Is life a dream?

In the Vedic philosophy,  the material world is described as a dream.  All of us have had the experience of a dream. While we are in the dream, everything that goes on, seems quite real. We move through the same register of emotions and impressions as when we are awake. In a dream we can experience misery or  enjoyment the same way we do as when awake.

So anyone can testify to the fact that their dreams seem real enough. What, then, is it that makes a dream unreal? Because it ends. When we wake up, we know, oh, it was only a dream. So it is the element of time, that makes a dream unreal. If the dream continued, that would be our reality.  But because it only lasts a few seconds, we know it is a dream. Real existence is continuous.

The funny thing is that life is exactly like that. Life is a dream in the sense that life has a beginning and an end. But because the 60, 80, or 100 years  it lasts feel like a life-time, we say that life is real. But in a cosmic time scale of, say, billions of years, our life-span of 60-80 years are but a few fleeting seconds. Next to a demigod with a lifespan of millions of years, our life would be more or less unreal. Actually, what we experienced a week ago might as well have been a dream. The enjoyment I had a week ago, now, is no more real than had it been something I experienced in a dream.

So in terms of time, the idea that life is illusory like a dream begins to make sense.  The crux is to understand the temporary in relation to the eternal. In contrast to eternal time our current temporary existence will always be fleeting and insubstantial; it will be a short flash - like a dream. Even a long dream like life comes to an end. Our perceived lifespan, however long, is such a miniscule glimpse in the vastness of eternity that it doesn’t even register. The same is true of the computer I am writing on.  In terms of eternity it is illusory.

Even if I left it sitting alone on my desk and never touched it, in due course, it would be demolished by time. It would be broken down into atoms and cease to exist. However long that would take is immaterial. To us a thousand or a million years may seem like a substantial amount of time but from the point of view of, say, Lord Brahma, the first created living being in the universe (who lives for the unfathomable length of time of 311.04 trillion years) surely my computer, the desk my computer sits on, as well as the house that surrounds the desk, cannot be said to exist. Before Lord Brahma even has time to finish his morning ablutions we would have been born and died thousands of times.

That’s why our present existence in a body that changes from childhood to youth to old age, is unreal and dream-like. Our life in this particular body has a beginning and an end, and for that reason it is a dream. Our life is not unreal in the sense that it does not happen. Obviously it does. If I bash my head against a wall it will hurt, and that pain is real enough. So the unreal factor about the body is not that it doesn’t take place but that it ends.

 That’s the real illusion of material life. One may consider his enjoyment in the material world very substantial. What’s wrong with enjoying? What’s wrong with seeking some happiness, one may ask? The answer is that the pleasure of life always  ends. That’s what’s wrong. Such pleasure can never satisfy the self, because the self is eternal and therefore hungers for lasting pleasure.  That's why no amount of bodily and mental gratification can satisfy the self.

Krishna's Gift

Just like you cleanse physical objects with water, you cleanse psychic obejects with sound. The highest cleansing power is the sound of Krishna's name.

That  which covers us and keeps us from realizing our real self, is our mind. The mind consists of thoughts, feelings, discrimination (intelligence), willpower, and false ego. Those are like a screen that covers the pure consciousness of the self. We are all eternal souls - minute particles of Krishna's conscoiusness. Krishna's consciousness consists of eternity, knowledge, and bliss, so we are minute particles of eternity, knowledge, and bliss, But these minute particles of pure consciousness - the soul - are at the moment covered by physical and psychic layers in the form of body and mind.

All souls, regardless of what kind of body they inhabit - whether plants, insects, fish, reptiles, birds, animals, or humans - are minute particles of eternity, knowledge, and bliss. That's whay all living entities always gravitate towards these three conditions - eternity, knowledge, and bliss. All living entities are pleasure seeking, they try to develop knowledge, and they possess the survival instinct.

The sound of Krishna's name will purify the filter of the mind, so that we will connect to our real selves. That means that by chanting Krishna's name we will experience higher forms of knowledge and bliss. That is the prediction.

