The Big Dream

I heard some spiritual teachers repeating over and over that all is one and that life is a dream and that we are one with all things. I see that. I understand that. I know that I am one with the universe, God, call it what you may. However, my day to day experience is not filled with feelings of unity. I have a human experience. Not that anybody promised anything else. Psalm 82 says:

I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.”

So, what does it feel like to be one? I jump straight to this question, but let me explain a bit. If we are gods and there is only one God, then it must follow that we are one. So then, how can I understand oneness fully, if I have never felt it? Of course I have had glimpses of it. But they were so few, so dispersed and so short-lived that I’m not even sure what they were and how they felt anymore. I just remembered that I liked it when it happened.

I had a very interesting dream the other night. I was sitting in a public place, I can’t really remember, but I think it looked like a cafe, and I was talking to the president of Romania. Who I was talking to is not really an important detail so don’t read too much into it. In my dream, I knew that it was a dream, yet it still felt like I was a person; I was the main actor in my dream and I still saw things in a first-person perspective.

But knowing I was dreaming had other implications. This also meant that all of the surrounding world, other people, including the president were in my mind. They were all me. Yet, I still felt the sense of a person, the sense of the limited me. So, we were sitting next to each other and being aware of the things that I just told you, I said to the president:

- You know, even though we’re different, we’re really one.

And he said:

- I don’t understand.

Now, I ask you, does it really matter if the president in my dream understood that all was one or not? Everything happened in my mind anyways. I knew it and had no problem with the dream. I also didn’t know it and didn’t understand how all could be one, through the president. Regardless, the president was myself. And I knew it.

Is there any difference between my so called ‘real-life’ experience and ‘dream-life’ experience?

I dreamed that I was in front of my house in Romania, on the street, talking to a very good friend of mine. However, something felt quite odd about the whole scene, but I couldn’t really put my finger on it. The thought that this could be a dream suddenly arose in my mind.

So I said to myself, “if this is a dream, then I could make whatever I want to happen, happen”. In other words, I would be able to control everything. So I decided to come up with a test. I said, “if I can make my friend say what I want him to say next, then it is surely a dream”. And so I did, and so he did. But then, something weird happened. I stopped seeing my friend as an agent, an independent living entity with personality, hopes, dreams, own volition and began to see him as a marionette. I began to look at him and treat him as I would my foot, or the little finger from my right hand. He no longer seemed real.

This is not to say that my foot or my finger are less worthy of my consideration, respect and awe, but that generally we are taught to think of them as lifeless. But they really aren’t, they’re booming with life. Just see how many things they do by themselves, without your interference, without the need for your control or supervision. Nevertheless, we are taught to think of them as dumb and this has an impact on how you interact with them.

The fact that you know that the people around you are nothing other than yourself should rather increase your awe, enjoyment, respect and wish to serve them.

I’m not saying that the regular, ordinary feeling that ‘I am me’, this body, is something to be disregarded and thrown away. Because, this feeling of centralised and limited control is what colours this world so beautifully and imbues it with life in our eyes. Everything is here for you to enjoy; even the ‘bad’ things, the less desirable things.

When you don’t know that you are dreaming, everything is happening by itself, people are going around minding their own business, nature is there doing its own things and you are there, experiencing all of it. But all is in your own mind. You are doing everything, even if you are not aware of it.

So, when it is said, “Love thy brother as yourself”, it simply means that your brother is yourself. And if you think that you can somehow love yourself and hate others, you do not really love yourself. The saying, “You cannot love others unless you love yourself” starts to make sense now, doesn’t it? The other is yourself, so loving another but not yourself is pure non-sense. Could you only half-love someone?

On a very-much-related note, I remember the first time I went to a neurologist with pains in my lumbar region. You know what she said to me? She said, “when was the last time you loved your back?” It started malfunctioning because I didn’t love it, I just used it. My back stopped working harmoniously and I was the one that suffered. So it is if you use other people. You will, in the end, suffer. Not as a punishment, not as a condemnation after a judgement that has been passed on your actions, but simply because of the fact that what you truly did is hurt your own self.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, what is there to say about self-sacrifice? That is, hurting yourself for, what you think is, the good of others? When you do something for others, you do it for yourself, but if you somehow lose while others gain, is that really a true gain? Is it to their true benefit?

If you deny yourself in order to accumulate wealth, you are only accumulating it for someone else. Others will use your riches to live in luxury. How can you be generous with others if you are stingy with yourself, if you are not willing to enjoy your own wealth? No one is worse off than someone who is stingy with himself; this is a punishment in itself. When such a person does something good, it is only by accident; his selfishness will sooner or later be evident.

Sirach 14:4–6

“How can you be generous with others if you are stingy with yourself?”

[This is in excerpt from my book, Trust which you can read for free on Odeen]