The Dream State vs. The Awakened State | Eckhart Tolle

But even if it is a dream, there must be something that is more real than the dream, without which the dream could not be taking place, could not be. Here we focus on being because most humans are suffering from a dreadful affliction which we may call forgetfulness of being. And because there's forgetfulness of being, they are lost in doing, they lose themselves in their doing. Or if they are not doing anything, maybe they are hanging around at street corners. Then they are lost in semi consciousness, they have moving below thinking, or they are trapped in very dysfunctional mind patterns. And even the thinking we could even categorize as that's also a kind of doing. That doing is not just activities that you're engaged in in daily life, but underlying this external doing, there's the doing of thinking. The thinking is happening and that belongs to the realm of doing. Although in most cases it's not you who does the thinking, you are not doing it. It is a doing. But really thinking is something that happens to most people. It's not something they do voluntarily as a choice. So thinking happens to you, one could say. So I sometimes say you don't think you are being thought, you're being created by the involuntary and compulsive movement of thought that is conditioned by the past. And this involuntary compulsive movement creates a mind made kind of entity, a sense of self, A this entity is the ego. And for most people, that's who they perceive themselves to be. And so you live with this entity. You are one. There's a good analogy one could use that is that you as the deeper consciousness are asleep and you are dreaming the dream of your life. Occasionally you might wake up briefly and then you fall back into the dream state, which, which is whatever drama is happening in your life, whatever situations are happening in your life. So there's a personality or person that's a dreamlike entity. From the point of view of the awakened consciousness, you can clearly see that when you retrospectively, perhaps as you awaken, you look back on your life and you can see how many unconscious things happened that you were involved in, that you participate in, and so on. There was a whole drama unfolding, sometimes not so bad and at other times really dreadful, and a kind of nightmare in some cases. And if you go back in all traditions, whether you go to Western philosophy or Eastern spiritual traditions, there's often the comparison of unawakened existence with a dream state. Many Western philosophers also have questioned it is life a dream? Famous play by Spanish playwright Calderon de la Barca is La Vida is when your life is a dream. It's an ancient play. So the extent to which you are still identified with you as a person, you may still be trapped in the dream. It is possible that as you sit here or wherever you sit on, stand or lie, the awakened being is emerging, has emerged partially or maybe fully. And so there's a. You might be a hybrid between the. The dreamt entity and the one who is doing the dream, which is the consciousness. You've probably heard of lucid dreaming, which means this is actual dreaming. When you're asleep and you dream, it can sometimes happen in the middle of the dream, you suddenly realize that you're dreaming. It's a very interesting point. Oh, it's all a dream. And then you might think, okay, I could do anything now, what can I create in this dream? In most cases, this doesn't last very long because the state of wakefulness in conventional terms is not really compatible with dreams. So it's very brief. If you become aware in the dream, it's most likely that very quickly you wake up out of the dream, then it's gone. And then you wake up into normal wakefulness, which is another, spiritually speaking, another kind of dream. Now, let's assume that this, right now, this room here, a man speaking, you sitting there with your history, with your person, conditioned, created by your history. And we could perhaps assume. Could this be a dream? Could you be dreaming this where in the middle of the dream, you're dreaming of a man who says you may be dreaming? Oh, and let's assume for a moment that that is the case, that you are actually dreaming this very place, situation. Everything is your part of your dream. We don't know. It could be the case. It depends how you look at it. From certain perspective it is. From another perspective, it's not. Let's assume that it is for a moment. But even if it is a dream, there must be something that is more real than the dream, without which the dream could not be taking place, could not be. And this prerequisite is, of course, there must be a consciousness in which the dream happens. So it becomes of secondary importance whether you are dreaming this moment or not. Even if you are dreaming this moment, there must be an essence within that dream that is real. And that essence is the light of consciousness in which the dream images appear. And that light of consciousness is creating the dream. But the moment you realize that light of consciousness within you, that's the same thing as awakening within the conventional dream, the normal kind of dream. I just talked about Right here. Now, let's assume this is a dream, a dream like thing. In many ways it is. Because dreams evaporate very quickly. They come and then something else happens. After this retreat, you might wake up the morning after and say, did I just dream of this retreat or did it actually happen? So let's assume it is. And suddenly you become aware of something within this dream, if that's what it is, of something beyond, something that transcends the dream, is not separate from it, but without which the dream could not exist. And that is the sense of beingness or presence of I am or consciousness, the realization that you are conscious. Or rather that's not. Language is very deceptive. Mistakes can easily creep in the moment you verbalize something. When I say you are conscious, it's not quite right. You are consciousness. The essence of who you are is consciousness. If I say you are conscious and there's two of you, the you and the consciousness. So in the dream, if you suddenly realize that which is beyond the dream by becoming aware, not becoming aware of something that arises, because everything that arises would be part of the dream. Not becoming aware of any new form that arises as a thought or sensory perception or an emotion, but becoming aware of awareness, which is not something it's not. You can't say, there it is, I got the awareness, there it is. Oh no, it's over there. I just had it, but it's gone now. So awareness or consciousness cannot become an object of consciousness. Everything else is an object that arises in consciousness. But if you attempt to make consciousness into an object, then you're lost again. You cannot make consciousness into an object because consciousness is the very thing. If you're looking for, let's say you're looking for yourself beyond the person. Where is the real, the real me? Where is the real? I want the being behind the person. I'm looking for it. If you're looking for it, waiting for an experience in which this thing happens, that would be very misleading because you would be waiting for some experience. Fireworks, spiritual fireworks, the ultimate vision, as you see in some ancient paintings of Christian mystics. And they go. And you can't have that for that long. I mean, the vision is there. How long is it going to last? So if you're looking for yourself in the realm of experience or in the realm of manifestation, phenomena, object of consciousness, you can't find it there. Because the very thing or no thing that's looking for yourself is you. It's like a flashlight. You use a flashlight to find the flashlight. I'm looking for the flashlight.