hermit's chronicles

The art of medicine of a century ago is now a science of medicine, with much loss both to patient and practitioner alike. The art of seamanship has become the science of navigation with every mechanical aid and the true sailor has almost disappeared. And the art of being a man is becoming a science, too, and men will disappear from the face of the planet as have other species whose development became one-sided and ended in a cul-de-sac. - Lobzang Jivaka in The Life of Milarepa

Ramana Maharshi was taking about the dream and waking states. "Let us say that tonight when we go to sleep we are chased by a dream tiger. In spite of all our study and analysis of the waking and dream state, we will run for our life. Why? Because the knowledge that it is only a dream will not be available to us during the dream. If we knew the 'I' was but a dream, we could stand still and allow the dream tiger to attack our dream body. What would we lose if our dream body is killed or mutilated?" Ramesh Balsekar points out that we wake up from the personal dream into the waking dream. And the sage, he has woken up from the waking dream.