Science of Reality: Dreaming Reality
The third lesson inn Deepak Chopra’s course, “The Nature of Reality,” is called “Dreaming Reality.”
Whether or not you remember a dream, it’s still an experience you have. Dreams aren’t considered “real” because when you look back on the dream is not here, it’s over. So a dream by definition is transient, evanescent, ephemeral, and ungraspable. But memories are the same way, they are dreamlike. The past is a dream, the future is a dream, and the present is a lucid dream in a vivid now, which we call real. You are the dreamer, not the dream. You are the observer and not that which is observed. You are the knower, not that which is known.
Every form is a phenomena. Every phenomena is the rising and subsiding of perceptual activity, which is a modified form of consciousness, and the interpretation of that perceptual activity is also a modified form of consciousness because the interpretation is consciousness.
So, that which we call “the mind and body” and “the world” are nothing but consciousness modifying itself into these experiences which appear as forms and phemenon but when you trace them down to their source, you end up with consciousness. Consciousness has no form. Having no form, it has no location. Having no location, it doesn’t exist in time or space. Formless, timeless, spaceless, in a way inconceivable because everything we conceive or imagine is based on experiences in space-time. If reality is outside space-time, it’s inconceivable; at least as far as the human thought process is concerned. And yet without this formless being that you are, there would be no experience of form or phenomena.
Here’s the conclusion: existence has two versions. One is that which has form. This is existence with form. And then existence has another version which is totally formless, and being formless, it is infinite. You, as awareness, are an infinite consciousness having finite experiences. The experiences are ungraspable because they are fluctuations of consciousness. And fluctuations, by definition, come and go, therefore are experienced in what we call a time bound reality. But that which is experiencing this reality in form and phenomena, of course, is its own finite expression.
Insight: You are a formless being having an experience of form and phenomena. You are an infinite being having an experience of that which we call the finite. But the finite is a fluctuation of your infinite being, and being a fluctuation, it is ungraspable, you cannot reach out and grasp a movement, an activity.
What is experience? If you really examine this, it’s nothing other than the lucid dream, an incessant ceaseless activity of consciousness modifying itself as sensations, images, feelings and thoughts. That’s it. The rest is a human story called body mind and universe; objects, things, form, phenomena.
Consciousness is a formless, bodiless, infinite, dimensionless (infinite dimensions), eternal, timeless being modifying itself into species-specific experiences.
To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance. A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky, rushing by, like a torrent down the steep mountain. [I think that’s quoted from a poem.] That’s all part of the dream. Rumi: Look at your eyes, they are so small, but they see all these things. I am so small, how do I fathom the entire universe?
If there was a word for God, it would be “trickster.” If you can see it, if you can touch it, if you can taste it, if you can smell it, if you can think about it, if you can imagine it, if you can conceptualize it, if you can experience it as any form or phenomena, it’s a transient dream living in you. You are the dreamer, not the dream.
You are the infinite formless being creating the experience of body, mind and universe. And if you get back to that source, which is creating all these experiences, and if you know that you’re consciously constructing the world in every experience, in every perceptual experience you are consciously constructing the world, that actually there’s a way to deconstruct it and resurrect it as another experience, then we spontaneously fulfill one dream and turn it into another dream. We are shape shifters, we are cosmic alchemists that are turning ourselves into innumerable modes of experience, innumerable objects, innumerable phenomena, innumerable modes of knowing, all in the one self, which is you.
Following every experience to its source we end up with pure awareness, which has qualities that are very similar to the quantum vacuum, the source of all. The quantum vacuum is a construct. You have to experience pure consciousness in order to manifest, and pure consciousness is the dimensionless being that you are.
For me, all the information in the lessons so far syncs with my own belief, understanding, and life experience. I’d probably be pretty confused right now if I hadn’t explored all this before. My notes on Deepak’s lessons may be confusing to read since they’re a bit out of context from the enormous context of “What is Consciousness?” but they’re also completely revelatory.
Whether or not you remember a dream, it’s still an experience you have. Dreams aren’t considered “real” because when you look back on the dream is not here, it’s over. So a dream by definition is transient, evanescent, ephemeral, and ungraspable. But memories are the same way, they are dreamlike. The past is a dream, the future is a dream, and the present is a lucid dream in a vivid now, which we call real. You are the dreamer, not the dream. You are the observer and not that which is observed. You are the knower, not that which is known.
Every form is a phenomena. Every phenomena is the rising and subsiding of perceptual activity, which is a modified form of consciousness, and the interpretation of that perceptual activity is also a modified form of consciousness because the interpretation is consciousness.
So, that which we call “the mind and body” and “the world” are nothing but consciousness modifying itself into these experiences which appear as forms and phemenon but when you trace them down to their source, you end up with consciousness. Consciousness has no form. Having no form, it has no location. Having no location, it doesn’t exist in time or space. Formless, timeless, spaceless, in a way inconceivable because everything we conceive or imagine is based on experiences in space-time. If reality is outside space-time, it’s inconceivable; at least as far as the human thought process is concerned. And yet without this formless being that you are, there would be no experience of form or phenomena.
Here’s the conclusion: existence has two versions. One is that which has form. This is existence with form. And then existence has another version which is totally formless, and being formless, it is infinite. You, as awareness, are an infinite consciousness having finite experiences. The experiences are ungraspable because they are fluctuations of consciousness. And fluctuations, by definition, come and go, therefore are experienced in what we call a time bound reality. But that which is experiencing this reality in form and phenomena, of course, is its own finite expression.
Insight: You are a formless being having an experience of form and phenomena. You are an infinite being having an experience of that which we call the finite. But the finite is a fluctuation of your infinite being, and being a fluctuation, it is ungraspable, you cannot reach out and grasp a movement, an activity.
What is experience? If you really examine this, it’s nothing other than the lucid dream, an incessant ceaseless activity of consciousness modifying itself as sensations, images, feelings and thoughts. That’s it. The rest is a human story called body mind and universe; objects, things, form, phenomena.
Consciousness is a formless, bodiless, infinite, dimensionless (infinite dimensions), eternal, timeless being modifying itself into species-specific experiences.
To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance. A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky, rushing by, like a torrent down the steep mountain. [I think that’s quoted from a poem.] That’s all part of the dream. Rumi: Look at your eyes, they are so small, but they see all these things. I am so small, how do I fathom the entire universe?
If there was a word for God, it would be “trickster.” If you can see it, if you can touch it, if you can taste it, if you can smell it, if you can think about it, if you can imagine it, if you can conceptualize it, if you can experience it as any form or phenomena, it’s a transient dream living in you. You are the dreamer, not the dream.
You are the infinite formless being creating the experience of body, mind and universe. And if you get back to that source, which is creating all these experiences, and if you know that you’re consciously constructing the world in every experience, in every perceptual experience you are consciously constructing the world, that actually there’s a way to deconstruct it and resurrect it as another experience, then we spontaneously fulfill one dream and turn it into another dream. We are shape shifters, we are cosmic alchemists that are turning ourselves into innumerable modes of experience, innumerable objects, innumerable phenomena, innumerable modes of knowing, all in the one self, which is you.
Following every experience to its source we end up with pure awareness, which has qualities that are very similar to the quantum vacuum, the source of all. The quantum vacuum is a construct. You have to experience pure consciousness in order to manifest, and pure consciousness is the dimensionless being that you are.
For me, all the information in the lessons so far syncs with my own belief, understanding, and life experience. I’d probably be pretty confused right now if I hadn’t explored all this before. My notes on Deepak’s lessons may be confusing to read since they’re a bit out of context from the enormous context of “What is Consciousness?” but they’re also completely revelatory.