VI
Swapna Sidha
Swapna Sidha ¾The
lucky man who sees and becomes God in dreams is called Swapna Sidha.
“He, who is Swapna Sidha, is a liberated one”
¾Sree
Ramkrishna
Among the known figures in the ‘Gospel of Sree
Ramkrishna’, Mr. Biswanath Upadhaya, generally designated as ‘Captain’. The
Consul General of the Maharaja of Nepal, was the first man who saw Sree
Ramkrishna in a dream. Sree Ramdrishna was an unknown man to him at the time.
He did not see him before, nor was he aware of him. He dreamt¾’He
was standing at the back-gate of the garden to the temple of Dakhineswar.
There was a big heap of cowdung. A thousand petaled lotus in full bloom was
seen over the heap. Sree Ramkrishna was standing by the heap and showing the
lotus to Mr. Biswanath’. Some two months went by after this dream, when one day
Mr. Biswanath came on a holy pilgrimage to the temple of Dakhineswar¾
where Sree Ramkrishna lived. He came upon Sree Ramkrishna there for the first
time. He was struck with wonder. He at once remembered his dream.
This was the man whom he had seen in dream ! He
surrendered himself at the feet of Sree Ramkrishna and became a life-long
devotee.
‘Heap of cow-dung’ represents the body first and then the
world. All around the maddening world there is ‘Woman and Gold’, a strenuous
arrangement for enjoyment and pleasure of the senses, an uproar of selfish
competition : yet, in this era, the thousand petaled lotus will bloom in the
human body ; God will emanate and manifest Himself and He will be seen. it is
His will, His sport and He will do so. The dream Mr. Biswanath dreamt reveals
the picture of the era of Sree Ramkrishna and this will come to pass.
Mr. Ram Chandra Dutta, a doctor and chemist to the Medical
College of Calcutta, was the first man to get his initiation from Sree
Ramkrishna in a dream. He was sleeping in his place at Simla, a locality in Calcutta, some five miles
off from Dakhineswar temple. He dreamt Sree Ramkrishna giving him initiation in
the dream. He woke up, came to Dakhineswar temple and met Sree Ramkrishna. He
told his dream to Sree Ramkrishna who heard it. He was seated at the time, but
hearing the dream, he jumped up and danced with joy.
Both Chandogya and Brihadaranyaka (the names of the two
different Upanishads¾
parts of the Vedas) have dealt with divine dreams. They are of opinion that
realisations and manifestations of God in dreams are purer and finer than the
manifestations and realisations of God in an awakened condition of the body.
Joseph was engaged to interpret the dreams of the Pharaoh
in Egypt.
God spoke to Moses, “Henceforth I won’t come and talk with
you in person, but I will convey my command in dream”.
The Old Testament is full of divine dreams.
Mohammed dreamt that he was carried in a chariot of seven
horses to Heaven near Allah (God) and from Him he received instructions and
command.
Sree Ramanuja, the great saint and philosopher of souhern India and the
founder of the School of qualified non-dualism (A.D. 1017-1137) was ordered in
a dream to go to Delhi
during the rule of the Pathans in India and to bring the image of a
god from the palace or the empoeror. He went to Delhi, brought back the image and set it up
in a temple of Sri Rangapattam in the province of Madras.
Sree Chaitanya (the first Avatar – prophet of Bengal, born
A.D. 1485) go his initiation in a dream.
“To get initiation in a dream is the supreme luck which a
man can aspire to as a man”.
¾Sree
Ramkrishna.
Sree Chaitanya uttered these holy words (Mantras) to the ear of Sree Keshab
Bharati (his preceptor) who in his turn gave back these holy words again into
the ear of Sree Chaitanya.
The lucky man getting his initiation in a dream, should
not take initiation again from any other human agent. God is in the inside of
the human body. He, out of mercy to man, manifests Himself in words within the
man and thereby He makes him His own chosen man through these words and becomes
his guardian and protector.
Sree Chaitanya at Gambhira,
the place where he lived in Puri in the province of Orissa,
realised in dreams almost all the sportive forms of Sree Krishna, an ideal Avatar of India, as set forth in the holy
book of ‘Sreemat Bhagawat’. In dreams, Atma,
God within Sree Chaitanya, manifested Himself, assumed the form of Sree Krishna
and showed him all the sportive forms.
