Spiritual Dreams

[Sat1176]

Apologies for the double post in another thread but thought people might find the following insight useful.

 

Spiritual dreams. The different categories of dreams.

 

It was at this time that Salim had several distinctive dreams which were, for him, incontestably spiritual in nature, and which brought him precious guidance at moments in his life when he was in the greatest need of help. These dreams would normally come to him very early in the morning, when he was on the point of waking.

 

Those related below are given by way of example only, as he had many others. In the first dream, he found himself in a vast room, illuminated on his left by high windows. In a corner, in front of him, was a bed. A fairly old spiritual master was lying on this bed. The master was the size of a child. He was crucified like Christ, and was agonizing on his cross. An atmosphere of intense suffering reigned in this place. It was Salim’s duty to take care of this dying man and he felt deep sorrow for him. Through the large door that opened behind him he could hear a sizeable crowd which, unconcerned by the pain of the man being crucified, chattered incessantly. Little by little, this crowd entered into the room until, finally, it entirely filled it. Salim tried in vain to interrupt this futile and pointless prattling. He was saddened by his powerlessness to make this mass of people understand the gravity of the drama that was unfolding. The dream ended there; distraught by the impression that it left within him, Salim remained preoccupied by its meaning for a long time. He realized that, in fact, the man being crucified was him, or, rather, the superior aspect of his nature, and that the noisy crowd was composed of the different characters who, within him as within every human being, invaded his mind and represented a source of continual distraction. All this inner chatter and all these futile thoughts were preventing him from remaining centered on his goal, in other words, preventing him from connecting with the Divine Aspect of his nature which would remain crucified within him until he discovered the means to silence these interferences.

 

At another time, he had a dream that made a strong impression on him. He found himself in a deep well, dark and frightening. Far above him, he could see a bright light while all around him there was nothing but mud and darkness. He felt lost and terrified. He called for help in order to be able to get out of this well. Instantly two arms, without a body, descended; one was holding a large hammer and the other enormous nails. The two hands quickly set to work, hammering a nail into the wall of the well around every fifty centimeters until they reached top, then the arms vanished. Salim awoke very troubled, anxious to decipher the meaning of this dream. It took a little time for him to understand the message: help would be given him, but only up to a certain point. It would then be up to him to accomplish his share of the effort required to climb the ladder and reach the inner Light he aspired so ardently to reach.

 

In the third dream that came to him at this time, he found himself in a cathedral. A faint bluish glimmer fell from the stained glass windows; a strange atmosphere reigned. Many tombs lay side by side in the nave and a tall priest dressed in a long dark robe addressed him with solemnity; he was speaking to him directly in his mind, without the medium of words. As Salim was not able to grasp what the priest was trying to communicate to him in a severe manner, the priest then raised his arm to order him to look to his right. Salim turned apprehensively and saw, just behind him, a naked figure, neither man nor woman, standing on a tombstone. What struck him was that in the place of its head, was a white marble cross. While the asexual being descended slowly into the burial vault until it had completely disappeared, the marble cross was confirming, with an uninterrupted affirmative nod, that in fact, what the priest was trying to communicate was right and just, and that he must accept it. It was only later that Salim understood the meaning of this mysterious dream. At an unexpected moment, he abruptly realized that, if he wanted to progress in his spiritual approach, he would have to die to himself. The marble cross in the place of the head symbolized that which must be continually sacrificed, in other words the mind and the idea that one has of oneself.

 

Following the various experiences he had in this domain, Salim classified the dreams in three categories.

 

The first included all the ordinary dreams that one might have, which result from the influence of events experienced during the day, during the preceding days, or even in a more distant past. These dreams can reveal certain aspects of oneself, and it may prove interesting to study them. It is principally this category of dream that is the object of interpretation in contemporary psychology.

