Daydreaming
Wednesday September 29 2004 08:19 IST
By Karmayogi
A French professor
writing about America in 1927 says there is no holding back
an American from unceasing hard toil when he knows the reward is great.
The Americans want to earn more by working longer hours and putting in higher
efficiency. Along with that, he says something which came to me as a
revelation. The European wants to earn more by giving less work. Until I read
that, it was a non-European phenomenon for me.
People dream, some daydream. The exceptional among them expect their dreams as
rewards in life, by virtue of their dreaming. All sensible men frown upon day
dreaming rightly. Dreams are the life in the subtle plane which readily reveals
in the sleeping hours.
Alert minds can detect such dreaming scenes during waking hours. It is right to
dismiss dreams as an idle pursuit, but it is not the entire truth.
What truth escapes our waking observation, the dream-self reveals at night in
the subtle plane. Scientists have had intuitive guidance in dreams. A disciple
was initiated into sannyasa by Ramana Maharshi in his dream.
Great seekers in all fields have had substantial guidance from their dreams. There
are great achievers who have succeeded far more than their compeers. Sometimes
the crown is offered to them but slips. It may happen several times too. Such
men need psychological guidance.
It comes to them in their dreams, even in their daydreams. To see the guidance
in it, accept it and act upon it, one should be lucky. One who had always risen
high in every walk of life but finished second was wondering why.
He often used to see a pencil in his dreams, a pencil which he had stolen, the
only theft. It means that little sly act has created a chink in his armour of
Truth. To be absolutely true is his possibility and goal. That knowledge will
change his life.
As ants sense the rain coming a day later, our dreams reveal what is in store
for us, if we have an eye for that. People who are ordinary failures in life
will have their defects physically staring at them before their very eyes. Their
friends will din it into their ears.
No subtle plane or dream-self is called for. Those who are not capable of
common folly and capable of extraordinary achievement, often have a higher
victory beckoning them. Dream is their occasion, subtlety is their tool. A room
not well swept will be quiet.
If you start cleaning the room to the best of your ability, you will trip over
a stool, under which there are the cobwebs of months.
The stool thus calls you to clean it also. It is the call of the stool that
made you trip over it revealing the cobwebs. Even daydreaming has its positive side.