Do our dreams reflect our anarthas?
So are our dreams reflections or expressions of our anarthas we may get some negative thoughts or some negative undesirable things coming in dreams do they happen because of anarthas yes, it's possible but there is a devotion in his Govind Bhashya commentary analyzes elaborately the nature of dreams based on the vedanta sutra and he says that if we think seriously about dreams dreams also have a certain level of organization within them means one thing happens, second thing happens third thing happens and in some dreams we are participants in some dreams we are simply observers but in no dream are we usually controllers certainly we are not absolute controllers so he asks that who is in control in dreams someone may say that dreams are just completely false there is no basis in reality but Govind Bhashya says no, there are some dreams in which the spiritual master appears, some dreams in which Krishna appears and therefore all dreams cannot be false he says and secondly he says even if we say all dreams are false, but still there are a variety of dreams, we ourselves on different days have different dreams and different people have different kinds of dreams, there are some people who suffer from a good call a mental disorder, psychological disorder where whenever they sleep they get nightmares their body craves for sleeping but they are afraid of sleeping because as soon as I sleep I get nightmares it's a terrible condition, so now why is it that some people get more nightmares some people get less nightmares so he explains that the dream world is also controlled by the Supreme Lord by the Parmeshwar and just as this world that we experience in the present state, it is called as Jagruti there are four different states through which our consciousness goes there is the Jagruti stage in which we are hopefully, then there is the Sapna stage in which we are asleep then there is the Sushupti stage and then there is the Turiya or Samadhi stage now if you know about the body you can visualize there is a circle, central circle is the soul the second circle around it that is the subtle body the third circle around it that is the gross body so how can I show you is this clear, three circles soul you consider soul as a small point here subtle body and around that is the gross body so this consciousness comes out from the soul when the consciousness comes out from the soul through the subtle body to the gross body and through the gross body to the outer world that is the Jagruti stage when the consciousness comes from the soul to the subtle body but doesn't come to the gross body that is the Swapna stage the soul is there, the soul is conscious but the energy of consciousness is not being expressed at the level of the gross body when the soul's consciousness is completely withdrawn in itself and is not expressing in the subtle body that is the Sushupti stage and the soul's consciousness is directed towards the spiritual level of reality that is the Turiya or Samadhi stage so now this is talked about in the Kundal population this relation of the four levels of consciousness with the extent to which the consciousness is going so now just as the gross world is created around us ultimately it is controlled by the Supreme Lord so some people may get in this gross world some people may get more sickness more financial problems more accidents, some people may get less why is this difference there? this difference is because of karma past karma so similarly the difference that different people experience in their dream world that is also because of one's karma the dream world is constructed by the Supreme Lord using subtle matter this world which we experience right now that is constructed by the Lord using gross matter dream world is constructed in subtle matter and there also we get the reactions of minor karmas the reactions of major karmas come in the gross body at the gross level of reality the reactions of minor karmas come at the at the level of at the level of dreams in the subtle reality now along with this when we have certain desires which are at a subtle level but which we have not expressed at a gross level then sometimes that expression of those desires may happen at the subtle level in dreams so the major difference between Jagruti and Swapna is in terms of the capacity to use our free will now it is it is largely in the Jagruti stage that we can turn our free will towards Krishna and become devoted to Krishna in the Swapna stage also we may sometimes see the temple and we may see some religious things but we are not really in the dream state consciously exercising our free will to turn towards God so that Jagruti among these different states of consciousness Jagruti is special because we can exercise our free will in the Jagruti stage and because we have the capacity to exercise our free will so therefore there is karmic responsibility in the Jagruti stage so that means the kind of actions that we do in the Jagruti stage we will get good or bad reactions depending on the kind of actions that we do but in the Swapna stage the free will is significantly reduced there is some level of free will but it is much lesser just like animals also have free will but animals say a tiger is there and there are two deer over there now a tiger has a free will should I pounce on this deer or should I pounce on that deer? the tiger can't say tiger doesn't have the free will to think today is Ekadashi I should fast so the free will is substantially reduced in the animal body similarly in the dream state the free will is substantially reduced and that's why we do not become karmically culpable for what happens or what we do in the dream so yes sometimes if we get certain dreams they may be expressions of our anarthas but we are not responsible for what happens in the dreams in the sense that we are not karmically culpable but if we get some negative dreams then some images may flash some sensual images may flash and they may cause some bodily biological reactions all those things may happen if we dwell on that imagery after waking up that may provoke us towards sensual actions again but just what happens in the dream even if it is an expression of what we have felt or what anarthas are presented in us we don't have to worry too much about it so if we are getting some bad dreams it is generally recommended in the 7th Canto that we pray to Narasimhadev and chant Narasimha Aarti before sleeping and that way in the Vishnu Satsang one of the attributes of Vishnu is that he is Lord Vishnu is the one who destroys bad dreams so we can specially pray to the lord before sleeping and that way we can spiritually counter bad dreams does that answer your question? any other questions?