Mandukya Upanishad
With an Advaita Commentary from our Understanding
by Kenneth Jaques | 31,733 words
The Mandukya Upanishad is a short, just twelve verses, description of the material manifestation and the eventual return to unmanifest form of the Universe....
Verse 4
4. The second quarter is Taijasa. Its field is the dream state. Its consciousness is internal. It is seven limbed and nineteen mouthed. It enjoys subtle objects.
"The second quarter is Taijasa. Its field is the dream state".
Taijasa is the "Self" experiencing, in consciousness, the dream state.
In the dream state conscious awareness is internal, the dream within is seen as the reality. With this understanding there is no conscious perception of the so called waking "reality".
The difference between waking state and dream state, in consciousness, is merely one of perception or memory.
Taijasa has the meaning of "luminous" which here means that a person, when dreaming, is his own light. A person in the "waking state" has his way and understanding lit by information from the "outward-turned" senses.
In the "dream state" the person, the "self" furnishes the dream through the light of his own intellect and knowledge according to its desires and interpreted experiences.
"Its consciousness is internal"
While asleep and dreaming the being is not conscious of external phenomena because the person is not looking to the senses for guidance. In this state the "self" consciousness is experiencing a world according to its own knowledge and creation.
"It is seven limbed and nineteen mouthed".
The knowledge that is being experienced in the consciousness of dream is still the same knowledge, which is Absolute Knowledge. As such the dream world will resemble the gross world of the senses, sensing and desiring the material universe, enabled through the same "mouths and limbs".
In all respects other than material there is no difference between waking and dream states of consciousness.
"It enjoys subtle objects"
In the dream state, the internal world is not made up of material objects. All objects of desire are achieved or fulfilled or "enjoyed" through subtle knowledge.
In the dream state man (self) lives or rests in the ongoing subtle creation of the desires of his intellect and experience.