SECTION CCXVI
"Bhishma said, 'The yogin who wishes to always practise sinless
Brahmacharya and who is impressed with the faults attaching to dreams
should, with his whole heart, seek to abandon sleep. In dreams, the
embodied soul, affected by the attributes of Passion and Darkness, seems
to become possessed of another body and move and act influenced by
desire.[766] In consequence of application for the acquisition of
knowledge and of continued reflection and recapitulation, the yogin
remains always awake. Indeed, the yogin can keep himself continually
awake by devoting himself to knowledge. On this topic it has been asked
what is this state in which the embodied creature thinks himself
surrounded by and engaged in objects and acts? True it is that the
embodied being, with its senses really suspended, still thinks itself to
be possessed of body with all the senses of knowledge and of action. As
regards the question started, it is said that that master of yoga, named
Hari, comprehends truly how it happens. The great Rishis say that the
explanation offered by Hari is correct and consistent with reason. The
learned say that it is in consequence of the senses being worn out with
fatigue, dreams are experienced by all creatures. (Though the senses are
suspended) the mind, however, never disappears (or becomes inactive) and
hence arise dreams. This is said by all to be their noted cause. As the
imaginings of a person that is awake and engaged in acts, are due only to
the creative power of the mind, after the same manner the impressions in
a dream appertain only to the mind. A person with desire and attachment
obtains those imaginings (in dreams) based upon the impressions of
countless lives in the past. Nothing that impresses the mind once is ever
lost, and the Soul being cognisant of all those impressions causes them
to come forth from obscurity.[767] Whichever among the three attributes
of Goodness, Passion, and Darkness is brought about by the influence of
past acts and by whichever amongst them the mind is affected for the time
being in whatever way, the elements (in their subtile forms) display or
indicate accordingly (in the way of images).[768] After images have thus
been produced, the particular attribute of Goodness or Passion or
Darkness that may have been brought by past act rises in the mind and
conduces to its last result, viz., happiness or misery. Those images
having wind, bile, and phlegm for their chief causes, which men apprehend
through ignorance and in consequence of propensities fraught with Passion
and Darkness, cannot, it has been said, be easily discarded.[769]
Whatever objects again a person perceives in the mind (while wakeful)
through the senses in a state of perspicuity are apprehended by the mind
in dreams while the senses are obscured in respect of their
functions.[770] The Mind exists unobstructedly in all things. This is due
to the nature of the Soul. The Soul should be comprehended. All the
elements and the objects they compose exist in the Soul.[771] In the
state called dreamless slumber (sushupti), the manifest human body which,
of course, is the door of dreams, disappears in the mind. Occupying the
body the mind enters the soul which is manifest and upon which all
existent and non-existent things depend, and becomes transformed into a
wakeful witness with certainty of apprehension. Thus dwelling in pure
Consciousness which is the soul of all things; it is regarded by the
learned as transcending both Consciousness and all things in the
universe.[772] That yogin who in consequence of desire covets any of the
divine attributes (of Knowledge or Renunciation, etc.) should regard a
pure mind to be identical with the object of his desire. All things rest
in a pure mind or soul.[773] This is the result attained to by one who is
engaged in penances. That yogin, however, who has crossed Darkness or
ignorance, becomes possessed of transcending effulgence. When darkness or
ignorance has been transcended, the embodied Soul becomes Supreme Brahma,
the cause of the universe.[774] The deities have penances and Vedic
rites. Darkness (or pride and cruelty), which is destructive of the
former, has been adopted by the Asuras. This, viz., Brahma, which has
been said to have Knowledge only for its attribute, is difficult of
attainment by either the deities or the Asuras. It should be known that
the qualities of Goodness, Passion and Darkness belong to the deities and
the Asuras. Goodness is the attribute of the deities; while the two
others belong to the Asuras. Brahma transcends all those attributes. It
is pure Knowledge. It is Deathlessness. It is pure effulgence. It is
undeteriorating. Those persons of cleansed souls who know Brahma attain
to the highest end. One having knowledge for one's eye can say this much
with the aid of reason and analogy. Brahma which is indestructible can be
comprehended by only withdrawing the senses and the mind (from external
objects into the soul itself).'"[775]
