ICEF

Tale 58 · The Vāsiṣṭha Atlas

The Hunter and the Sage: The Dream of King Sindhu

Nirvāṇa · second half · Mitra VI.2.137–164 · 46,759 words

He breathed into another's dream and could not find the way back.

Bhūmikā 6 · Padārthābhāvanī (melting of objects)PlenaryYour ally · Listening through Love

The essence

A hunter has been reclaimed by a forest sage, and he asks how outer things come to appear inside us in dreams. The sage answers with his own case. Seated in padmāsana, he sent his breath out with his mind and let it be drawn into the nostrils of a pupil sitting before him. Travelling with the breath, he reached the man's heart and found the whole world there. He merged with the pupil's consciousness, slept his sleep and dreamt his deluge. Then he was born into the dream-world, forgot himself, and lived a century as a village Brahmin with a wife, children and one old cow. When he tried to return, he found that a forest fire had burned his own body and his host's, and there was no way back. The world in which he now teaches the hunter is that dream. He then foretells the hunter's future: a boon from Brahmā, a body that swells across space and falls dead to earth, rebirth as King Sindhu, the slayer of Vidūratha, and at last liberation.

What it teaches

  1. 01

    To enter another's world, the sage first breathed with it. Joined to the other's consciousness, his view was at first doubled, with two suns and two moons, before the two views became one (VI.2.138.4–11).

  2. 02

    Absorption without an anchor turns into amnesia. Inside the dream the sage 'forgot myself as one of them by my habitual mode of thinking' and lived a century as a villager (VI.2.140.33–40).

  3. 03

    Return is not guaranteed. The body the sage left behind burned while he was absorbed, so whoever goes deep must keep the way out open (VI.2.150.29–151.8).

  4. 04

    Conviction becomes identity. When Indra told Vipaścit he would become a deer, Vipaścit 'entirely forgot my human nature, under my firm conviction of having become a beast' (VI.2.159.21). People prepossessed with pictures of hell 'come to suffer the same' (VI.2.160.55).

  5. 05

    Deep sleep can be had while awake. The sage defines suṣupti as thoughtless self-awareness, which he says can be reached 'even in the waking state', and he treats it only as a station on the way to turīya (VI.2.137.53–56).

The Vāsiṣṭha Atlas

This tale’s coordinates

The wound and its virtue

Breathing his way into a pupil's heart, the sage loses himself in the other's dream and 'forgot myself as one of them by my habitual mode of thinking' (VI.2.140.33), living a century as a village Brahmin until the body he left has burned and no way back remains (VI.2.150.29). Ease is how he now lives with that fact: he teaches the hunter from inside a dream he knows to be 'a mere dream appearing as waking' (VI.2.151.9), keeping thoughtless self-awareness 'even in the waking state' (VI.2.137.54).

What it trains

Breath-led absorption that loses its anchor ends in amnesia, so the tale trains attention that can go deep and still keep the way out open.

In other yogas

  • Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad · MāU 5; MāU 7

    The sage defines suṣupti as thoughtless self-awareness reachable 'even in the waking state' and treats it as a station on the way to turīya (VI.2.137.54). This follows the Māṇḍūkya's ascent from prājña, deep sleep, to the fourth.

  • Yoga nidrā

    Yoga nidrā is the art of keeping a thread of awareness at the hypnagogic threshold so that one sleeps without being lost in sleep. The sage who 'forgot myself as one of them' (VI.2.140.33) is the warning case that nidrā's saṅkalpa and return are built to prevent.

  • Patañjali · Yoga Sūtra · YS

    Among the powers of the third chapter of the Yoga Sūtra is entering another's body once the bonds that hold the mind are loosened. Patañjali also counts such powers as obstacles to samādhi, and the sage's failed return shows why.

  • Vijñāna Bhairava Tantra · VBT

    Several dhāraṇās of the Vijñāna Bhairava follow the breath outward and inward and rest at the point where it turns. The sage's breath, sent out with his mind and drawn into the pupil's nostrils (VI.2.137.10), rides that same current into another heart.

IEAF: Integrative Emotional Alchemy Framework (Gallardo, Frontiers in Psychology, 2026). FP20: the Fundamental Peace Scale. ITM: the Integrative Transformation Model. Parallels in other yogas are contemplative correspondences, not claims of influence.

