22. Bed Time Stories

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There is a verse in the Gita which says that the moment of death is very crucial in deciding the future of the departing soul. It was told that depending on what we think at the moment of death, our next birth will be decided. So, if we are able to hold our attention on the ‘I Am’ i.e. pure awareness without thoughts, then we attain realization (or rather, remember what we actually are). Bhagavata also tells about this through the story of Ajamila. But it looked a little childish to me. “How can just the death moment decide everything?” So, I asked our friend Krishna to explain.

Krishna – “When you go to bed everyday, before you fall asleep, what do you usually think?”

Ego – “I am a young lad. So, I think of the bright future. I see myself having romantic moments with a beautiful wife in a high-class house. I see myself roaming with her in a costly car. I imagine that I will be very successful in my profession and I become a hero in my workplace. All will be appreciating my work and praising me to the rooftops. I imagine that one day all my enemies will burn in jealousy and go mad seeing my success. Then I will look at them and laugh at them. Sometimes I even think of me going to bollywood and becoming a super star. Or becoming a great singer. I have got Bharataratna and Nobel at least 4-5 times in my imaginations. Ahh.. There are so many of them. I cannot list all”

Krishna – “No problem, I got the point. So, finally everything revolves around Girl, Money and Fame. I will come back to this in a short while. First let us see what sleep is.

When you slip into sleep, you first go into dream state. You forsake your physical body and hold onto another body – the dream body. You strongly hold onto it same as how you are now holding onto the current physical body. In the dream, you will go to any extent to protect that dream body. That body becomes your everything and you believe that if that body dies you will become extinct. So, going into dream state was similar to death and rebirth. You were always existent, you left one body and caught another body.

The very first dream that you hold on to, will depend on the thoughts that were running in your head before you went into dream. The type of dream body you get, the type of situation you will be in – all these will depend on what you were thinking just before you slipped into sleep. Then you go on dreaming one after the other in a sequence depending on what type of impressions are stronger in you for the time being.

Now, I will give you an assignment. Try contemplating on some spiritual concepts before falling asleep. Try for four days and then come to me.”

I tried to think of spirituality, ‘Who Am I’ etc during the next for days, before going to sleep. I would think for a short while, but then slowly the strong attractions would pull me and I would begin day-dreaming. Beautiful girl, money, bungalow, getting an award in front of millions of people and so on and so forth. And this way, I would slowly slip into sleep and continue the same stories in my dream state. After four days I went back to Krishna.

Krishna – “So, what happened? Could you do it?”

Ego – “No, before sleeping, the attractions of day-dreaming are very powerful. I could not push them away. I only thought of bright and colorful situations and me becoming a hero.”

Krishna – “Dying is same as going to sleep. During death, you will leave the physical body, and hold onto a subtle body (Sukshma Sharira). Subtle body is nothing but what you hold on to in the dream state. And what type of subtle body you get will solely depend on what you are thinking at the moment of death. And if you do not think of anything and only hold on to your pure awareness, then automatically you will not hold onto any body. You will be free, or rather you will realize that you are free.

But as you said, even before sleeping, it is not easy to carry out spiritual contemplations in the mind, let alone holding onto the awareness ‘I Am’. Then how can it possibly be easy when you die? People have misunderstood Ajamila’s story. You cannot possibly spend your whole life in junk and finally utter ‘Krishna’. If one has spent his whole life busy in worldly things, then that is the only thing he will think of during death. Your previous attachments will not let you off so easily. It will require constant practice and effort. That is what the whole of Yoga is about – Abhyasa and Vairagya – to ceaselessly train the mind to think of one thing and ignore the rest. Ajamila was a spiritually oriented person before he took to sensual enjoyments. His spiritual impressions were quite strong even though he got diverted for a few years. And then on his death bed, his hidden but strong impressions came out and he remembered me.

Spirituality and Self-enquiry have to enter your veins, diffuse into your blood and vibrate in every cell of your body. Only then it will effortlessly come up in your mind. Currently, it is girls, money and fame that is vibrating in every cell of your body. Throughout the day, all your discussions will finally be related to one of those three things. They are the most popular websites in the internet of you mind. So, obviously, when you do a Google search for any keyword, they will somehow lead to the websites of girl, money and fame within your mind. When you are young, you dream of your future related to these three things, and when you are old, you think of the past related to these three things. By ‘fame’ it need not be something big. It may be small and petty recognitions from the people around you, your family and relatives etc. They may be small or big – it varies only in degree – but finally you munch primarily only these three. And it is not necessary that you think only pleasant things. You are now young and unmarried. So you dream only of a pleasant future. But when you are married you will start thinking about both the joy and the difficulties associated with these three. Then ‘Girl’ will be replaced by ‘Family’ (not fully ;) ). And when you are old, you will advertise your past glory (?) or brood over the misery related to these three.”