 

The dreams described above belong to a second category and are extremely important for an aspirant engaged upon a spiritual path. Their purpose is to help the aspirant overcome certain difficulties encountered in his quest or to understand which direction he should take, which he is unable to fathom in his diurnal state due to his identification with the demands of the external world. These dreams come from the superior aspect of his nature and always leave him with an impression of profound mystery which insistently incites him to question their meaning.

 

Finally, there is a third category of dream which Salim subdivided into two. It includes, on one hand, telepathic dreams. This type of dream results from receiving thoughts or intentions that another person has just emitted about the author of the dream. It testifies to a particularly receptive state that can occur during nocturnal sleep. For example, a person receives a letter whose content has already been revealed during a dream; or an acquaintance or even a stranger may come to visit, and the dreamer had encountered this very same person recently in a dream. And there are, on the other hand, premonitory dreams, whereby one is forewarned several days before a person dies, or of a danger to be avoided. One can even dream, as is the case in the example that will be mentioned below, of an event that will only happen many years later. One finds oneself then, with amazement, in the same places, making the same gestures, and feeling the same feelings that one experienced in a dream a long time before.

 

While Salim was still living in Paris, he had a very curious dream which unfolded in three sequences and which left him, subsequently, feeling very troubled. Initially he was walking beside a young blond woman on a high mountain plateau and, on arriving at a clump of three trees that stood out against the sky, he raised his hand to wave goodbye as she moved away from him to his right. He then found himself walking alone along a cliff top beside the ocean; he looked down towards the foot of this cliff where three huge smooth rocks rose up and were being battered by the waves. A strange atmosphere permeated the scene. He lifted his head quickly but the sun was so dazzling that he had to raise his arm to protect his eyes. The scenery changed once more, and he was now walking in a western street which was becoming ever foggier, colder, and more sinister; he felt so frozen that he cried out vehemently: “But, I don’t want to go this way, I want to go where there is some sun!” The years passed and, when he found himself in India, in Darjeeling, he was walking on a high mountain plateau, alongside a young woman who had become his wife, when he suddenly realized that she was the very same woman who had appeared in the dream he had had in Paris three months before even meeting her for the first time, more than nine years previously. Then, the same three huge trees that he had seen in his dream came into view on the horizon. Three weeks later, when he was in Pondicherry, tormented by a decision he was facing concerning his marriage, he was walking along a cliff top, in deep thought, letting his gaze drop down to the shore where there were three huge blocks of smooth stone; surprised to recognize the scenery from the second part of his dream, he raised his eyes suddenly, but the sun was so strong he had to protect his eyes with his arm, and the whole scene came flooding back to his memory with astonishing clarity. Lastly, several months later, he had gone back to his family in London for a few weeks; he had been heartbroken at having left India. He decided one day to go out and walk a little. It was a glacial month of December; he found himself plunged into the thick London fog when, suddenly, he remembered, with his amazement, the final part of his dream, while saying to himself in despair: “But I don’t want to stay here, I want to go back to India, where there is some sun!” It was as if, mysteriously, he had been warned, nine years earlier, of the ordeal that he was currently going through.

 

Salim often spoke in his books of the state into which a human being is plunged during his nocturnal sleep, and which is an indication, both of the state one will experience after death (although that will be on an entirely different scale), as well as of another dimension in which time no longer exists for the sleeper. When one dreams, the psychic world in which one is immersed no longer obeys the rules of time and space of the familiar universe that one experiences in the diurnal state. Premonitory and telepathic dreams illustrate the unsuspected possibilities of the mind and its mysterious capacity to transcend, on occasions, the spatio-temporal dimensions in which one is ordinarily imprisoned.

 

 

[Sat1176]

There is one other category of dreams.

4. Where one has recollections of past lives. This one is more difficult to understand and you need help from more advanced souls to decipher what that dream was all about.

 

[Soulfinder]

@Sat1176 Veer ji really good thread you have made. Here is a mention of how the third form of having darshan is in dream by Sant Gurbachan Singh Ji Bhindrawale 

 

The 2nd track is where Sant Ji is describing how Bhai Gurdas Ji had darshan of Guru Sahib in his dream.