Sree Vrindavan Das Thakur, a devotee of Sree Chaitanya,
closed his famous book ‘Sree Chaitanya Bhagawat’, with realisation in dream of
Pundarikaksha Vidyanidhi another devotee of Sree Chaitanya. Pundarikaksha
Vidyanidhi had been to Puri to pay his regard to Sree Chaitanya. He went to
visit the temple
of Juggernath,
the Lord of the world, in the company of Swarup Damodar, a devotee of Sree
Chaitany. There in the temple they marked some irregularity in the conduct of
service to the deity. It aroused a dissatisfaction in Pundarikaksha and he
pointed it out to Damodar. They spoke lightly over it. Then they came back to
their place. At night, Pundarikaksha dreamt¾’Both Juggernath and Balavadra
appeared before him. They commenced giving him slaps on his cheeks for his
irreligious thoughts in the temple’. He got his cheeks swollen with marks of
finger on them. In the morning Swarup Damodar came to Pundarikaksha and saw him
in this plight.
The life of the great saint Tukaram in the province of Bombay was full of divine dreams. Vithoba was the household deity of
Tukaram. The Atma, God, in Tukaram
assumed the form of Vithoba and
expressed Himself in Tukuram in various sportive forms. In dreams, Tukaram got Vithoba as his God-the-Preceptor.
Satchidananda Guru.
There was a wonderful episode in the life of Tukaram. Tukaram was not a man of
letters. He did not know how to read or write. But in dreams Vithoba taught him how to read and
write, not only this, but also to compose the holy songs which even now are
reckoned as the best holy songs ever written in the Marathi language.
Somehow or other, to see God and to realise His sportive
forms in dreams was a lost chapter. Sree Ramkrishna has again given life to it
and established it.
Sree Ramkrishna said to Sree “M”, the author of the Gospel
of Sree Ramkrishna, “If, in a dream, you find me giving instructions, then you
shall be knowing that he is Satchidananda,
God, assuming my form, giving you instructions.”
God releases Himself from the body, assumes the human form
of condensed light of God and gives His grace to him.
“The father has taken charge of his own child.”
¾ Sree
Ramkrishna.
Ram Babu, Master Mahasaya, Baburam Maharaj, (Swami
Premananda) and some others received their initiation from Sree Ramkrishna in
dreams.
Human life is a certain period of time. This span of time
consists of four parts. They are : (1) Waking condition (2) Dreams (3) Profound
sleep or Susupti and (4) Turiya (lit : the 4th part).
Turiya means the
rising of the life-power (Adya Sakti)
and getting it converted into Brahma
or Supreme existence. This Supreme existence has got its symbol. It is seen. It
looks like for inter-mingled with light moon beams. Not only this, but of this
for come out human forms. They are in a sportive mood. They fun. They talk.
They drink. They play with each other. The realisation of Sree Ramkrishna is
cited here to throw light on the matter :¾
(Sree Sree
Ramkrishna Kathamrita – the 4th part, The Gospel of Sree Ramkrishna
23rd. Oct., 1885)
Sree Ramkrishna – “Do you know what realisations came down
upon me in this changed state of bliss (Bhava)
and what I saw then?
(Bhava is bliss. It
is not confined to a single state but it has got variety in it. Some are light
and some are deep.)
“A meadow some six or eight miles in extension, ws before
me. Through the meadow lay the road to Sihor
(a village near Kamarpukur – the native village of Sree Ramdrishna).
In that meadow I was alone. There appeared a sixteen-year-old – Paramahansa boy,
(Paramahansa is one
in whose body God gets Himself separated in full measure. The State of Paramahansa is visible
in the body of one who has attained the Paramahansa state. It is simply to ask
him – “Has God separated from your body?” Before he can speak, a light
contortion will come upon him; the facial outline will get a bit swollen and to
the eye of the spectator, it will appear that something in the body of the man
is riging towards his head and bringing about all these outward changes)
and exactly he looked like the one I had seen beneath the banyan tree at the Panchavati of Dakhineswar.
“All around lay a dog of bliss. There emerged a boy
thirteen or fourteen years old out of it. Only his face was seen at first. It
was Purna’s face (Purna – a boy, devotee of Sree Ramkrishna). Both of us were
naked. Then began our sports of running with a great hilarity in the meadow.
The running made Purna thirsty. He drank some water from a pot and offered me
the remnant. I said, ‘Brother, your
leavings, I cannot take’. On this, he kept on smiling got
the tumbler washed and brought fresh water for me.” This is the realisation
made by Sree Ramkrishna in the Turiya state
and it is not an ordinary Bhava or
bliss.
Susupti is
profound sleep. At the outset, as well as at the end of sleep, realisations
appear, but neither during the sleep, nor in the fully wakened condition. Such
realisations are reckoned as realisations in Susupti or profound sleep.
In all these four states of life – viz : (1) Waking, (2)
Dreams )3) Profound sleep or Susupti
and (4) Turiya or Supreme conscious
existence, there are different realisations of God’s sportive forms in the
body.
There are some lucky fellows sho see God in all these four
states of life.
Some again see the sportive forms of God in the three
states : - (1) Waking (2) Dreams and (3) Profound sleep.
