{"id":187,"date":"2010-12-29T09:39:19","date_gmt":"2010-12-29T09:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/2010\/12\/flights-of-the-lonely-swan-dreaming-in-indian-sacred-texts.html"},"modified":"2010-12-29T09:39:19","modified_gmt":"2010-12-29T09:39:19","slug":"flights-of-the-lonely-swan-dreaming-in-indian-sacred-texts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2010\/12\/flights-of-the-lonely-swan-dreaming-in-indian-sacred-texts.html","title":{"rendered":"Flights of the lonely swan: dreaming in Indian sacred texts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"swan_flying.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>The epics and sacred texts of India are filled with dreams. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
The earliest Indian references to dreams, in the Rig Veda <\/i>(c 1200 BCE) aren’t cheery.
\nThey involve scary things – being robbed, being attacked by a wolf, being raped
\n– that can spill over into waking reality. The verses include formulas of
\nprotection, to turn away the evil seen in a dream.<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

If someone I have
\nmet, o king, or a friend has spoken danger to me in a dream to frighten me, or
\nif a thief should waylay us, or a wolf – protect us from that, Varuna.<\/i> [Rig Veda]<\/p>\n

The Upanishads describe four
\nstates of awareness: waking, dreaming, dreamless sleep – all natural and
\navailable to all – and a transcendent fourth state of identity with the divine,
\nwhich requires illumination. It is now made clear that through dreaming, we can come into contact and alignment with the god who creates
\nus by dreaming us into existence.<\/p>\n

The Brhadranyaka Upanishad, or “Great Forest Book”, is one
\nof the oldest Upanishads, dating from the 7th<\/sup> century BCE. Here dream state
\nis described as a state of “emitting” [srj<\/i>], a word
\nthat can also mean the ejaculation of semen. The dreamer “emits” or projects
\nfrom himself “joys, happinesses and delights…ponds, lotus pools and flowing
\nstreams, for he is the Maker.” We learn here that as we grow the practice of dreaming, we can create realities.<\/p>\n

In a beautiful passage in the same Upanishad, the dreamer travels between worlds as “the lonely swan”, flying in and out of the nest of
\nthe body. <\/p>\n

The dreamer is godlike in his ability to create in
\nthe dreamspace: “In the state of dream going up and down, the god makes many forms
\nfor himself, now enjoying himself in the company of women or laughing or even
\nbeholding fearful sights.”<\/p>\n

A Sanskrit name for dream
\ntravelers, kamacarin, <\/i>means “those
\nwho can transfer themselves at will”. The literature and sacred writings of India are a
\ntreasury of tales of dream travel, clearly grounded on experience. <\/p>\n

The Yogavasistha<\/i>, a vast Kashmiri compilation,
\nis one of the richest troves. In these
\nnarratives, dream travelers find that time is elastic. You may live a hundred
\nyears in a dreamworld and return to find that only a day has passed in ordinary
\ntime.What is
\nexperienced in the dreamworlds is real, and has real consequences in the
\ntraveler’s ordinary reality. Spiritual apprenticeship and initiation can take place in this
\nway. <\/p>\n

In another Hindu story, Markandeya is a human
\nbeing who is curious about what is real. He tries so hard to see beyond the
\nobvious that one day, without meaning to, he falls out of the mouth of Vishnu,
\nthe dreaming god. He now discovers that he has spent his whole lufe inside the
\nbody of the god. Now he’s out there, he has a cosmic vision of the structure of
\nthe universe; he sees that everything he knew is contained within the body of
\nthe dreaming god. But this vision is too much for him; it inspires him with a
\ntrembling awe that easily shifts to terror. It’s too much for him, even though
\nhe is an evolved soul, an adept. So he climbs back through the mouth of Vishnu,
\nback into the world he contains, and as he resumes his life there he starts to
\nforget what he saw beyond it.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Ayurvedic
\nphysicians maintain that we are deluded if we believe that we are fully awake
\nand conscious in our everyday lives. At all times, we are actually in a state
\nof dreaming. Enlightenment and healing become possible when we awaken to the
\nreality that we are continually dreaming.<\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The epics and sacred texts of India are filled with dreams.  The earliest Indian references to dreams, in the Rig Veda (c 1200 BCE) aren’t cheery. They involve scary things – being robbed, being attacked by a wolf, being raped – that can spill over into waking reality. 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He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, The Three \"\"Only\"\" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole. His most recent book is The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse. Over the past 20 years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He hosts the \"\"Way of the Dreamer\"\" radio show at www.healthylife.net. He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast and the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman's Drum.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.mossdreams.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/author\/rmoss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}