how we understand reality.
We think our experiences are produced by the brain, a view called materialism.
In Advaita Vedanta, fluctuations in consciousness cause our world, and our sense of existing inside it.
According to Advaita, the world doesn't exist in deep sleep.
In the materialist view, deep sleep is the rest-state of the physical body.
The body isn't conscious then, but still exists, snoring away.
If we understand consciousness to be primary, deep sleep is the return to reality.
Reality is pure consciousness, without any fluctuations.
Why doesn’t going to bed seem like a metaphysical leap?
Because when you’re dreaming, everything “makes sense” within the dream.
When you return to reality - without any fanfare - the dream explains this away as “sleep.”
What the dream calls sleep is the door to reality.
The best analogy I can think of is a stage door.
Before the intermission, the characters in a play say they’ll go hiking in the mountains.
The stage door is painted with mountains.
But when the characters walk through it, they’re not in the mountains.
They’re backstage, chatting, as the actors they actually are.
If we return to reality every night, why don’t we wake up enlightened?
Because “waking up” is the return to dreaming.
Waking up to the world is the return of mental activity.
What the dream represents as sleep, death, and samadhi are all doors out of mental activity.
Eventually, we lose the tendency toward mental activity, as we realize this is not what we actually want.
The trick is to see that we’re happier when we have less mental activity. The rest takes care of itself. Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
It contains within it two key concepts: the concept of needs, in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs...
Authored by Dr Anadi Sahoo
