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In the first comment on my previous article, What happens to our mind in sleep? , an anonymous friend wrote: ‘It cannot be correct that we experience ourselves in sleep and mind is absent. If that were true, everyone is realized during sleep. And once realized, he does not come back to the world. That is why it is said that the mind is in the dormant state. The I thought exists in its primitive form’. As this anonymous friend wrote, this seemingly common sense reasoning is why it is generally said that our mind or ego exists in sleep in a dormant condition (known as the kāraṇa śarīra or ānandamaya kōśa ), but such reasoning oversimplifies the issue, failing to recognise not only some important nuances but also some fairly obvious flaws in its own arguments. Let us therefore consider this issue in greater depth in order to see whether we can understand Bhagavan’s teachings in this regard more clearly. Nāṉ Yār? paragraph 1: in sleep we experience ourself in the absence of our mind Upa...

In a comment on one of my recent articles, Can we experience what we actually are by following the path of devotion ( bhakti mārga )? , an anonymous friend quoted a translation of verses 8 and 9 from Ātma-Vicāra Patikam (a song of eleven verses composed by Sri Sadhu Om about self-investigation, which is the first appendix in Sādhanai Sāram ). What he wrote in verse 9 is: நானெதென் றாய வஃது நலிவதற் கேதே தென்றால் நானெனு மக விருத்தி ஞானத்தின் கிரண மாகும் நானெனுங் கிரணத் தோடே நாட்டமுட் செல்லச் செல்ல நானெனுங் கிரண நீள நசித்துநான் ஞான மாமே. nāṉedeṉ ḏṟāya vaḵdu nalivadaṟ kēdē deṉḏṟāl nāṉeṉu maha virutti ñāṉattiṉ kiraṇa māhum nāṉeṉuṅ kiraṇat tōḍē nāṭṭamuṭ cellac cella nāṉeṉuṅ kiraṇa nīḷa naśittunāṉ ñāṉa māmē . பதச்சேதம்: நான் எது என்று ஆய அஃது நலிவதற்கு ஏது ஏது என்றால், நான் எனும் அக விருத்தி ஞானத்தின் கிரணம் ஆகும். நான் எனும் கிரணத்தோடே நாட்டம் உள் செல்ல செல்ல, நான் எனும் கிரண நீளம் நசித்து நான் ஞானம் ஆமே. Padacchēdam (word-separation): nāṉ edu eṉḏṟu āya aḵdu nalivadaṟku ēdu ēdu eṉḏṟāl, nā...

A couple of months ago a friend wrote to me asking: You often say that there is, in essence, very little difference between the dream and waking states. Upon reflection it indeed does seem to be so. However, there does seem to be one substantial difference. There is continuity in the waking state both of location and body. When we enter the waking state we always find ourselves in the same place we left it at. We also find ourselves with the same body that went to sleep. The dream state, on the other hand, is not like that at all. When we enter the dream state we often find ourselves in completely different places. One time we may find ourselves in the UK, another time in America or some place of our youth, etc. We may even find ourselves travelling somewhere in the outer space. Furthermore we get different bodies in our dreams. In one dream we may be our waking state age, in another we find ourselves young as when we were in high school or we may be older, etc. In other words, there i...