It has nothing to do with some belief. If it is a scientific process as asserted by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, it will work, whatever is our belief.

It doesn't matter whether you are an Atheist, Buddhis, Hindu, Christian, Mohammedan, or a Republican, or whatever, if you chant the Hare Krishna mantra on a regular basis, you will connect to your real self beyond your thoughts, feelings and false ego, and when you contact your real self, it will be experienced as knowledge and bliss.

The wonderful thing about this religion, is that you do not have to become a Hare Krishna and shave your head and go out on the streets dancing and singing. You can sit right in your own living room and test it.

And what do you have to lose?

Just try to chant the following mantra -

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare

... say, 15 minutes a day for a week and see where it takes you.

That's BRAINWASHING, I hear someone yell :)

That's right. Our mind is poluted. It has accumulated so many traumas and misconceptions throughout countless of lives. It needs to be washed. And you wash it by the sound of God's name.

hare krsna hare krsna krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare
iti sodashakam namnam / kali-kalmasa-nashanam
natah parataropayah / sarva-vedesu drishyate

"The above mantra consisting of 16 words and 32 syllables, is the only means by which to protect against the evil influence of this age of Kali. By researching all the Vedas, one will find no more sublime process of religion than to recite the Hare Krishna mantra."

(Kali-santarana Upanishad)

We Want to be God

Today everyone can be a hero or a perfect man. It's the desire to be God that drives us. Not that we literally think we are God, but we regard ourselves as the enjoyers and controllers - that is only God's position. Krishna is the only controller and enjoyer. The soul has fallen down into the material world to imitate Krishna in that capacity.

At the present moment, of course, it is the age of Kali - a time when the physical and mental properties of man and the universal interaction is at a very low level, so most people don't know much. Most people are just mindless consumers going with the flow of society. But internet has saved us. Now evryone can become the hero they want to be.

Actually, Krishna is the only hero, but the soul tries to imitate Him. The natural, eternal position of the soul is to be the passive principle in relation to Krishna - but instead we play the role of active enjoyers. That's how we want to be God. In reality, it is only Krishna who is the most beloved son, the all-loving father, the most dear friend, and the most beautiful lover.

The soul can have 5 basic relationships with Krishna -

1. Shanta rasa is a neutral relationship with God. God is regarded as the original creator and cause of all causes, and the maintainer of everything.

2. Dasya rasa means that you see God as your Lord and master. You are willing to serve Him with your life and soul. Krishna is the most perfect and munificent lord one can have.

3. Sakhya rasa is the stage, where you see Krishna as your best and most intimate friend. Here the soul forgets that Krishna is God. He only regards Krishna as his best most beloved friend.

4. Vatsalya rasa is the parental relationship. Here the soul is Krishna's father or mother. You are God's parent. Krishna is your little kid.

5. In Madhurya rasa the soul only sees Krishna as her most intimate lover. You are God's girlfriend.

All the relationships we have in the material world to partner, children, family, friends, and society are nothing but distorted imitations of the soul's original relationship to God.

But in the material world, I am God.

Now, on internet, I can play God. I kan kill monsters and demons. I can go to war and win honor and power. I can save the maiden from peril, and win her heart - exactly as Krishna does. I can create worlds and lord it over my subjects. In this way, many people spend whole lives in Cyberspace, and act out their desires to play God.

Or if one is too much of a loser to play roles in cyberspace, you can sit in front of the TV, and watch all the heros doing what you would like to do. Accompanied by endless packets of cigarettes, cups of tea, and beer, you follow fiction characters on the screen, doing all the stuff you'd like to do.

Internet and movies and series are nothing but a diversion for the soul's perverted desires to act out as Krishna in His position as the highest controller and enjoyer.

Krishna says:

I am the only enjoyer and master of all sacrifices. Therefore, those who do not recognize My true transcendental nature fall down. (Bg. 9.24)