Savitri Simpson - The Meaning of Dreaming: The Deeper Teachings of Yoga on Why We Dream as Explained by Paramhansa Yogananda

For over thirty-five years, Savitri Simpson has taught classes and workshops based on Paramhansa Yoganandas teachings on yoga, dreaming, the chakras, meditation, and many other related topics. She has served as a counselor, minister, and teacher at Anandas Expanding Light Retreat Center, where she was a founder/director of the Ananda Yoga Teacher Training Program and the Ananda Meditation Teacher Training Program.

She has written several books including: Chakras for Starters, The Chakras Workbook and her two novels Through Many Lives and Through the Chakras. She has a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Baylor University. In addition to her primary devotion to yoga, meditation, and all related subjects, she is a musician, herb gardener, gourmet cook, and nature lover. She lives with her husband in a dome-home at Ananda Village near Nevada City, California.

THE DEEPER TEACHINGS OF YOGA ON WHY WE DREAM

Crystal Clarity Publishers, Nevada City, CA 95959

2016 Savitri Simpson

All rights reserved.

Printed in U.S.A.

ISBN: 978-1-56589-306-1

eISBN: 978-1-56589-562-1

Cover and interior designed by David C. Jensen

Cover painting by Ashleigh Dyan Bayer

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Simpson, Savitri, 1950- author.

Title: The meaning of dreaming : the deeper teachings of yoga on why we dream

as explained by Paramhansa

Yogananda / Nayaswami Savitri Simpson.

Description: Nevada City, California : Crystal Clarity Publishers, [2016]

Identifiers: LCCN

2016006112| ISBN 9781565893061 (quality pbk. : alk. paper)

| ISBN 9781565895621

(ePub)

Subjects: LCSH: Self-Realization

Fellowship. | Yogananda, Paramahansa,
1893-1952--Teachings. |

Dreams.

Classification: LCC BP605.S4 S56

2016 | DDC 135/.3--dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016006112

	crystal clarity publishers
800.424.1055 www.crystalclarity.com

In the first stage of my research for this book, I was astonished by the sheer number of books and articles that have been written about dreams and dreamingthousands, or more probably, tens of thousands! There are several websites on the topic, plus chat rooms, scientific journals, magazines, and conferences, even a whole library devoted to this subject. with the words dream or dreaming in the title.

The proliferation of available information on the subject suggests two things: first, dreams seem to be an endlessly fascinating topic for people of every culture, place, and time; and second, why should I attempt to write yet another book on the subject, when so much has already been written? In answer to this question, my research also helped me to see that, at least as well as I could determine, no one has addressed this topic in the same way that the great exponents of yoga have done. And, to my knowledge, no one has spoken or written on this subject with such fresh insights, clarity, and absolute authority as one of the greatest yoga masters of recent times, Paramhansa Yogananda.

Paramhansa Yogananda was the first yogi from India to make his permanent residence in America. Born in 1893, Yogananda came to the United States in 1920, where he lived until his passing in 1952. In addition to lecturing and teaching extensively in the West, he also wrote books and lessons on yoga teachings, meditation, and philosophy. In some of his earliest lessons he wrote about dreams, why we dream, and what our dreams mean. He did not write as someone presenting a theory about what dreaming is, but as a master of himselfone who had experienced every level of consciousness consciously, and who had achieved superconscious union with God, as well as power over life and death. In 1948 Yogananda published his masterpiece and his most important written work, Autobiography of a Yogi, which remains, to this day, one of the most sought-after and influential books in the annals of metaphysics.

Much of the material in this book is taken from a series of lessons Yognananda wrote in the 1920s and 1930s. Occasionally sentences, redundant in the present context, have been deleted. Sometimes words or punctuation have been changed to clarify the meaning.

In this book I also quote extensively from the books, lessons, and lectures of Swami Kriyananda (J. Donald Walters; 1926 2013), a direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda and my spiritual teacher for thirty-eight years. He was the founder of Ananda Sangha and its communities and centers worldwide. For nearly six decades he served Yoganandas worldwide mission through writing, lecturing, and teaching.

He is renowned also as a gifted author and composer. His published books number over a hundred, the best known of which are: The New Path: My Life with Paramhansa Yogananda; Rays of the One Light; The Essence of Self-Realization: The Wisdom of Paramhansa Yogananda; Paramhansa Yogananda: A Biography; The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyaam Explained; The Hindu Way of Awakening; Hope for a Better World; God is for Everyone; Conversations with Yogananda; The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita; and Revelations of Christ.

The word dream has several meanings. At night we fall asleep and dream. But we also use the words dreaming or dreams to describe things we are wishing to have happen, imaginations, or visualizations of desires. Another meaning suggests something in-substantial or not quite real. Paramhansa Yogananda often referred to the dream nature of the universe, explaining that the reality of the material universe is not as real or solid as we think. Most people have had the experience, even if only for a few moments, of their life and what is going on around them having a dreamlike or insubstantial quality. People who are not grounded or are vague in their approach to life are often called dreamy or dreamers.

In whatever ways we use the word, there are probably few people who have not wondered about their dreams, what they mean, or why we dream in the first place. Scientists who study sleep patterns and dream states agree that everyone dreams, even if some people say they are unable to remember their dreams. Even animals seem to dream, as evidenced by their twitching limbs, other movements, or vocalizations made while asleep. And yet this universal activity is still, in many ways, an unexplained phenomenon. This book, based on the teachings of yoga and especially those of Paramhansa Yogananda, is an attempt to demystify dreaming and what dreams mean, and to throw a new light on this ever-fascinating subject.

* A fine website for learning more about current dream research is www.asdreams.org, which is run by the International Association for the Study of Dreams.

The little centuries of human years are but days, nay, but a few hours in Gods consciousness. Awaken! Arise from dreams of littleness to the realization of the vastness within you.

Paramhansa Yogananda, Praecepta Lessons, Vol. 4 (1938) Praeceptum #103, 2005

What is a dream? Common definitions say that dreams are a series of images, ideas, and emotions occurring in certain stages of sleep. Dreams may take the form of a reverie, a state of abstraction, a trance, or a fantasy. Also, to dream is to hope for or imagine something, to pass time idly in reverie, to invent something, or to concoct a fantasy.