to be real and suffer on account of them. A man sees a ghost in his dream and gets up with a fright, his chest pounding; his sleep is broken, the dream is no more, yet it has seemed so real that the heart beats faster!
We are such, we even get carried away by theatrical performances. You will see many people wiping their eyes in cinema-houses; whereas on the screen there is nothing but the p1ay of electricity.
Knowing full well that it is the current of electricity forming pictures on a blank screen, we yet laugh or cry or get frightened with the different scenes! The drama becomes a reality, whereas actually, the first rule in the quest of Truth is to consider as play, what we take to be a reality in life. Then only does Truth reveal itself.
There was a great thinker in Bengal by the name of Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar. He went to see a play. In the play, the hero is after the heroine. He does everything to harass and trouble her. Then one day, in the dead of night, he jumps into her bedroom and catches hold of her. Vidyasagar could bear it no longer. He jumped on to the stage, took out his shoe and beat up the hero - completely forgetting it was a play on the stage! Everybody was shocked but the hero took the shoe and holding it to his chest, bowed reverently to Vidyasagar. He turned to the audience and said: "Never have I received so great an honour. That anyone should be so carried away by my acting and that too, a great thinker like Vidyasagar! It is the biggest award I have ever received. I shall always prize this shoe."
Vidyasagar felt ashamed. He went quietly back to his seat. Later on, he told his friends that the play appeared so real that he completely forgot it was a drama!
If a play looks real, man gets disturbed but if life appears a play, man becomes tranquil. Where is the need to be agitated by a dream? Then if poverty comes, it is a dream; even riches are a dream.
Then sickness and health, honour and dishonour, are all dreams. As this truth becomes clearer to us, the mind starts to get restful. Truth is hidden because of our restlessness.
A young fakir used to stay in a small village in Japan. He was a handsome youth who was well- known for his wisdom. Everyone in the village respected him. All of a sudden one day, the village turned against him. They fell on his hut and tore it to pieces and set fire to his belongings. When he asked them the reason for their fury, they flung a child into his arms and said:" You ask the reason?
This is it! The mother of the child named you as its father. It was a mistake on our part to have allowed you to stay in our village. That you are such a libertine, we least suspected! Take this child; it is yours."
"Is it so?" he asked and at once started to soothe the child.
"If you say so, it must be so."
The people let loose a fresh volley of abuse and left for their homes.
At mid-day, with the child in his arms, the fakir set out to the village to beg for alms. He went from house to house, the little child crying with hunger. Never before had a fakir ever begged in this manner! Wherever he went the doors were closed on his face. People gathered round him. They taunted and reviled him and threw stones at him. Yet the fakir went from door to door, protecting the child from the mob's fury.
At last he came to the door of the child's mother: "In the name of God, give a little milk for this hungry child. Do not give me anything, I do not complain. It may be my fault but what is the fault of this poor child?"
The crowd stood at the door, eager with curiosity The giri heard all this and her heart was filled with remorse. She went and caught her father's feet and owned up to her guilt. In order to save her lover, she had named the fakir, whom she had never seen in her life. She had thought that at the most, the village people and her father would do no more than hurl a few abuses at the fakir; she never imagined things would come to such a pass! She asked for her father's forgiveness. The father was shocked! He ran out of the house and fell at the fakir's feet, begging his mercy. He took the child away from his hands. When the fakir asked what now was the matter, the father sobbed and said:
"It is a sin we have committed! I humbly beg your forgiveness. This child is not yours."
"Is that so?" was all that the fakir said "In the morning you said it was mine; now you say it is not mine. So it is not mine?" The people who had gathered round him said: "What foolishness is this?
If the child is not yours, why did you not say so in the morning?"
"What difference does it make?" said the fakir. "In this world of dreams what does it matter whether the child is mine or somebody else's? It must be somebody's; and since you all came here and said it was mine, I did not object; for it makes no difference to me. You had already set fire to one hut, and abused one man. If I had denied this child, you would have gone and set fire to yet another hut and beat up yet another man. How would that have affected the matter?"
"But do you not care for your honour, your reputation?" they asked.
"The day I realized life to be no more than a dream, everything became equal. Honour and dishonour are the same to me. And what is the difference when all is a dream? If it were otherwise, it would have made a difference."
Napoleon lost the war and was exiled to the isle of St. Helena. A great emperor, who had never known defeat, had lost to his enemies and was now held prisoner on this small island. He went for a walk in the mornings with his doctor. One morning, as they were walking along the narrow track at the edge of a field, a peasant woman came walking towards them from the opposite direction. The doctor called out to her to get out of Napoleon's way, but Napoleon held him back and said: "Those days are over my friend, when people stepped back for the great Napoleon. Now it is my turn to step back - even to a peasant woman."
Napoleon was wise. Napoleon was the same in defeat as in victory realizing how changeable life is When one begins understand this dream quality the mind begins to be restful. Then where is the difference in victory and defeat? Then victory, defeat; honour, dishonour; life and death are all the same. This is the peace, the track, that leads to the heights of Truth.
