The next Sûtra is Swapnanidrajnanalambanam va meaning “the knowledge of dream or sleep can also awaken you”.

This is very interesting. You sleep all your life, but you have never met your sleep. It’s like a person who has lived all his life with millions in his hands but never knew how to spend it. Or like a person who is sitting at the dining table with a delicious, elaborate meal, without knowing how to eat it.

It is the same with our life.

Sleep is there but we do not know how to sleep! We dream everyday and we do not know what a dream is.

When you sleep you let go of everything. If you hold on to anything, can you sleep? In sleep, your identity vanishes. You are neither male nor female. There is no difference between a rich man’s sleep and a poor man’s sleep, between an intelligent man’s sleep or a stupid man’s sleep. Sleep is sleep.

In sleep, what do you do? You let go of who you are, of your likes and dislikes. You cannot take anybody with you into your sleep. In your sleep you are devoid of your identity, your cravings, your aversions, your likes and dislikes.

This is exactly what meditation is, when you do not do anything. For God’s sake, in meditation do not do anything. In meditation, do nothing and let go of everything, as you do during sleep. Patanjali says that the knowledge of sleep leads you to samadhi.

Next come dreams. Ignorant people make their dreams a reality and enlightened people see reality as a dream! Utter ignorance is trying to interpret dreams. Enlightenment means realising reality is a dream. Do you see the difference? If you go to an enlightened person and say this is my dream, he will say “Forget about it and wake up”. When you go to a dream interpreter, they say, “Oh! this means that, that means this.” Such ignorance!

There are five types of dreams. One is that which comes up in the form of cravings or your unfulfilled desires. They appear in dreams as fulfillment. Have you experienced this? Your latent desires always show up in your dreams.

The second type of dream is stress release from the past. All you have experienced in life comes up as dreams.

The third type of dream is an intuitive dream — where you think of what might happen in the future.

The fourth type of dream has nothing to do with any of these. It is to do with the place where you are sleeping. For instance, if you are sleeping in a hotel in Italy, in your dream, you may experience Italian sounds and feelings.

The fifth type of dream is a mixture of the four. You never know one from the other. So you cannot really distinguish a dream and say, “this is my intuitive dream”. It could be, it need not be. A wise person would simply brush them aside.

Even this waking reality is a dream. Now you are sitting and reading, tomorrow you will be doing something else somewhere else and next week all this will be a dream. What you would do next week is a dream right now. Your mind dreams more when it is awake.

You have only two states of consciousness. One is deep sleep and the other is the dream state. Day-dreams or night dreams! Building castles in the air. The day-dreaming never ends. Then when you suddleny wake up to reality, that awakening is pragnya or samadhi.

Patanjali has done a marvellous thing by quoting this Sûtra. Knowledge of sleep awakens you. When a person is sleeping, he is not at all aware that he is sleeping. The moment he knew that he was sleeping or this is sleep, he is already awake.

A person who is day-dreaming does not know he is day-dreaming. The moment he knows that he is day-dreaming, he awakes to the reality that very moment, instantly. Are you day-dreaming? Are you sleeping? There can be only two possibilities. There is no third possibility.

Be wary of what you let into your mind for it will determine who you are. The series on Patanjali’s yogasûtras continues

The next Sûtra is Vitaragavishayam va chittam meaning “the mind which is free from craving for objects blossoms fully”. Water always assumes the shape of the cup it is poured into. In the same way, whatever thought you engage your mind with, your mind becomes like that. It develops the qualities of everything you put into it.Keep your mind engaged in the thoughts of the enlightened. Vitaraga means one who has gone beyond cravings or one who is liberated from cravings. If you think of such a person, then your mind also gets those qualities. It begins to feel the peace and quietness. You start assuming all those qualities and start developing those qualities in you.

Our mind is like air which does not have a location. It is not fixed. Vitaraga is all permeating. So that air, that cool breeze, that energy enters in the mind is also like ether which is all permeating. That is why people say ‘Guru’ means the enlightened one. Do not see them as human beings, as people with likes and dislikes. Otherwise your mind goes towards what they like and dislike. Likes, dislikes, cravings and aversion and anger, all these will come up. Instead you see the consciousness, as pure joy, as peace radiating. Even if any thoughts come, likes and dislikes come, again do not struggle. Just let go and relax. You begin to draw that energy and you assume that form.

You should try this on yourself as an experiment. Think of somebody who is very nasty and you start feeling all those nasty emotions inside. Have you experienced this? Think of somebody who is very jealous of you and then you will feel such uncomfortable sensations. Think of somebody who is into drugs and alcohol and who is very miserable and you will feel all those knots coming up in your body. Have you experienced this? Think of somebody who loves you very much and see how nice feelings come up in you, right? By putting your attention on the enlightened, your consciousness also becomes more and more alive and filled with more light.

So Jesus says, “If you have to go to my father, you have to go through me. There is no other way.” It means that you have to go through a master because the Master is a solid example and that is why Master is the doorway. You have to pass through your mind and what can help you go through the mind is the doorway. That is how mind blossoms.