the interaction between Krishna and Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita tells us of the path the seeker takes to realize that all is Self -- Self-realization.
Stage 1:
the Seeker finds that life is unmitigated confusion and chaos -- so he seeks meaning. He uses meditation only to be overwhelmed with guides and angels... and out of body-experiences and other dimensions and other lives... lives with unimaginable hells and then unimaginable heavens ... and only when all these different lives in meditation/dreams/OBE become boring to the seeker – as was life – only then does the seeker find himself in the second-phase to SELF.
Stage II:
only when the seeker also rejects all these other lives – and metaphorically but adamantly tells all guides and angels and especially gods to get lost – only then do all these other lives leave the seeker ABRUPTLY and permanently. IT is an absolute and also an extremely abrupt change. (There is an obvious reason for this. The SELF cannot have decoys like angels, souls, guides... and gods around if it is to realize it-SELF. )
The instant a seeker reject ALL LIVES is the instant they vanish forever ... literally NEVER to bother the seeker/SELF again.
Stage III:
very few of the greatest gurus and even gods can tell us about Stage III because metaphorically the SELF never shed all its apparent differences for them.
the third and final stage of realization: when all the differences the SELF needs to appear to be many .. when these differences vanish ... this becomes more and more obvious because the "sleep-dreams" start to align with life, or compliment life, more and more .. until it becomes OBVIOUS that nothing can separate dreams from life.
In this stage the seeker starts to dream about the same nonduality he tries to figure out in life... and often the seeker needs his dreams to figure out the nonduality he was seeking in life and otherwise he needs life to figure the same nonduality of his dreams ... in this final stage to Realizing the SELF: the Self slowly sheds all its differences so that there is literally nothing that separates dreams from life – they all become the same ONE dream of the ONE Self.
And even the most potent gurus and gods, like Buddha, Jesus ... and even Ramana .. Shankara ... could not -- or were not allowed -- to explain this absolute ONENESS of Self because their dreams did not compliment their lives enough to make it obvious – that both dreams and life are the same fiction of the SAME one-SELF.
=-=
Krishna's ultimate message to Arjuna becomes clear only with an "understanding" of Stage III:
Krishna: Arjuna, you will realize you are AWAKE because there there will be nothing left to seek or do or understand because there will be nothing to separate your dreams from life .. because they are both the same fiction of the same SELF.
-- really, Really REALLY
ONLY when dreams become one with LIFE.
ONLY then can the SELF fully realize it-SELF
because there is no other.
-- O'no
Great post! This also ties in quite perfectly with the "triad of progress" theory for one who is seeking truth in this world of hidden traps.