The self, surely, cannot be identified with the body, senses or the internal organ, nor can it be regarded as a mere by-product of matter. The bodily self or the waking self identifies with its contents --- body, senses, mind, wife, son, daughter, sister, father, mother, brother, relation, friend. It stretches itself and identifies itself with the object and feels as if they constitute its being, as if it is incomplete, nay, no nore, without them. But infact that which can be known as an object can never itself be the empirical self. Dreams have been selected by Prajapati because here the objects have to be framed by the mind independently of the body or the senses. In the walking life, the objects are there apart from and outside of the mind which are only known and not created by it. Here the mind is helped by the senses which take the fleeting and scattered manifold of sense-impression caused by external objects to the mind which arranges them into order and gives meaning and unity to them.
But in the dreams, the mind has to function alone and fabricate imaginary objects for itself. It is the state, therefore, of perception without sensation. The self in the waking as well as in the dream state is ever changing and therefore cannot be the real self. The self must persist throughout the changes as their knower. The ego, limited by space and time, by birth and death, is a miserable creature.
The body is not the self, though it exists for the self. The dream-experiences are not the self. Though they have meaning only for the self. The self is not an abstract formal principle of deep sleep too. The eye, the body, the mental states, the presentation continuum, the stream of consciousness --- are all mere instruments and objects of the self. The self is the ground of waking, dream and sleep states and yet it transcends them all. The self is universal, immanent as well as transcendent. The whole universe lives and moves and breathes in it. It is immortal, self-luminous, self-proved and beyond doubts and denials, as the principle which makes all doubts, denial and thoughts possible. It is the ultimate subject which can never become an object and which is to be necessarily presupposed by all knowledge.
Chhandogya Upanisad
But in the dreams, the mind has to function alone and fabricate imaginary objects for itself. It is the state, therefore, of perception without sensation. The self in the waking as well as in the dream state is ever changing and therefore cannot be the real self. The self must persist throughout the changes as their knower. The ego, limited by space and time, by birth and death, is a miserable creature.
The body is not the self, though it exists for the self. The dream-experiences are not the self. Though they have meaning only for the self. The self is not an abstract formal principle of deep sleep too. The eye, the body, the mental states, the presentation continuum, the stream of consciousness --- are all mere instruments and objects of the self. The self is the ground of waking, dream and sleep states and yet it transcends them all. The self is universal, immanent as well as transcendent. The whole universe lives and moves and breathes in it. It is immortal, self-luminous, self-proved and beyond doubts and denials, as the principle which makes all doubts, denial and thoughts possible. It is the ultimate subject which can never become an object and which is to be necessarily presupposed by all knowledge.
Chhandogya Upanisad
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