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Vedanta - Avasthatraya
by Y. Subrahmanya Sarma
in 14 Sep 2006
 (...previous)  My waking condition, for instance, includes, on this view, the whole universe of my precepts and concepts, the entire universe containing all that I perceive, all that I can infer or imagine or conceive in that state; not merely men, animals and things, suns, moons and stars, angels, devils, and other spirits, or even imaginary persons, creatures and things inhabiting worlds ever conceived in poetry or fiction, or creation of frenzied brains, but also my own body, mind, intellect and ego as well. In one sweep, I include all the subjective and the objective elements of my waking and stand, as it were, an unaffected witness of this vast panorama.
It must not be forgotten that waking time, past, present and future, is wholly within this broad embrace of Waking; so it’s space with its distinctions of here and there, up and down. The disposition of the mind herein depicted may be very difficult for one to adopt; but granted the willingness to take a detached view of things and the capacity to reflect, one cannot escape the conclusion that the witness of the waking condition is, in fact, the witness of all that is perceivable or conceivable there, of all the worlds with which one commerces in actual experience or imagination there. I may refer the reader interested in this study to Śaṅkara's commentary on the Mandukya where Ātman in the Waking State as described as (consisting of seven organs). Śaṅkara shows there how the Ātman in Waking is, as the witnessing Consciousness identical with all the embodied selves.
If we now turn to a consideration of the Dream State, and assume the same attitude of dissociation, we are struck with the marvellously identical nature of the two conditions. No doubt, from the monobasic view which induces us to identify ourselves with the little ego of Waking alone, we are persuaded that the waking word is common to a number of souls in contrast with dreams which are exclusively our own. But the moment we incline to the tribasic view of Vedānta, the moment we wish to occupy a position from where we can examine all the three states without any partiality for either the waking ego or the dreaming ego, the scene changes entirely.
The Dream condition now presents an exact replica of Waking, so much so that we are at a loss to fix up any marks of identity by which to recognize Waking as such. For in Dream we are confronted with all the contexts both subjective and objective, set in an exactly similar framework of time, space and causation. (Compare the Mandukya Mantras which apply the same epithets and to the states). On waking, of course, we do detect that dreams are only subjective and temporary and that the phenomena there are neither coherent nor governed by irreversible laws of time or causation; but as this is only from a different thought-position where we identify ourselves with the waking ego, the conclusion drawn from the impartial view described above remains unaffected.
An important corollary from the identical nature of Dream and Waking thus established, is that the witnessing Ātman, who is the sole warranty for this identification, has to be necessarily regarded as transcending the limitations of both the subjective and the objective aspects of either state. A verse in the Kathopanishad declares this profound truth thus: “That great all-pervading One, through whom one is enabled to see both dream and waking, realizing Him as the Ātman the wise man grieves no more”. Time, space and causality appropriate to each state are found in either; and so are the subjective and the objective parts of the world peculiar to each state. Now, while as the ego in each state, we are undoubtedly subjected to the joys and sorrows of the particular world, it is not difficult to see that, as the witnessing Ātman who spans both the states, we transcend both, and are above all the petty joys and cares of the passing moods. The Brihadaranyaka, gives a striking illustration of this when it compares Ātman to a mighty fish which swims from bank to bank of a river unaffected by the gushing stream which it cuts across.
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