The tale

A hunter who had spent his life shooting deer wandered into a hermitage. The sage there asked him why he went on afflicting innocent creatures, and the hunter threw away his bow and arrows and stayed. Within a few days his mind turned to the scriptures, and he asked his teacher how outward objects come to be seen within us in our dreams.

The sage told him that this same question had once seized him too. He had sat in padmāsana and stretched his thought far out, then drawn it back into the recess of the mind, the way the sun sends out its rays in the morning and gathers them in at evening. He breathed out and breathed in. His breath, carrying his mind with it, rested in the air before him, and the pupil sitting there drew it into his nostrils. So the sage entered another man's body, and he found it hard going. He passed through arteries and veins, was caged in by the ribs, and was scorched by boiling blood and bile. At last he pushed through to the heart, and there he found a shining light that held the three worlds like a mirror. Resting in it, he saw sun and moon, seas and hills, cities and gods, the whole world spread out like a dream.

He then joined his consciousness to the pupil's. At first everything was doubled: two suns, two moons, two heavens and two earths. Then the two views merged, just as the illusion of a double moon clears into one. The pupil, full from his meal, grew drowsy, and his senses drew back like the limbs of a tortoise. The sage went into deep sleep with him. When the breath began to flow again and the sleep grew light, a world rose out of the sage's own breast. In it a deluge broke, and gods drifted on the waves like straws. In the middle of the flood he remembered his holy trance: "I have entered into the body of another person, in order to see the sights in his dreaming."

The waters went down. He slept again and woke into a new world. There he was born, came to know a father and a mother, and slowly lost the knowledge he had before. He lived for a century as a village Brahmin, with a wife and an old cow. Then a wandering sage came as his guest and told him that everything is the display of the one Intellect. The Brahmin heard his own story from the guest and wanted to leave. Riding out on the host's breath, he saw his own hermitage. His body sat there in padmāsana, and pupils tended it in its anaesthesia. Then he went back in, and saw the world burn in the fire at the end of an age. He flew through that fire unscorched, recognising it as a dream within a dream. He fell asleep again and woke among his old village and family, embraced them, and forgot everything once more.

When at last he tried to return to his own body, he could find no passage into it. The guest sage explained why. While he lay absorbed in his reverie, a wildfire had swept the hermitage and burned both bodies to ashes, his own and the host's. There was no body left to go back to. And the guest who had taught him in the dream, he told the hunter, was the very sage now sitting beside them: "behold him to be the venerable personage, that is now sitting beside you." Hunter, sage and guest were dream-figures to one another.

The sage then told the hunter his future. Brahmā would give him a boon, and his body would swell beyond all the worlds. Weary of its uselessness, he would hold his breath, and the vast carcass would fall to earth. His mind, still carried by its breath, would become King Sindhu. As Sindhu he would kill Vidūratha, and his minister would show him that the goddess grants each person only what that person truly prays for. Sindhu would renounce his kingdom and be freed. All of it happened as foretold.

The text speaks

Passages from Mitra’s translation (1891–99), cited by book, chapter and verse.

“My breath being accompanied with my mind, was reposed in the air before me; and then it was with the air inhaled by the pupil sitting before me, and intromitted into his nostrils.”
VI.2.137.10This is the method of entry: the sage's mind rides his out-breath into another person's in-breath.
“It is possible even in the waking state, to have this sound sleep of susupta hypnotism; by our determination of thinking of naught, save that of sitting quiet in one and same state (of abstractedness).”
VI.2.137.54Mitra's clearest equation of suṣupti with hypnotism, presented as something that can be reached while awake.
“As my sensuousness was intermingled with his sensations, I became sensible of a duplex feeling of all external objects, which appeared in their reduplicated forms to my senses.”
VI.2.138.4Doubled perception is the first stage of entering another person's experience.
“This our consciousness being mixed up together, the double view of the world now became one; just as the erroneous sight of the two moons in the sky, is soon changed to one upon aright its right view.”
VI.2.138.11In the second stage the two perspectives fuse into one shared world.
“Remaining thus in company with these, I came to lose in course of time the light of the understanding I had attained before, and forgot myself as one of them by my habitual mode of thinking, as the man forgot himself to a fish (as it is related before in the story of Dama, Vyála and Kata).”
VI.2.140.33Identity is lost through habituation inside the absorbed state.
“Roving long in this manner, I sought to enter that body, by the passage of its lungs; but finding neither that or any other passage, I kept floating in the air.”
VI.2.150.29The failed return: the passage back into the body has closed.
“Therefore know this mortal state, as a mere dream appearing as waking, and that all of us are but day dreams, and seeing one another as we see the visionary beings in our dreams.”
VI.2.151.9The tale's conclusion: dreamer, dreamt and listener are all dream-figures to one another.
“After the god had said so, I had the presentiment of being a deer in this forest, and entirely forgot my human nature, under my firm conviction of having become a beast.”
VI.2.159.21A pronouncement by an authority turns into lived identity, with amnesia for the former self.

