Constantly, life is slipping and entering into death. Life slipping into death is what we usually call living. Please understand, actually we don’t live. We are just waiting for death to happen. Ordinary human beings don’t live. Life is just slipping into death, disappearing into death. That is the reason however many years you may live, you don’t feel satisfied, and you don’t feel you have lived your life because you don’t even know what life is.

When you become conscious of life, when you start thinking, contemplating about your life, when you bring awareness into your life, you create a new center in your being. Between this life and death, when you bring more awareness into the life, you create a new center, a new space in your life – that is what I call consciousness.

Whenever you are conscious, you start deciding about your life. For example, the more you become aware, the more you start designing or choosing what type of car you should drive, what type of house you should live in, and what type of life you want. You start deciding every inch. You become conscious about everything: how you should talk, how you should behave, how you should think, every inch you start becoming aware.

The moment you start becoming aware, you start deciding, and you start controlling your life. When you become completely aware you will start controlling your death also.

These two events of life and death then happen at the conscious level. If you are consciously thinking, it is life. If your consciousness can’t think, it is death. In the unconscious level, two things happen as well, dream and deep sleep. In the unconscious level, if you are aware, it is dream. If you are able to see anything, if you are able to sense anything, if you are able to feel anything, if you are able to experience any movement, then it is called dream. If you are not aware of anything, if you are not able to feel anything, if you are not able to understand any movement, it is deep sleep.

When you bring more awareness into your life, you take charge of your life.

In the waking state, when you are aware or you are in what psychology calls as conscious state, it is life. If you are not aware, it is death. When you bring more awareness into your life, you take charge of your life. In the same way, in the dream, if you start bringing in more awareness, you will take charge of your dreams and deep sleep.

Controlling life and death and controlling dream and deep sleep both require one important condition, awareness. Awareness is the main requirement to control life and death and to control dream and deep sleep. Bringing awareness into your dreams can not only help you control the dream and deep sleep, it can also help you control life and death. 

When you start experiencing prana in the forehead, you will understand that not only is prana supplied from air, but it is the prana that creates both your reality and dreams. Whatever you call as reality and whatever you call as dream are both made of prana. This is what Shankara means when he says this entire world is maya, an illusion.

When you understand this, you will have the tremendous energy to control both dreams and life. As of now, you are just a victim. You can’t even control your dreams. Can you dream what you want? You can’t! You can’t control a single incident in your dream. As of now, either you go through the whole dream or you can get out of the dream, you can just wake up. You can’t control the dream itself.

Life is nothing but day- dreaming and dream is nothing but night- life. Night-life is dream and day-dream is life.

If you can bring more awareness to the dream state, the awareness in the waking state will increase. The awareness in the life, awareness in the living state will multiply. If the awareness in the living state multiplies, naturally you will be able to control death.

If you bring more and more awareness into your dream state, if you can bring more and more consciousness into your dreams, suddenly the quality of consciousness in your life will increase. If the quality of your dreams changes, if the quality of your deep sleep changes, the quality of your life will also change. The quality of your dream and the quality of your life are both directly connected with each other. Understand, life is nothing but day-dreaming and dream is nothing but night- life. Night-life is dream and day-dream is life.

source: Living Enlightenment