There are some who see God in the two conditions :¾ (1)
Waking and (2) Dreams.
There are some who see God in the two conditions :¾ (1)
Waking and (2) Dreams.
Some again see God and His sportive forms in Dreams only.
These people are called Swapna Sidha.
In dreams they get their body purified, their hinking and
feelings purified; they get their Satchidananda
Guru or God-the-Preceptor; they see God’s light; they get themselves
transformed into God and finally they see the Avatar or the descent of God assuming the form of a man in them.
But all these happenings come to pass through sheer grace of God.
All these divine dreams come without any previous
knowledge, so the seer is Hathat-Sidha.
He got the grace of God without the least expectation.
Without the grace of God nobody can dream all these divine
dreams, so he is Kripa Sidha.
Again, this Swapna
Sidha is also a Nityasidha as he
has got spontaneous emanation of God from the body and the first form of
emanation is Satchidananda Guru or
God-the-Preceptor. If a man is not favored with a Satchidananda Guru, then there is no chance for him of either
seeing or realizing God.
Furthermore, a Swapna
Sidha becomes a Sadhan Sidha or Dhyan Sidha in no time and with no
exertion of his own, and then God with a form appears to him and says, “Well,
you are a Dhyan Sidha”.
The era of Sree Ramkrishna reveals that a man may see all
the sportive forms of God and God with all the attributes in dr3eams, and this
is the first occurrence of its kind in the annals of the world.
The lucky man who has seen God and become God in dreams, Swapna Sidha, is fully aware and has
obtained the grace of all other four forms and processes of Sidhis or seeing God and becoming God.
He has seen God in dreams, he is Swapna Sidha.
VII
There is hardly any chance to see and realise God by
self-exertion – Vividisha. Before getting the bliss of Dhyan Sidha – it is seen
that there is a meandering river and the current of the river is terrible and
the devotee has got to go to the destination in the realm of bliss in a round
about way.
This attainment of Sidhi
or the fulfilment of life’s purpose, has got its own measurement. It depends
upon the measurement of the emanation of God from the body. Bliss comes to him
in different degrees of intensity.
Sree Ramkrishna used to signify this degrees by ‘annas’,
saying – one anna, two annas, four annas, and eight annas. Sixteen annas mean
full measure of a complete silver coin. He asked Sree “M”, the, author of the
Gospel of Sree Ramkrishna, “How many annas of realisation of God have I ?”
Sadhan-Sidha or
Dhyan Sidha
The terms Sadhan Sidha and Dhyan Sidha are synonymous.
Bothe of them mean to see and attain God by self-exertion. It means to get your
mind drawn off from
the world, from the body, eliminating all the animal life
and getting the divine life
expressed through the seven planes and lastly thereby to
see God and to get yourself transformed into God with attributes and without
attributes (Sagun and Nirgun).
The holy Bhagawat Gita says – “One in a thousand thinks
about God. Again one of a thousand thinkers sees God. One, in a thousand among
the seers of God, attains God (Satchidananda).
Again one, among the attainers of God, becomes God with forms and without
forms”.
Chandidas, the Vaishnava saint, says – “It is one in ten
millions”.
Ramprosad, a Bengali devotee and writer of songs about
divine mother, says – “At best, but one or two get freed from the bondage of
the body out of one hundred thousand aspiring after God.”
Sree Ramkrishna. – “It is with great difficulty and
exertion that one may attain God”.
Sree Ramkrishna was a perpetual positive. He was ever
conscious of God and this consciousness was his life. He told Swami
Vivekananda, “There are two principles – Yea (Asti) and Nay (Nasti). Discard the negative
one and take up the positive one”. He had no negative in his character. In his
conversations with his disciples and devotees, wherever he remarked “Not so
easy”, “With great difficulty”, “Very hard”, etc., they are to be reckoned as
negative.
The sheer mercy of God enables one to see God and not
one’s own exertion.
God in the form of matter, Atma, is attained according to the rule of Vidyat in the Vedas, but not by Vividisha
as set up later on.
God cannot be
attained by self-exertion : so Sadhan Sidha is an impossibility.
When a man attains the state of Dhyan Sidha, God assumes a human form, made of God’s light, appears
and says, “Well, you are a Dhyan Sidha”.
It is an averment and a bliss showered upon him. But this happens only in the
case of a Nityasidha Iswarcoty Avatar.
In case of a Nityasidha-Iswarcoty, it
turns out that whenever he sits in Dhyan-self
elimination, his inner-self at once transforms into God without any form.
Sree Ramkrishna said about Swami Vevekananda – “Naren is Dhyan Sidha”.
Furthermore, he added about Dhyan Sidha, “Dhyan Sidha
has got God freed from his body.”
