577. Daydreaming

A French professor writing about America in 1927 says there is no holding back an American from unceasing hard toil when he knows the reward is great. The Americans want to earn more by working longer hours and putting in higher efficiency. Along with that, he says something which came to me as a revelation. The European wants to earn more by giving less work. Until I read that, it was a non-European phenomenon for me. People dream, some daydream. The exceptional among them expect their dreams as rewards in life, by virtue of their dreaming. All sensible men frown upon day dreaming rightly. Dreams are the life in the subtle plane which readily reveals in the sleeping hours. Alert minds can detect such dreaming scenes during waking hours. It is right to dismiss dreams as an idle pursuit, but it is not the entire truth.

What truth escapes our waking observation, the dream-self reveals at night in the subtle plane. Scientists have had intuitive guidance in dreams. A disciple was initiated into sannyasa by Ramana Maharshi in his dream. Great seekers in all fields have had substantial guidance form their dreams. There are great achievers who have succeeded far more than their compeers. Sometimes the crown is offered to them but slips. It may happen several times too. Such men need psychological guidance. It comes to them in their dreams, even in their daydreams. To see the guidance in it, accept it and act upon it, one should be lucky. One who had always risen high in every walk of life but finished second was wondering why. He often used to see a pencil in his dreams, a pencil which he had stolen, the only theft. It means that little sly act has created a chink in his armour of Truth. To be absolutely true is his possibility and goal. That knowledge will change his life.

As ants sense the coming rain a day later, our dreams reveal what is in store for us, if we have an eye for that. People who are ordinary failures in life will have their defects physically staring before their very eyes. Their friends will din it into their ears. No subtle plane or dream-self is called for. Those who are not capable of common folly and capable of extraordinary achievement, often have a higher victory beckoning them. Dream is their occasion, subtlety is their tool. A room not well swept will be quiet. If you start cleaning the room to the best of your ability, you will trip over a stool, under which there are the cobwebs of months. The stool thus calls you to clean it also. It is the call of the stool that made you trip over it revealing the cobwebs. Even daydreaming has its positive side.