What the trance sees

IND

Induction

VI.2.137.7–12

In the textThe sage sits in padmāsana and fixes his attention. He stretches his thought out and draws it back, then alternates outbreath and inbreath until 'my breath being accompanied with my mind' passes into the other man.

In the clinicThis is a breath-paced induction that ends in pacing another person's respiration, close to Erickson's matching of the subject's breathing as described in Bandler & Grinder (1975), Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson.

RAP

Rapport, pacing and leading; entering the other's world

VI.2.138.1–12

In the textThe sage mixes his sensations with the host's 'as a drop of oil is mixed with and diluted in water'. He first sees everything doubled, with 'two suns and two moons', and then 'the double view of the world now became one', while his own discernment 'became finer and finer without wholly losing itself in his'.

In the clinicThis is pacing and leading taken to its limit: the therapist enters the client's frame of reference until perceiving from inside it, while keeping a thin observing self. It anticipates Erickson's principle of meeting clients within their own world.

OBE

Out-of-body / thought-body travel

VI.2.140.49–51

In the textThe sage leaves the host's body on its outbreath, 'mounting afterwards on the vehicle of the wind'. From outside he sees his own body seated among his pupils. Later he 'became a breath of air' to search for that body (150.27–29).

In the clinicThese are out-of-body and 'thought-body' experiences of the kind reported in deep trance and imagery-based dissociation, with breath as the vehicle the subject experiences.

CAT

Catalepsy

VI.2.140.51–52

In the textFrom outside, the sage sees 'myself sitting in my padmásana' while his pupils care for 'my person in its state of anaesthesia'. Meanwhile the host lies 'as dead as a lifeless block or as a figure in painting' (138.17).

In the clinicDeep-trance catalepsy, the body left immobile and attended while the subject's experience is elsewhere. It shows the classical need for a monitor to safeguard the entranced body.

NEST

Nested trance

VI.2.141.1

In the textFalling through the fire at the end of the age, the sage says: 'I thought all this as a dream in my dreaming (i.e. one dream in another)'. The world in which he now teaches the hunter is itself inside the host's dream (150.3; 151.8–11).

In the clinicDream within dream and story within story, the nested structure used in multiple embedded metaphor (Lankton & Lankton 1983, The Answer Within) to deepen and to bypass critical resistance.

AMN

Amnesia

VI.2.140.33–35

In the textThe sage 'forgot myself as one of them by my habitual mode of thinking', believing 'my material body only to constitute my person'. On waking a second time among his family, 'I utterly lost all my remembrance of the past' (147.19).

In the clinicThis is spontaneous amnesia for the original identity during a deeply absorbed role, like suggested identity alteration in highly hypnotizable subjects.

TD

Time distortion

VI.2.140.30–40

In the textInside the dream the sage passes 'sixteen years' after his birth and then 'a whole century' as a village Brahmin. He tells the hunter, 'I passed there full fifteen years in my domestic life' (149.4). Meanwhile his body sits in the hermitage.

In the clinicTime distortion (Cooper & Erickson 1954): subjective years are lived within a span of clock time that the text presents as far shorter.

ANA

Analgesia / anaesthesia

VI.2.141.1

In the text'Though repeatedly burning amidst those fires, yet I was neither consumed nor felt the least pain therein.' Earlier he entered the flames and was 'quite unscorched and unscathed' (140.64).

In the clinicThis is hypnotic analgesia through dissociated imagery: the subject is present to the burning scene but feels no pain, because he holds it as a dream.

