In the day, whatever you do, you call it as life. In the night, whatever you do, you call it as a dream. In the day, if you are not able to do anything, you call it as death. In the night, if you are not able to do anything, you call it as deep sleep.

In the day, if you have three things: experiencer, experienced and the experience, it is called life.

We can take the example of drinking coffee in which there are three elements: the coffee one drinks, the person who drinks the coffee and the experience of the state of drinking coffee. If you experience all these three elements in the daytime, it is called life and if you don’t experience all these three, it is called death. In the night time, if you experience all these three, it is called dream and if you don’t experience all these three, it is called deep sleep.

The moment you start moving towards the dream state, the prana starts coming towards the vishuddhi, throat center. The more you move towards the deep sleep state, it moves towards the anahata, heart center. It is the same in the case of life and death as well. The more you are alive and energetic, the more the prana accumulates and gets centered in the forehead.

Dream and sleep, life and death can all be handled by this single key, single thread called prana.

When the incoming breath is bringing more prana and the outgoing breath is going empty, your prana will be centered on the forehead. If the incoming breath is getting less prana and the outgoing breath is taking more prana, slowly the prana will slip into vishuddhi, throat center. If the incoming breath is not bringing prana at all and only the outgoing breath is taking the prana, you will fall completely into the heart center.

Actually, falling from life to death, falling from the waking state to the deep sleep state, are both directly related to prana movement. If the prana movements of inhalation and exhalation are handled properly, you can handle life and death as well as dream and deep sleep. Dream and sleep, life and death can all be handled by this single key, single thread called prana.

If you can be aware when you fall into the dream state, when your consciousness is slowly fading away, when you are falling asleep, you will be able to change the dream itself. If you are able to change the dream, let you be very clear, the first thing you will do is you will stop dreaming. You will stop dreaming because you know the uselessness of dreams. You know you are wasting time and energy in dreams.

The person who can be aware of dreams will never dream. The person who is aware of life will never take one more birth. That is why, in the East, all the spiritual scriptures, whether the Vedas or Dhammapada or Jain sutras or Guru Granth Sahib, are all aimed only at the goal of not taking one more birth. They all have only one goal, moksha, liberation, from the cycle of birth and death.

Person who is aware of dreams will never dream. He will simply stop dreaming. Person who is aware of life will simply stop the cycle of birth and death. He will not take one more body.

When I use the word ‘death’, I don’t mean you will commit suicide. When I say that when you become aware of life you enter into death, it does not mean that you will commit suicide. You will stop living in the normal way. You will stop living with identity. You won’t give importance to identity. You will be reborn.

That is why enlightened masters are called dead people. Actually, the enlightened people are called people who are already dead as far as the world is concerned. They don’t have identity or they don’t have life as you understand. Their life cannot be called any more as life. Practically, if you want to give any term to their life, the only term which you can give is death! They are not alive as you think. That is the reason, again and again, all the scriptures say, the spiritual people are ‘reborn’. In this state, you can never be tortured by the things of life. Life will look just vague or like a film. It won’t penetrate you and disturb your inner space.

If you can be aware when the prana falls into the heart center every day, you can stop, alter and manage your dreams and deep sleep. If you are aware of prana slipping from ajna to anahata each time you go to sleep, it means that at the end of the life you will be able to change your life and death. If you want, you can bring it a little early. If you want, you can postpone. You can play in whatever way you want.

source: Living Enlightenment