Spiders on the lake

Lead me from dreaming to waking.
Lead me from opacity to clarity.
Lead me from the complicated to the simple.
Lead me from the obscure to the obvious.
Lead me from intention to attention.
Lead me from what I'm told I am to what I see I am.
Lead me from confrontation to wide openness.
Lead me to the place I never left,
Where there is peace, and peace
- The Upanishads

*note* some time ago,I posted the poem,,Spiders on the lake,, as a comment to Anand's blog..
Life is like a box of chocolate
Never know what dreams will get
Till the sun appears set
There is something to forget..
Will you wake up from the dream?
Can the path be always lean?
Were you dreaming in the sun?
By the beats of romping drum..
You were child and you were dreaming
Dreaming that you were awake
And the thought is quite unsettling
Walking thru the sleeper's gate
Never thinking for a second
Who's asleep and who is late
Who's the spider in the lake
Who's the one you shall forsake
For the dreamer's dreams are fake
When the sunshine stops to shine
Then your darkness it's your sign
Black and white and blue and ice
Sleeping pill is paradise
For the spiders from the lake
Wait for you to be awake
If you're not,they'll talk to you
Black and white and icy blue
For the lake wants you awake
Not for you but for it's sake
There is nothing what it seems
Only sleepers live the dreams... Anand liked it...lol
-added by danny-..
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Learning to Fly

What are dreams? Are they important? Should I pay attention to my dreams?"

No one really seems to be able to agree on a definition of dreams. A neurologist would say that dreams are a result of neural circuitry randomly firing and producing images, as the brain sorts through the events of the day, thoughts, and feelings. Neurobiologically speaking, dreams are a cleansing operation, a byproduct of a process designed to prepare us for our waking hours.

This perspective makes the assumption that the sleep state is subservient to the waking state. But although most people go through life with this assumption, it is not an absolute truth. It is just one perspective on life, a dominant perspective no doubt, but a construct nevertheless.

The statement, “We need sleep" is a fundamental truth. The statement, “We also need our waking hours,” is also a fundamental truth.

But the statement, “The waking hours are more important than the sleeping hours,” is not a fundamental truth, but a relative one. A construct.

Why do people like to stay up late and party into the early hours of the morning? Why do people find it difficult to sleep?

Because the day - the events, the thoughts, the stresses - is seen as more important, more “real” than sleep, sleep can become difficult - either it is resisted, or it is pursued, without success.

In order to for your mind to relax, you have to accept sleep like a gentle lover.

Immersion not resistance. Immersion not pursuit.

When you sleep a restful sleep, and dream, you will know that the neurologists are wrong - your dreams are more than utilitarian evolutionary neurological tools. Your dreams are meaningful and profound. They are deep with psychological, spiritual, and metaphysical truth.

Dreams are your window to another life. They offer another way to view your waking life.

When you are asleep, you are bathed in the warm waters of your dreams.

Sleep and dreams are a gateway into another realm of existence. You are immersed in a rich and complex world, as nuanced as the world that you see when you are awake.

Which is the more “real” state - your dreams or your life when you are awake? Ask yourself Chung Tzu's question - “Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?” .

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Do not ignore your dreams. Open yourself to them, but do not obsess over them, like the Freudian psychoanalyst who attempts to intellectually dissect "dream content".

You cannot use your intellect to understand your soul. We cannot understand the images and the emotions of our dreams within the constraints of linearity. Your dreams offer you a way into authenticity, but only if you do not dissect the dream, but instead immerse in it.

Later, I will describe meditation exercises that will enhance your dream experience, allowing you to gain insights into your own life.

When you immerse yourself in your dream, you will immerse with the Universe. You will return to the source of all energy. And you will find Bliss.

I had a dream a long time ago that pointed me in the right direction. It was a recurring dream. Every night in my dreams, I stood on a beach that stretched into eternity on either side. There was no moon, there were no stars. The sky was warm satin.
And then, in the dream, I close my eyes and suddenly, my body feels light. It begins to rise into the sky, slowly at first and then faster. I open my eyes, and when I see how far my body has risen, I gasp. The fear feels like a lead weight and my body hits the sand.

I had the same dream the next night, and then the night after that, and after that, for the next 13 months. An endless beach at night, my eyes closed as I let go and gave in to the experience, trying to hold on to a curious midpoint between effort and relaxation, between action and inaction.

But every night, in those dreams, just as I was enjoying the sensation of lightness and the view of the distant skyline, some thought would come to me.
Sometimes, the thought was, "You should not be flying, that is not possible."
Sometimes, the thought was a mere identification of the emotion I was feeling, "This flying is fun! I love it!"

As soon as I had a thought, no matter what the thought, it always had the same effect: I would come crashing down.

During the day, I meditated and reflected and cogitated, but enlightenment eluded me.

I knew this because my body carried the bruises of my falls from the night before. Day after day. Night after night.

And then, one night, everything changed.

All my readings and previous transient glimpses of the Universal Oneness could not have prepared me for what was to follow.

On that night, in my dream I stood on the endless beach and closed my eyes.

I closed my eyes and suddenly I knew that I could fly. The knowledge was so self evident that I wondered why I had resisted it all along. I not only knew that I could fly, but I became the knowledge of flight, and then I became the experience of flight itself.

There was no thought. Just an all pervasive, unshakable knowledge that this was the way things were.

I felt a Dissolution and a Completeness. An Emptiness and Wholeness. A Transience and a Permanence. All at once.

The boundaries of space and time, of Us and Them, or inside and outside, everything exploded.

The beach was not deserted that night. It was packed with men and women who stared upwards, in disbelief, and awe, and fear, and longing.

And it came to me that night that everyone else on the ground could fly too.

They would not fly if they believed that they could fly. They would not fly if they thought they could fly. They would not fly if they just convinced themselves that they could fly.

They would fly if they knew they could fly.
I realized then what I know to this day: you are free if you know that you are free. You will not fail, if you know that you cannot fail. You are perfect, if you know that you are perfect.

Now, I am not saying this to be your cheerleader. Please do not mistake me for one of those so called motivational gurus. I abhor the word "motivation." It reminds me of oxen in paddy fields, or rats in mazes, who have to whipped, and coaxed, and bribed into doing more.

You do not need to be "motivated". You are motivation itself. When I say, "You will not fail, if you know you cannot fail," this means that for the Self-Realized soul, failure in the conventional sense ceases to apply. "Failure", as most people know it, has no meaning.

The Self Realized man sees the universe as is, without preconception. He sees the world without the filters of his mortal mind, and yet aware of the mortality of his limited self. He sees the world as existing without him and yet within him.
Immersed in the Universal Oneness, the Authentic and Self-Realized person follows his path.

Because it does not matter to him anymore if he has it or not, success, love, peace, and happiness will always be his.

This paradox that is Self-Realization, this concept that is near impossible to convey in words, came to me that night.

So pay attention to your dreams. And very soon, you too will fly.