Ego – “So, how to change this pattern of thinking? It seems to be very difficult.”

Krishna – “Arjuna asked me the same thing in the Gita and I answered with two key words – ‘Abhyasa’ and ‘Vairagya’ (Gita 6.34 and 6.35).

You cannot think of spirituality as a profession where you think of it for a specific period of time everyday and then forget about it. Yoga is a way of life. It should slowly begin to define everything about you. The internet of your mind is constantly active and opening some website (thought) or the other. Currently money, girl and fame are at the top visited websites. Now, you have to bring thoughts (websites) related to spirituality to the top of the ratings in your internet (mind). And it can be done only gradually, not suddenly. For that, you have to slowly begin controlling everything around you. The type of movies that you watch, the type of discussions that you have with others, the type of people you mingle with, the type of songs you listen to, the type of food you eat (important!), the type of books you read and so on. With this you will increase the number of hits to spiritual websites and reduce the hits to other websites. Increased hits on spiritual thoughts is Abhyasa and reduced hits on all other thoughts is Vairagya. Both have to happen together. Inch by inch you will progress and one day you will notice that your entire day is spent thinking about spirituality and in self-enquiry.”

Ego – “So, one day I will be contemplating on spiritual concepts before my sleep?”

Krishna – “Definitely. Consequently even in your dream, spirituality will continue. It is as effective as in the wakeful state. And if you are performing Self-enquiry in the wakeful state, the same enquiry will continue even in the dream state. If you realize your Self in the dream, it is same as realizing it in the wakeful state. No difference.

You can use the pre-sleep period as the yardstick of your progress. Note the kind of thoughts before sleep once in a few days. As I told some time back, do not suppress, feel bad etc when other thoughts come. It will only make them more powerful. At the same time try not involve too much when other thoughts come. You just do the necessary things during your daily activities and just patiently wait for the changes to happen in the internet of your mind. The changes are gradual and only those changes which are gradual will sustain. Rate of change may vary – fast, slow – but it has to be gradual, not a jump. No website can become #1 in a day”.

Ego – “Controlling all sense inputs - isn’t that Pratyahara?”

Krishna – “Oh good, you remember! Once that is done for some time, Dharana will become more and more evident (it will always be there, now it will only get intensified). Dharana means being able to keep the mind focused on one particular line of thoughts, or even one thought. In the beginning it may be only a fraction of a second, but slowly it will sustain for longer period of time. That means the required spiritual website has come to #1 ranking. But then still some effort is required to maintain it at #1. When that is also practiced for some time the website will become so popular that it will effortlessly stay as #1. That means the thought will come so easily and sustain that you only have to watch it. That is Dhyana – meditation. Even here, it is not that Dhyana was never done and it happened only after Dharana. Everyone does effortless thinking of a thought (say, a movie) for some time. But it fluctuates from one thought to another very often, and hence will not be evident. But, when Dhyana on one thought is also practiced for some time, then all other companies will shut down their websites since they have no visitors. Or your company will start acquiring all other websites and converting them into your websites. This will result in different layers of Samadhi. The more spirituality has spread in the internet of your mind, the more it has killed other impressions of the mind, the higher the Samadhi.

As I told you long back, all 8 limbs of Yoga are practiced together, not one after the other. There is a constant competition in your mind among the thoughts to come to #1 position. Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi keeps happening for different thoughts. But they fluctuate so rapidly among several websites as you do not know which one should be held on to. There is no stability in the stock market! One day you think very strongly about one girl and the other day another girl! So, you do Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi to a little degree on one girl for a few days. But the moment it comes to #1 and starts acquiring other thoughts of the mind, another girl comes and crashes the current girl website (thought). And after some time suddenly money will come to #1. This way it is very unstably fluctuating. So, it is impossible to get Samadhi with worldly things as you do not hold on to one object for long time. It is only possible with the concept of God, devotion, self-enquiry etc.”

Ego – “Looks like a long process!”

Krishna – “If you blindly and mechanically do it, it is long. But Self-Enquiry is the easiest way to perform all this. When the curiosity ‘Who Am I’ burns in you, automatically you will stop visiting all junk websites in the head. All the above will happen very fast. Or if you are inclined towards devotion, then also it is easier and faster. And if you are both an enquirer and a devotee, then it is super-rapid!”