by Rachna Chopra

From Dream Consciousness to Mukti Consciousness

What appears is not true. Or rather it is as true as the fanciful imagination of a drugged person. What is seen is not fixed, or it is as fixed in reality as a reflection afloat on water, its pattern as coincidental as the pattern of color splashed on canvas. The physical reality that meets our perception is as unreal as the apparatus with which it is perceived — the physical eye. When you begin to see the physical reality for what it is, you get aligned with a different perception, the one that frees you in multiple ways. The bodies begin to seem soulful, and the souls peeping through the bodies begin to appear as matter. In other words, the distinction between spirit and matter dissolves, when you see it for it all is — a hallucination.

The tight grasp of seeming reality loosens, and you begin to feel like a dream, a dream that contains a hope of unraveling who you truly could be. To feel like an element of a dream, like a wish afloat in a heart or like a blog of nature’s reverie is a unique experience, and the basis of Kriya Yoga. The constant practice of Kriya yogis is to vigorously perceive the dreamlike fluidity of material existence, and perceive no difference between the different features of this dream, since they are all part of the same dream! The principle behind these practices is the premise that the more dreamlike reality begins to appear to you, the closer you would move to the real “you.” Practice this perception. While perceiving anything with your physical eye, remind yourself that it is all a dream — feel the fluidity, the bluff.

The realization of this dream consciousness itself is Mukti consciousness because in the wake of this realization, you invariably become the Witness, the dreamer who is about to stir awake.