Through the path of tranquillity, man reaches Truth and only those can walk this path, to whom life appears to be a dream. Those to whom life is still a substantial truth, cannot walk this path of peace.
This is one thing. The next now is: How does the man, to whom life becomes illusory, live? What rules will guide him? What do we do with dreams? We merely see them - that is all! We cannot do anything to them. So a man to whom all life is a fantasy, will become a mere spectator, a witness.
He will just observe life. He will see it as it is and do nothing but observe, Dreams are our ardent desires, whereas the witness-state, is the evolvement. Dreams are the base but the Witness is the mansion that is constructed over it. To know life as a dream is to be an observer. Then when the person is no more than a spectator, a revolution takes place within him.
This is the Spiritual Revolution, and this is not attained by reading the scriptures or repeating the well-worn precepts. He who begins to live thus, climbs those peaks from where Truth is invariably discovered.
So the second rule is: THE WITNESS-STATE: TO LIVE LIFE AS A MERE SPECTATOR - AS IF A MAN IS GOING ON THE SCREEN OF LIFE AND WE ARE MERELY WATCHING IT.
Carry out this experiment and see what happens. Life will look different. Resolve one day, that from six in the morning to six in the evening, you Will be no more than a spectator. Then life will look a story on the screen. On the very first day, something new will begin to happen to you. After this experiment, you can never be the same again - you will be a different person altogether.
Carry out this experiment this very day. When you go home and your wife makes accusations or your husband becomes provocative, watch as if you were an outsider. Observe life on the roads and in the market-place and at the office, as if it were a play. One day's watchful experiment, and you will be a different person altogether. A day is too long a time; an hour of this watchful observation and you feel your life taking a new turn. What you observe within an hour will make you wonder.
One hour, and the transformation will change the alchemy within. It will cause new points in the consciousness to sprout forth. Observe for one hour - whatever occurs, watch as a play and see what happens... you will laugh and the laughter will spread within; giving a wonderful lightness and freshness to your being. Till yesterday, what weighed on the mind like a grindstone and spread poison within, disturbing the very life-breath; and what made life a mere reaction, becomes totally different. The situation that caused a storm yesterday, loses its venom before the witness as a live coal falling in water ceases to burn. And you will wonder! That which gave trouble and pain till yesterday, what has happened to it now? It is still the same, only you have changed. The world is the same, it will always remain the same; only people change; and when man changes, the world changes with him.
SO THE FIRST MAXIM IS: LIFE IS A DREAM.
THE SECOND MAXIM IS: LIVE LIKE A WITNESS IN THIS DREAM.
It is difficult to explain what happens to a man who begins to live in the Witness-State. One has to live in this state to know what it is. It can only be known and grasped through experiment. So experiment and see. Give up the anxiety of going to the temple, for life itself becomes a temple if you stand as a witness. Give up the idea of climbing the Himalayas in search of truth; life becomes pilgrimage as soon as the witness awakens within. Whenever and wherever the witness-state comes into being, that every moment life becomes a sacred shrine - it is a unique experience altogether!
Socrates was going to die. His executioners were preparing poison for him. Socrates reclined peacefully on his bed, his friends and admirers sat around him weeping.
"Why do you cry?" asked Socrates.
"What else can we do? You are about to die and we are filled with pain!"
"You dear foolish people!" said Socrates, "Then you should have cried the day I was born, for death starts along with life. Now it is too late."
The end of the story starts approaching as soon as the story begins; when a play starts it is bound to end. The end comes soon enough. It is hidden in the beginning.
"That we shall die, was understood the day we were born," said Socrates.
"There the matter ends. Then why the tears? And if you must cry, cry for yourselves. Why weep for me, who does not weep for his death? Go and see if the poison is ready."
When they did not move, he got up himself. "It is nearing six, and yet the poison is not ready? Hurry, it is getting late!" ho told the men who were grinding the poison.
"We have administered poison to many but to never a fool like you. We are grinding slowly so that you may live a few moments more. Where is the hurry to die?" they asked; "There is no hurry as such," said Socrates. "I have seen a good deal of life, now I wish to see death also. One play has finished now I am eager to witness the beginning of the next."
The poison was handed over to Socrates. He drank as if he was witnessing some other person drinking, the poison. He then lay down and began to observe himself.
"The feet have begun to get cold," said Socrates.
"It is not only the feet - you have started to become cold," said his friends.
' How can that be, when I can .feel the feet getting cold? I am the same as before... Now the poison has come up to the knees... Now it spreads over my abdomen.. . Now the hands and feet feel as if they are not there - I can feel them no longer."
"You talk thus and you, yourself, are turning cold!" his friends wailed.
"But I am as I was before the poison was given. The only difference is that the hands and feet are gone. The story of these hands and feet has come to an end. Another one will start now perhaps, but I am the same; I am still the observer."
He who has always observed life, observes death also; and how can death come to him who can face it? For he who is accomplished in the Witness-State, attains eternity.
Swami Ram went to America. He was a strange person. A few such individuals are born once in a while in the world; and that is how this earth becomes an interesting place. He was a very strange man. If anyone abused him in the streets, he would stand and laugh. He would go home and tell his friends: "Shall I tell you something? Ram was abused like anything today in the market-place!"
