What/whom did I see?

Baker

Greetings.

A couple of weeks back I had a "vision", to call it somehow. I was in bed, waiting to fall asleep but still wide awake, when suddenly, as if through a black tunnel, I saw a small clearing in a forest, and there was a big devotee standing there, and I saw myself before that devotee. The devotee was wearing a pale/light yellow dhoti made of some shiny fabric with uneven texture, and his face looked much like those stylized faces of devotees - the characteristic eyes, shaven head, a sikha. He was of enormous size. He crouched down to look at me. The longer the "vision" lated, the smaller I became; at first, I was somewhere about the height of his knees (hence my seeing the fabric of his clothes so clearly), but was becoming smaller and smaller until I was the height of his big toe, and by then I prostarted myself before him; but I was getting smaller and he bigger still.
I don't remember seeing his face clearly, it was quite far away after all, but it somehow felt warmly and benevolent.

Is there a standard description for what or whom I have "seen"?

VEDA

My take: This is to show the elevated nature of devotees in general and that your submission will bring success. Sastras are full of these two topics.

dweller-in-peace

Seeing devotee with sikha, dhoti, shaven head in a dream is really cool. Don't have any description of whom you saw but these are good signs imo.

Kula-pavana

Baker:

A couple of weeks back I had a "vision", to call it somehow. I was in bed, waiting to fall asleep but still wide awake, when suddenly, as if through a black tunnel, I saw a small clearing in a forest, and there was a big devotee standing there, and I saw myself before that devotee. The devotee was wearing a pale/light yellow dhoti made of some shiny fabric with uneven texture, and his face looked much like those stylized faces of devotees - the characteristic eyes, shaven head, a sikha. He was of enormous size. He crouched down to look at me. The longer the "vision" lated, the smaller I became; at first, I was somewhere about the height of his knees (hence my seeing the fabric of his clothes so clearly), but was becoming smaller and smaller until I was the height of his big toe, and by then I prostarted myself before him; but I was getting smaller and he bigger still.
I don't remember seeing his face clearly, it was quite far away after all, but it somehow felt warmly and benevolent.

Is there a standard description for what or whom I have "seen"?

Very interesting and auspicious dream. I would put it in a category of 'shamanic visions'.

The way I read it, the 'devotee' in it is actually Sri Guru, who manifests Himself through various devotees. The closer we get to Him, the better we realize our own lowly position.

Thank you for sharing it with us.

VEDA

Let me just add what Vedanta sutra says about dreams: http://www.veda.harekrsna.cz/encyclopedia/dreams.htm

Baker

But I am quite sure I wasn't dreaming when I saw this, I am quite sure I wasn't sleeping. I was aware of the room around me. As the "vision" progressed, I was aware that I was wondering what that was, whether it was just a figment of my imagination, whether I was just being sentimental, or what. I laughed, wondering if the vision would go away, but it didn't. And weeks later, it still seems to be alive in my mind somehow.

I did have a dream later that night/morning. I suppose it was inspired by a video I watched that evening. Namely it was a feature about an Indian animated series about Krishna (http://connect.krishna.com/node/8208). In the dream, I was in a room in a house on a hill, sleeping, but awoke to the laughter of children. And then in the dream I saw little Krishna and Balarama running across a meadow (that wasn't in the video, though). I sneaked out of my room (there was this fancy thing about perception in the dream - I somehow saw through the walls of my room, walls which didn't really exist, way off into the meadow where They were). By the time I reached the meadow, I didn't see Them anymore, but I heard children laugh. Then there was a barn there, with modern farming machinery; in the barn there was a wall with posters on it - the usual posters on machine maintainance and safety warnings. And in the middle of those posters, in the same typeset style and size, was a poster with a quote from scriptures, but all I could remember was that it said "CC Madhya", and this was underlined.

I have also dreamt the maha mantra several times, and I chanted in my dreams, and sometimes before I awake in the morning, I hear it "playing in my head".
I also sometimes dream of devotees. But that "vision" of that enormously large devotee seems to be of a different kind than the dreams I usually have as far as devotional topics go.

manasi_seva

Yes hes called Shazam!

VEDA

These awake visions are quite rare. They always have a profound impact on the experiencer.

