dreamyoga

When we begin to spiritually awaken, it is like waking up inside of a dream and recognizing that everything we are experiencing is nothing other than a very convincing projection, or display of our mind. The boundary between inner and outer, between dreaming and waking starts to dissolve, and we begin to realize that the same dreaming mind that is dreaming our dreams at night is dreaming our life. We realize that there is a Deeper Dreaming Self that is having a dream and we are it. This Deeper Dreaming Self is active in us at all times and is continually seeking to express it itself. If we recognize the dreaming process that is happening right now, we can step into it and help it unfold consciously. It will activate our own inherent process of awakening and reconnect us with ourselves.

It is as though there is a dream that is trying to be dreamt through each and all of us — both individually and collectively. The universe is a field through which this deeper, dreaming process is continually expressing it itself. Recognizing the deeper dream, or archetypal myth that we have been acting out in our waking life reconnects us not only with the deeper ground of the psyche but also with other people, as everybody is seen to be fellow actors in a divine drama. This gives our lives a deeper sense of meaning, which makes suffering more bearable. When we begin to awaken to the dream-like nature of things we realize that waking reality doesn’t exist in the way we thought it did, as something separate from us. Saying it is a dream, our own projection, reflection, is the same thing as saying it is nothing other than our own mind appearing in a convincing, externalized display. Everything that happens is seen to be the unmediated expression of our mind, which we now understand can just as easily express it itself in outer events as it does in inner feelings, dreams or intuition.

By saying that our waking reality is some sort of a dream, which is the same thing as saying that it is a projection of our mind, the implication is that how we view it actually effects how it appears. This is very clear in lucid dreaming, where the dream is realized to be the unmediated manifestation of our mind. Once we realize this, we don’t become conditioned by, and react to, the reflections as something solid, real, and autonomous (as a kitten would looking in a mirror), we just recognize them as our own energy appearing externally. Our relationship to the universe changes dramatically. The waking state is seen to be a manifestation of “something deeper,” just like the rays of the sun are the manifestation of the sun. In the same way that the rays are not separate from the sun, but rather are a perfect expression of it, waking reality is not separate from this “something deeper” but is it itself a perfect expression of it.

The question then becomes: what would we do if we did wake up in this dream and recognize that This was all our own mind? How would we dream it on if we were to have this realization? Imagine that there are all these other people in our dream who are so asleep that it is as though they have fallen under an enchantment. They’ve become absorbed into the dream and have become so identified with their roles that they literally have forgotten who they are. They are truly suffering a case of mistaken identity. And they’re all just aspects of we. It is as if our task is to try and wake up parts of ourselves that have fallen asleep. As the Deeper Dreaming Self, we are always dreaming each other up in exactly the role that is needed. It is an amazing realization when we discover that we can’t help but play the role that other people have dreamt up for us.

You, as the Deeper Dreaming Self (our True Self) have dreamt up this blog posting right now - at this very moment. And I, of course, by writing it, effortlessly stepped right into playing and fulfilling exactly the role you dreamt up for me. Even to say that someone else stepped into a role that you dreamt up for them is to say too much. As it is all just us. There is no one else. It is exactly as if you were having a dream and into your dream walked a dream character who was having an awakening (he has become lucid in “his” dream). Let’s make it even more real than that, let’s imagine that this dream character expressed himself by sending you a blog posting such as this. Who is this dream character other than the awake part of yourself? He knows that he’s being dreamt by something deeper. He is a mirror, a reflection, a manifestation of the awake part of you. It is also no accident that he has delivered this article into your dream; he is trying to engage you.

It is our own awakeness appearing in seemingly separate, externalized form. It is clearly our own projection, something we’ve thrown out of ourselves. We’re trying to step back into ourselves. It is a situation that we, as the Deeper Dreaming Self, have clearly dreamt up. This dream character realizes that the “I” who he thought he was, including the body that he’s been identifying with all this time, is not only not who he is, but is itself being dreamt by “something deeper” - by the “Deeper Dreaming Self.” Becoming lucid means that he’s recognized his true identity with the Deeper Dreaming Self, which is dreaming the entire dream. This is the same thing as saying that he has recognized his unity with the entire dream, which is realized to be nothing other than the manifestation, or expression of the Deeper Dreaming Self. Just like the waves of the ocean are not separate from, but are the expression or manifestation of the ocean. It is as if one wave discovered that it was one with the entire ocean, and hence, with all waves. Nothing has to be added, one just discovers an already existing fact.

This awakening dream character has had an expansion of identity from a skin-encapsulated ego, or separate self (which experiences itself as being disconnected from the rest of the dreamscape ) to a larger, much more all-embracing identity, which recognizes that the dream is nothing other than a very convincing display of his true nature. This is analogous to having an experience of the transitional stage after death and of rebirth. Our dream character also realizes that he can consciously step into this universal dream that we all are sharing and unfolding. He can help co-create and co-dream the dream to its highest unfolding, whatever and wherever that may be. When he realizes his identity with the Deeper Dreaming Self, he also recognizes that everybody else has the same Deeper Dreaming Self. He realizes that there is just one Deeper Dreaming Self and it is not only his own True Self, but it is the True Self for everyone. Everybody else is in the same condition, but they just haven’t recognized it yet. At the point when we understand this, is when we become that awakened dream character who can then step consciously into the next person’s dream. We then become the mirrored reflection of their own awakened self. And what would we do other than to try and awaken them in as gentle, loving and creative a way as possible? When enough people awaken to this situation, and this is simply a matter of when the Deeper Dreaming Self dreams that enough people awaken to it, we can begin to create something we call “global awakening”. This is really a question of stepping into and owning not only our negative shadow, but our positive shadow also.

We begin to realize that this isn’t a universe that we are just passively observing but one that we are also actively participating in and co-creating with. At this moment we step into our Bodhisattvahood, which is who we are meant to be. We realize that there is no separate “self” or “other”, just “Self”. Out of this awareness naturally arises genuine compassion.