When people asked: "Ram was abused - or you?"
He replied: "Me? Who knows me? Nobody knows me. How will they abuse me? They know Ram and so abuse him. And when they reviled him, I was sitting within and watching the fun. 'Now take the brick-bats, sir!' I told him."
"Ram went to a village..." That is how Swami Ram spoke of himself: "Ram went to a village and he fell in a ditch! How T laughed! 'Well done!' I said: 'that is what happens when you do not watch your step!'"
When people asked him, "Who are you talking about?" He would reply: "Who? Ram, of course!"
"And who are you?"
"I am just a spectator. This is the story of Ram that I am witnessing. It is Ram's drama, and I am watching it."
This technique of becoming an observer in life is the essence of the secret of religion. Witness life, and an altogether new life begins. This beginning ends in Truth; in that reality which is never born, which never dies and which is not a dream If we remain in a somnolent state, absorbed in dreams, this reality may be lost to us.
There are very few fortunate ones who realize the truth of existence. The majority of us live and die in slumber. We have to awaken from this dream life, in order to realize That which is not a dream; we have to become aware of the drama in order to recognize that which is not a drama. That reality is the soul itself, God Himself. Whatever name we give it - truth, god, the universal spirit - man is liberated as soon as he realizes it. Since all lies belong to the dream-world, they are false and untrue. Once this is experienced, one realizes that one was always free! What immeasurable bliss and joy this knowledge brings in its wake! There is no way of gauging its dimensions, nor can it be expressed in words, nor is there a method of conveying this joy. It can only be lived and experienced.
In the direction of living in Truth, it is important to remember these two rules:
(i) Life is a dream; (ii) We are the witness.
This can only be felt and understood by experimentation. Put these two rules to trial; for until you experiment, you will not get even a vague notion of reality.
Nothing helps to discover reality: neither the telling of beads nor the chanting of mantras; nor the reading of the Geeta or the Koran; nor also by going to temples and performing the various types of worship. These are not the ways; nor does any other method disclose Truth except the awakening to the unreality of temporal life, and becoming a mere witness to it. It is then alone that the positive change takes place, and everything is transformed.
But this is a matter of self-application and nobody else can do it for you. You will have to traverse this path yourself; it cannot be done by proxy. The peaks of Girnar, can be reached by hiring a palanquin, but there is no such arrangement to scale the heights of Truth: one has to rely on one's own feet. Also, there are no marked roads that lead to Truth. One has to make one's own path as one goes along.
As we proceed in this witness-state, so the path unfolds before us; and once the door opens, no matter how little, there is so much left to be done by ourselves. That lithe opening then, keeps calling the individual; it attracts him so that he cannot help but be drawn towards it. If a man jumps from a roof, he cannot stop to ask what he has to do next; the ground will do the needful - the gravitation of the earth will pull him down. His work is over as soon as he leaps; the earth then takes over and finishes the rest for him.
Once a man leaps into the witness-state, he has nothing more to do himself. Then the pull of the Universal Spirit, the gravitation of God, does the rest. As long as we stand in the dream world, this power does not work, but as soon as we break through the dream world, and jump out of it, the pull of God begins to work. Then, when a man walks one step towards God, he walks a thousand step towards him. Then, a slight effort and the reward is a thousand-fold; one feeble call evokes a flood of response from Him!
But we are such, we refuse to budge even an inch from our dream-state. Rather, we are forever occupied in strengthening its walls from all sides. He who is surrounded by lesser things, begins to dream of bigger things. A member of parliament begins to dream of becoming a cabinet minister; one staying in a hut dreams of owning a palace. The dream of living in a hut is a painful dream; the dream of living in a palace is an enjoyable dream; so all those whose dreams are painful, dream of more fulfilling dreams. Those in Junagadh, wish themselves in Delhi... and so the dreams are preserved and strengthened because we refuse to stop dreaming. And the more we dream, the further we are from Truth. Dreams are to be destroyed and not nurtured - but we are displeased and upset if anyone talks of destroying our dreams!
A famous doctor of England has dedicated a book to George Gurdjieff - a western fakir. His words of dedication have appealed to me immensely: "To George Gurdjieff - the disturber of my sleep."
There are a few such in the world, who disturb our sleep but they are never liked nor appreciated:
for the world is fast asleep, lost to its dreams. Then, when such a one comes along, who disturbs our sleep and tries to shake us out of our torpor, we oppose him with all our might. But alas, the one who has stepped outside the dream world, finds his soul yearning to get others also out of their slumber, to witness That which lies outside the dream world - to know the world of Truth. Those that know not truth, know not life, and in their slumber they let life's meaning pass by. They lose everything because of their apathy.
Those that sleep are the losers; those that have awakened, they alone attain the wealth, the beauty, the prosperity of life. Please remember these two short rules: Life is a dream and man has to be only a witness thereof. As the witness-state develops, the dreams begin to break until only That remains in the end, which is the Reality, which is the Truth.