Life Is A Dream, Realize It!

By Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba

"Life Is A Dream, Realize It!' is the third in the series of books written by the authoress, Ms. Joy Thomas, based on Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba's four maxims on life. She has written all these books based on her experiences and the teachings of Bhagawan as also from her interactions with devotees.

In this book, she writes about various types of dreams and finally concludes that life itself is a dream from which everyone must awaken and get realisation of the true self. She has discussed sin and repentance, cleansing of mind and service, practising the teachings of Bhagawan in life in order to get His grace, what is true wisdom, what is meant by 'living in God', etc. among other subjects.

There is an interesting incident involving the author and Prof. N. Kasturi. She has written about the doubt of a Balvikas student about the purpose of life and how she dealt with it.

For the benefit of readers, she has included 108 sayings of Bhagawan Baba kept for daily practice by her husband for helping him to follow His teachings. There is a chapter on the parable 'Return Of The Prodigal Son' in which the author stresses on keeping the sense of discrimination pure without any prejudice. The author also describes in detail the five sheaths that cover the human body.

This book is an illustration of the author's efforts to awaken from the dream of what one is not and how to attain full realisation of what one really is, and of the impact of Bhagawan's teachings and the power of His presence to transform the life of anyone who chooses to follow His teachings. She has cited a number of sayings of Bhagawan Baba and also that of Jesus Christ, to back her views on the different subjects that she has dealt with in this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sri Sathya Sai Sadhana Trust, Publications Division
• Release date: Oct 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9789350691830

Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Sri Sathya Sai Baba was born as Sathyanarayana Raju on November 23rd, 1926 in the village of Puttaparthi, in the state of Andhra Pradesh in South India. Even as a child, His spiritual inclination and contemplative nature set Him apart from other children of His age, and He was known as 'Guru' and "Brahmajnani' among His peers and others in the village. On October 20th, 1940, He made the historic declaration of His Avatarhood and the world at large learnt of this divine phenomenon. Today, millions of devotees worship Him as an 'Avatar' and an incarnation of the Sai Baba of Shirdi.Revealing the purpose of His Advent, Sai Baba has said that He has come to re-establish the rhythm of righteousness in the world and repair the ancient highway to God, which over the years has systematically deteriorated.Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba is an integral manifestation who combines two very significant roles. Firstly, He is a great spiritual Master, famed for His simple and sweet exposition of the greatest and most intricate of spiritual truths which form the fundamental teachings of all the religions of the world. His formula for man to lead a meaningful life is the five-fold path of Sathya, Dharma, Shanthi, Prema, and Ahimsa. Love for God, fear of sin and morality in society - these are His prescriptions for our ailing world.Secondly, He is an inexhaustible reservoir of pure love. His numerous service projects, be it free hospitals, free schools and colleges, free drinking water supply or free housing projects, all stand testimony to His selfless love and compassion for the needy and less privileged. True to His declaration - "My Life is My Message", He has inspired and continues to inspire millions of His devotees worldwide by His personal example to live the ideal that service to man is service to God.Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba is a beacon of hope in the world. A devotee said, "Bhagawan Baba is nothing but Love walking on two feet."

Book preview

Chapter One

SLEEPING AND WAKING DREAMS

From a very early age, I have been taught by dreams which occurred during sleep. I did not always understand the significance of those dreams at the time, but the more important ones refused to depart from my memory. It was as if they came to reawaken information I had stored up in previous incarnations and had not yet learned or remembered in this lifetime. It was a combination of the teachings of Sathya Sai Baba and His grace, which led me into awareness of the meaning, as well as the meaninglessness, behind both sleeping and waking dreams.

As a child, I had what might be referred to as a recurring nightmare. It was a dream of being chased by a bear through fields, across rivers, up and down hills and mountains, without ever getting away or being caught. I always awoke from this dream feeling tired, frightened, and frustrated. Finally, one night, I became an observer of this dream. My body was still running away from the bear, but I was aware that it was a dream and that I no longer had to be victimized or deluded by it. All I have to do is wake up, I told myself. I began making an all-out effort to open my eyes. It was a tremendous battle. My eyelids felt as if they had fifty-pound weights attached to them, but I refused to give up. At last, I managed to open the eyelids only a tiny crack, but it was enough to let the light come through. The light woke me up and the dream disappeared. It tried several more times to frighten me as it had done so many times before, but each time I promptly opened my eyes, let in the light, and awakened.

All of that took place over sixty years ago and it has only been quite recently that my Friend, Preceptor, Father, and Lord, Sathya Sai Baba, has bestowed on me the necessary experiences and understanding to put the same technique into practice in regard to the waking dream. He has told us many times that all of these worldly experiences are illusory. Specifically, He states, All this is a dream and you are all actors.(2) And He explains:

The castles and towers you see in dreams melt into nothing when you open your eyes. I am talking to you now and you are hearing Me. You look at Me with your eyes and you feel that all of this is true. Certain things are happening to you and they appear to be real — not a dream. You go to the canteen, eat your dinner, and then go to bed. You experience a dream in which you are talking to someone in your hometown. While you dream, it seems very real, but when you wake up, you find that it was unreal. But, both are dreams — one a night dream and the other a day dream. During both dreams, you are present and you experience the events. So, you alone are real. The rest is a mixture of true and false.(3)

It sometimes seems quite difficult to open our eyes, let in the light, and awaken from our daily experiences, but it is possible and ultimately, we must do it. There are many people working diligently to achieve a total awakening. Their degrees of success vary. We can assume that most of us are in that stage of learning, during which we sometimes awaken promptly, sometimes only after a mighty struggle, and sometimes our waking dreams continue to delude us into thinking that they are very real.

