ARE YOU REALLY AWAKE, OR ARE YOU STILL DREAMING

Every night, we enter a dream that feels real. Every morning, we wake up

and declare that dream unreal. But what if the world we enter after opening

our eyes is also a dream from which we have not yet awakened? Why

do we remember our waking experiences more easily than our dreams?

Why do we believe that what we experience with open eyes is ultimately

real? Have our repeated beliefs and habits conditioned us to accept our

worldly identity without questioning its deeper nature? And if spiritual

awakening is the removal of ignorance, what happens to our understanding

of birth, death and the Self when that ignorance disappears? In this

deeply personal spiritual reflection, Dr. Abhishek Gilara explores the

extraordinary relationship between dreams, memory, the subconscious

mind, Maya, consciousness and the ancient Vedantic teachings of liberation.

Drawing upon his disciplined spiritual routine, lifelong habit of questioning, practical experiences and

reflections from the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, he invites readers to examine a possibility that

challenges our ordinary understanding of existence. Perhaps opening our eyes is not the same as awakening.

Perhaps remembering our worldly experiences does not mean we have understood ultimate reality.

Perhaps our greatest attachment is not to our possessions, but to the identity we believe ourselves to be.

And perhaps liberation is not travelling somewhere to find God, but realising the truth of the Self that

Advaita Vedanta describes as never having been separate from Brahman. Through three thought-provoking

chapters, this book examines the distinction between physical wakefulness and spiritual awakening,

the influence of conditioned beliefs, and the possibility of freedom from the cycle of birth and death

through self-realisation. We spend our lives trying to become successful within the world we experience.

But how much time do we spend investigating the one who is experiencing it? This is not a book about

escaping responsibilities, rejecting the world or claiming enlightenment. It is a book about questioning

what we have always assumed to be true. Because the greatest mystery may not be what happens after we

die. The greatest mystery may be whether we have ever truly awakened while we are alive.