"The only cure for non-belief is the mystical experience." - Thomas Merton

About two months ago I had a dream of being in a medieval church with nice colorful windows. There were also two boys, dark and white, running around. Then They went out and jumped on a high mountain standing right in front of that church. (In SB there's a lila how Krsna and Balaram jumped from a high mountain.)

This is also interesting in this regard: http://veda.harekrsna.cz/connections/Judaism.php#3

CC Madhya has some essential dialogues between Sri Caitanya and His followers. Chapters 21-23 are a summary of GV teachings.

manasi_seva

Baker,

Excuse my flippant comment, at first your description of the devotee being so tall and you so small reminded me of the cartoon Shazam.

I don't think your vision was in the awake state, it usually happens in the borderline state, like you said when in bed waiting to fall asleep, sometimes you feel like your being electrocuted and your body vibrates its scary, other times it feels like you are travelling at a high speed then it slows and the vision occurs and for some the vision or experience just starts with no sensation. The beginning phase can be different for everyone.

I spent many years prior to discovering Iskcon when I was very young of age (11-15), in bed waiting just at the borderline state, I would enter a different world with full consciousness, My understanding at the time was that I was in the dream state with one very big exception, I understood I was dreaming, I had many adventures in this state and some had a medieval gothic theme, others were in my current era and some were in an era I could not describe at my youthful age. The difference between a normal dream was enormous, firstly I knew was dreaming and I had independence, rather than being controlled by the dream as in normal dreams I had a choice of actions.

In one experience I had entered a dark medieval/gothic world, the people around me were cruel and callas to each other, a medieval fair was in progress with jugglers and dwarf's and the fair people had smiles on their faces, looking closer the smiles were painted on like clowns. but I could feel they were incredibly sad almost evil, a group of strange people showed up and all I can remember was they had clean shaven heads and pony tails as it is described in my diary (at a young age these experiences struck me so deeply I recorded all of them and I still do to this day). This incident shocked me to the core of my being because the medieval folk just saw me like everyone else, but the strange people with shaven heads were looking at me, and for some reason I knew that they knew that I was awake and completely conscious of the event.

Some of the fair people started provoking them and shouting insults at them and even pushed them, but they did not retaliate and this confused me because everything I had learnt at that age was and attack and defense. Although this scared me because out of all of the adventures I had in this state, no one was overly aware of my consiousness of the situation except for this group of shaven headed people. I spent months trying to find these people again in my borderland state but was unable to, I thought they might have answers as to what was happening to me.

Several months later (not in a dream state but in the real world) at the age of 12, I went to a spring fair with a friend, at the end of the night we were leaving the fair but needed to queue at a small exit gate to get out. I heard some some strange music and when I looked I saw these strange people I saw in my dream, they were shaven headed with pony tales. They had cakes (prasadam in a basket) and were dancing, chanting and handing out the cakes, some hooligans came up and started dancing with them, the hooligans accepted the cakes and started kicking the cakes in the air and hitting the devotees. The devotees did not retaliate and this deeply affected me, I knew these people were the same ones I saw in my dream. It was late and by the time I got out of the gates due to the conflict with the hooligans they had left.

It was two years later when I was 14, I saw one of these people again selling the Radha Krishna record album in middle of our city, I was able to get the address to the temple and with my parents consent I was visiting on Sundays for the love feasts.

At 15, I found a book called "Journeys out of the Body" by Robert A. Monroe and his book was the only one that came close to describing what I was going through. I even gave a presentation in my high school class. It must have made impact because 7 students went out and purchased the book. This book describes techniques that open the doors to this realm, I did not need them but I have tried them and they do work.

At 16, I started reading the Bhagavad Gita and when I got to Srila Prabhupadas purports on not being the body, I did not need convincing, I already knew that there was a more deeper subtle energy within the body that survived death and Srila Prabhupada was the only one with the complete answers.

By the time I was 17, I was shaved up and living in the temple.

That's the true story of how I came to Krishna Consciousness and even now decades later the internal journeys continue, I truly believe the universe is magical and that Radha and Krishna are at the center of all things.

P.S. A word of caution for anyone considering getting the book and opening the doors, just becareful a door allows you out and others in, and who and what comes in is up to the state of your consciousness.

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