The story is told about another spiritual aspirant, who had a recurring nightmare exactly the same as the one which plagued me. She, too, became extremely tired of the nightly chase over hill and dale. Finally, one night, as the bear chased her long and persistently, she felt that she could not run another step. She stopped, turned to face the bear, and in great frustration asked, Why? Why are you doing this to me? The bear stopped in his tracks also. He appeared to think for a moment, turned his front paws upward to indicate his inability to answer her question, then replied, I don’t know, lady. It’s your dream.

When tempted to blame another for our problems, our unhappiness, or our unfulfilled desires, if we could just close our eyes for a moment and hear those words: It’s your dream! Baba has told us over and over again, Do not search for the faults of others; seek your own.(4) The faults you see in others are but projections of your own.(5) When we find ourselves resisting the experiences which are playing themselves out in either our waking or sleeping dreams, we can pray, Father, please show me the significance of this experience and help me learn whatever I need to learn. Let me recognize that all of us are only playing our roles and that, in reality, there is only one Actor, one Director, and one Playwright.

After I thought this chapter was finished, my husband, Raye, who is my strongest supporter and my toughest critic, insisted that it was incomplete. Although I considered his comments very seriously, nothing more came to me to say. However, as I was writing a later chapter, I felt that it would be helpful to check the meaning of a Biblical term in the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary. When I opened the dictionary, the first word I saw was ‘bear’. How strange that in all the years which have passed since the dreams of being chased by a bear, it had never occurred to me to look up the symbolism connected with ‘bear’. This is what I read:

The Bear is a constellation or group of stars called Ursa Major, but commonly known as the Great Bear....

Man, we are told, is a universe in himself. Everything in the outside world has its counterpart in man. Stars represent high, noble, overcoming thoughts; sometimes, they are symbolical of the faculties and powers of man. It is said of the saints that they will shine as the stars forever and ever, and Christ is called the bright morning star. Stars also represent revelations of truth that are as yet remote. The human mind cannot conceive the wonders and immensity of the universe of stars. In the same way, there are endless revelations of Truth that are beyond our present range of comprehension, but we shall understand them all in time. As we come into the understanding of ourselves and of our own inner world, we become able to grasp more and more fully the phenomena of the outer world and so, we turn within for light....

As we progress and unfold in spiritual consciousness [and become] capable of [understanding] the remote revelations of Truth, which the stars stand for, we shall be able to comprehend all things and nothing will be impossible to us.(6)

Many have had the dream of being chased by a bear. Can we say that we are being pursued by ‘the endless revelations of Truth that are beyond our present range of comprehension’? Does our own inner world take every opportunity to bring us into the recognition of its reality, forcing us to turn away from outer phenomena and to turn within for light? If we answer yes to these questions, then we must recognize every waking dream and every sleeping dream as only God’s insistence that we recognize Him within ourselves. Everything is a sign of His grace.

The Atma is unbound at first, but later it is seen as limited and restricted. Through good deeds and activities, it resumes its vastness and boundlessness. Everyone without exception has the opportunity to achieve this transformation. When the time is ripe, everyone can succeed in this and liberate himself from the bounds and bonds.

However, the Cosmos will not end. It is eternal, incapable of being destroyed. This is the explanation given by the second school of philosophy in India. The first school of philosophy is that of Dualism or Dwaita. The second school is termed Visishta-Adwaita or Limited Non-Dualism. It is a higher stage of spiritual inquiry and experience than Dualism, and it posits three entities: God, the Atma, and Nature, and speaks of an integration of the three.

The Dualists posit that the Cosmos is a vast machine, designed and operated by God. The Limited Non-Dualists declare that it is a phenomenon that is interpenetrated by and imbued with the Divine. The third school of philosophy, the Adwaitins or Non-Dualists, assert that God is not outside the Cosmos, that He became the Cosmos and that He is all that is. There is nothing except God, no other, no second. This truth has to be accepted by all. This is the Highest Truth. To say that God is the Atma and that the Cosmos is the Body, which He operates and lives in, is not correct. To assert that the Atma (God) is eternal and changeless, but that the Cosmos, which is His Body, can be subject to change and transformation is equally unsatisfying.

