On Dreams and Reality

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dreaming, dreams, reality, realization

There is a certain energy within the heart of a dreamer which attracts the dreams that can define their purpose at a given stage of their life. When the defining dream does arrive, it often brings it with the resources that can help the dreamer to accomplish it — or at least the energy to magnetize a group of people towards its accomplishment. 

It was this resource-filled, truth-inspired, time-sensitive energy that was perhaps the defining characteristic of Martin Luther King Jr and his dream. The energy of that dream forced reality – whatever it meant in the context of his life purpose in that time and space – had to get out of his way. It stood no chance. 

This is not to say that MLK Jr and his dream have been fulfilled to completion. Far from it. If nothing else, the need for kindness, empathy, justice, and greater understanding of our fellow human beings is only the greater at the inception of this new decade. Isn’t this the reality we currently live in? Isn’t that dream even more relevant? Does that dream not need to stay alive?

When my neighbor sees that my snow blower will not start, and he decides to come over and lend a helping hand, the dream is still alive. When fire-fighters from halfway across the world converge on a continent to help fight wildfires, the dream is still alive. When we decide to speak up with softness yet firmness for those whose nascent vision is buried by purveyors of reality, the dream is still alive. 

We may not have received our own energizing, magnetizing, world-changing dream yet. Perhaps the absence of a huge dream is in itself an opportunity for us to bide our time, even a lifetime, and become instrumental in keeping someone else’s dream alive. To help them accomplish their kindness-elevating, empathy-spreading, truth-promoting dreams — can that not become a worthy life-purpose for us? Is that not the reality dreamed and lived by the sun, moon and stars in every single day of their existence?

Kumud

P.S. Join us for our weekly gathering, Sunday January 20th at 9amET / 730pm India. We will share on dreams, on reality, and everything in between. I look forward to seeing you with tea and some goodies. Namaste – @AjmaniK

Day-dream-waking on a beautiful winter day…

On Dreaming and Reality

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dreaming, dreams, reality, spirituality, truth

The act of dreaming has the ability to quickly put us in a state of lightness of being.

As we allow ourselves to roam the blue skies of possibility – like the blue-winged young swallows practicing their flying manouevers on the field of lotus leaves ready to spring forth their yellow blossoms – the act of dreaming transports us to the fields of the infinite.

There are the acts of dreaming while being awake, and dreaming while in deep sleep. There are the acts of dreaming in the intervals between being awake and falling asleep, and dreaming in the spaces between awakening from sleep and being fully awake. There are the dreams dreamt at dawn, the mid-morning dreams, the mid-afternoon dreams, the “let me take a short nap before dinner” dreams and the “I ate so much that I feel asleep on the couch” dreams.

Some dreams are dreamt by parents for their young children, by teachers for their students, by mentors for their mentees, by leaders for their followers. In every deep and meaningful relationship, there is an entanglement of the dreams of one or more souls. The dreaming may be done in time and space congruence, or it may be done separately by the individuals on the relationship. But how often is it that the dreaming and the dreams of the individual are squelched for the sake of the “group” or the “society”?

Some dreams are written in exquisite detail in private journals, while others are shared publicly in prose and poetry. Others are hidden away among hurriedly scribbled notes in secret compartments of jewelry boxes – only to be accidentally discovered by their descendants after the scribbler has long or recently passed away. No matter the medium of their writing or speaking or even remanining permanently embedded in the dreamer’s heart and soul, the reality remains – the act of dreaming connects us to the possibility of freedom.

Ah. There she is. Reality. She snuck in among the dreams. Let us visit with him for a bit. We find ourselves at a loss, when we are told at a young age, to “stop dreaming” and “get real”. R.E.A.L. Those four letters seem to clip our winged dreams to size and splash us into the lake of reality – like the “learning to fly” too-young swallow who miscalculates his steep dive and ends up with an unintended cold bath!

But wait. Reality does not have to be the enemy of dreams or spell an end to the act of dreaming.

Reality and dreaming are far from the opposites that they are often thought of being. While reality may often be accused of contracting the truths that dreaming takes the liberties to expand, they both operate in the realm of Truth. At the spiritual level, the truth is that the act of dreaming is the doorway to the state of dreamless sleep in which we can connect with our true divinity. Have you ever woken up from a dreamless sleep and you cannot remember how long you were actually asleep?

In that dreamless sleep, we are disconnected from time and space – merged with our true nature, which is infinity. We are then in a state of consciousness where we are one with the One, where we experience the harmony of unity.

Does all of this perhaps suggest that what we consider as real – our every day life full of ups and downs, dreams and distractions, wins and losses – is indeed all a dream?

Does it suggest that the true reality, the dream worth dreaming, is the one which connects us to Joy?

Does it mean that the only dream with levity, is that which brings us face to face with Truth?

Am I suggesting that all the messages we receive so often – ‘dream big dreams’, ‘reach for the stars’, ‘set high goals’, ‘operate in reality’ – need to be revisited, and maybe even revised?

I want to hear your take on dreaming and reality. I want to encourage you to reevaluate your dreams from the past, of the present, and for the future. Or have you stopped dreaming altogether? What kind of reality does that present for you? Is that a reality that is full of light and levity?

Kumud @AjmaniK

I invite you to share with us, here in the comments, and in the weekly #SpiritChat conversation on twitter – Sunday, May 22nd 2016 at 9amET(USA)/1pmUTC. We continue in the vein of “Lightness and Levity” for the month of May, with Dreaming and Reality. Join us!

Dreaming? Or Reality? – Photo by Cecilia A. (High Res Photo)