What is signified by the expression: God is the Proximate Cause of the Cosmos? Proximate Cause means the cause, which produced the effect. The effect is simply the cause in another form. It cannot be separated from the cause. Every effect that we notice is but the cause, which has assumed a new form. The Cosmos is the Effect; God is the Cause. These statements only stress the fact that the Cosmos is still God, but in another form. When it is argued that the Body is limited and subtle, and that it leads one to the Cause, that is, God, or that the body has evolved and taken shape from God, the Non-Dualists would reply that it was God Himself, Who manifested in the form of the Cosmos.

It may be doubted whether all this multiplicity of things and beings are really God, but, yes, it is the Truth. All that the senses cognize, that come into the awareness, are God. There is nothing else but He. Our bodies, minds, intellects, consciousness - all are God.

Here, another doubt may arise. Why should God be so many individualized beings. Why should He be so many Jivatmas? Will God, Who is of one Form, manifest Himself as so many? How did this happen? If God had transformed Himself into the Cosmos, He would have subjected Himself to change. All things in Nature are, by their very composition, subject to change and they suffer both birth and death. If God has come within the precincts of change, does it mean that He, too, has to die someday? Has He to undergo change and ultimately end? Keep in mind this point also. Then, there is another point to be considered. How much of God, what portion of God, became the Cosmos?

The Non-Dualists say, "Whatever portion you may allot, remember this: the Cosmos does not exist. It is an illusion. It never is, has been, or will be. The Creation of the Cosmos, the dissolution of the Cosmos, these billions of individuals emerging and merging, all this is but a dream. There is no individualized Jivatma at all, no separated Atma. How can there be billions of Jivatmas? There is only One Indivisible Complete Absolute. Like the one Sun reflected as a billion suns in a billion lakes, ponds, and drops of water, the Jivatmas are but reflections of the One in the minds that it shines upon. This is what Bharatiya thought emphasizes most clearly through the Adwaitin thinkers. Those, who cannot grasp this truth, are under the influence of Maya or Delusion, it can be said.

Dreams, too, have to be based on reality. Without a basic reality, the dependent idea or fact cannot exist. Without a basic thing, subsequent beings cannot manifest. That base is God or Iswara. He is Full; He is the Mind, the Body, the Atma. You are only as real as a dream. For the eye that can see reality, the Cosmos is not this multiplicity of name and form. It is Being-Awareness-Bliss. Just think of your dream. It does not arise from somewhere outside of you, nor do the varied images and activities disappear into some place outside you. They arise in you and disappear into you. While dreaming, you consider the events and persons as real, and you experience, as really as in the waking stage, the feelings of grief, delight, fear, anxiety, and joy. You do not dismiss them at the time as illusory.

The Cosmos is the dream of God; it arises in Him and merges into Him. It is the product of His Mind. These lives and repeated arrivals are all the fanciful weavings of Maya, unreal fantasies, illusory agitations, unreal appearances. You are the Full; you are God. God is You. Those, who have experienced this highest wisdom, can attain oneness with the One, here and now.(7)

—Sathya Sai Baba

Chapter Two

THE CLYTEMNESTRA DREAM

Baba has said, What you see and feel in a dream has some basis in what you have seen and felt in the waking state; so too, what you see and feel in the present life has as its basis what you have seen and felt in other lives, previous lives.(8) I have experienced the truth of this statement somewhat dramatically in this lifetime.

A number of years before learning about Baba, I was in deep meditation and heard someone calling repeatedly, Clytemnestra, Clytemnestra! Although I had been in a state of no thought, suddenly I seemed to become the observer of the mind as it began to try to shut out the sound of the call. The thought came that if I answered the call, that would be tantamount to admitting that I was Clytemnestra and I didn’t want to do that. However, as the caller persisted, I seemed to feel that it was necessary to respond in some manner and so, I heard my voice responding, Clytemnestra? Who’s that? The other voice spoke very matter-of-factly, saying, Agamemnon’s wife, of course.

With that, my resistance melted and memories came flooding back. It was a day in my fourteenth year. Agamemnon and I had been married only a short time, the marriage having been arranged by our parents. Prior to the wedding, I had been a princess in my own country, treated with great honor. Now that I was married to Agamemnon, I found that I was only the queen—and a foreign one at that. Not only was I not shown the respect that I had become accustomed to, but I was expected to be subservient to Agamemnon, constantly bowing and kowtowing to him as though I were not of royal parentage the same as he. On this particular day, however, we were out on a pleasure trip in our very primitive, hand-hewn sail boat. We were, for the most part, enjoying the outing.

However, when the wind changed suddenly and the sail swung around, I was struck from behind by the boom and knocked to my knees. The knees were injured severely and my first reaction was that our lovely day had been spoiled. However, as weeks passed without much improvement, I began to realize that the knee injury had released me from much of the bowing and kneeling, which I had resented. I accepted the situation as a mixed blessing. Since knee problems and resentment of male authority have both been in evidence during this incarnation, this memory seemed to have some validity and to serve as the basis for some of the thoughts I brought into this lifetime.

As I continued allowing memories to resurface, however, they became more and more unpleasant. Agamemnon and I had two daughters and a son: Iphigenia, Electra, and Orestes. I loved all three of my children very much, but Electra always insisted that I cared more for Iphigenia and Orestes than I did for her. Nothing