EMG

Emergence / re-alerting

VI.2.150.26–151.8

In the textThe sage sets out to return to his body but finds 'neither that or any other passage'. The guest explains that a wildfire burned both bodies 'as you absorbed in your reverie', so 'you could not find out those two bodies'.

In the clinicThis is the danger of not returning. Clinicians follow a firm rule to re-orient the subject to body, place and time before trance is ended, and they keep the means of re-alerting intact.

AP

Age progression

VI.2.155.11–157.36

In the textThe sage narrates the hunter's whole future in detail: the boon, the swelling body, its fall, the life as Sindhu and Sindhu's liberation. He then closes: 'I have thus related these future events, as if they were past accounts unto thee' (158.1).

In the clinicThis is age progression and pseudo-orientation in time (Erickson 1954): the future is told and lived as already past. Here, though, the progression is fatalistic: 'there is no possibility to alter the decree of fate' (155.54).

PHS

Post-hypnotic carry-over

VI.2.156.30–32

In the textAs Sindhu, the former hunter never thinks to pray for liberation, because 'the propensity of doing evil (or slaughter), being inherent in your nature (from your past profession of huntsmanship)'. Later the text says 'he carries with him the same mind into the other' body (160.41).

In the clinicThis is post-hypnotic carry-over: a habit laid down in one state persists into the next, and it is reversed only by new effort and repetition (157.29–31), as in re-suggestion and rehearsal.

DIR

Direct suggestion

VI.2.159.15–22

In the textIndra declares that Vipaścit will become a deer. 'After the god had said so, I had the presentiment of being a deer... and entirely forgot my human nature, under my firm conviction of having become a beast.' The same mechanism appears in hell: men 'prepossessed' with images of punishment 'come to suffer the same' (160.55).

In the clinicPrestige suggestion working as identity transformation, the 'believed-in imaginings' of role enactment (Sarbin & Coe 1972). The hell passage is a nocebo effect of expectation.

Read upward — stage 1 at the bottom, stage 7 at the top

  2. Integration zone
    Perceptual shift — the boundaries of things soften; consciousness expands past its usual partitions.

A note on what this map claims. The alignment between stages of knowledge and trance depths is a clinical map — a heuristic correspondence proposed for research, not a claim of identity between contemplative attainment and hypnotic depth.

Bhūmikā 6 · Padārthābhāvanī

The sage has seen through the solidity of every object: 'all these appearances passing under the names of the world; are mere representations of the intellect, in the form of a passing dream' (VI.2.137.36). This is padārthābhāvanī. He names turīya as the next aim (137.56), and the hunter himself is only at the stage of inquiry (147.26–28).

Zone · Plenary

The sage's absorption is total. He has amnesia for his own identity, lives subjective decades and passes through fire without pain, while his body sits in 'anaesthesia' tended by others (VI.2.140.52). That is beyond the somnambulistic level.

In Mitra’s words

In Calcutta in the 1890s, the translator chose the vocabulary of hypnotism to name these states. More →

  • hypnotism (susupti--somnum)Better remain quiet in myself, because it is the thoughtless oblivion, and consciousness of self, <that> is true insouciance or the stupor or _susupti--somnum_ or hypnotism.VI.2.137.51
  • susupti hypnotismTired with the rambles and sights of my waking and dreaming states, I sought my quiet rest in the state of my thoughtless self-consciousness; and this being the sole aim and end of sound sleep, there is no other meaning of the susupti hypnotism.VI.2.137.53
  • susupta hypnotismIt is possible even in the waking state, to have this sound sleep of susupta hypnotism; by our determination of thinking of naught, save that of sitting quiet in one and same state (of abstractedness).VI.2.137.54
  • hypnotic susuptiHaving ascertained my torpor to the hypnotic susupti, I was resolved to seek after the _turíya_ or fourth state of supreme bliss; and with this resolution, I set out in search of it with my best introspection and diligence.VI.2.137.56
  • clearsightednessThat is called clearsightedness, wherein our view of the world, as it appears unto us is utterly lost; and whereby we see in that light in which it exists in the Divine Mind.VI.2.137.58
  • hybernation or hypnotism (Mitra's gloss)(Sound sleep of hybernation or hypnotism is the perfect rest of the body and soul, when undisturbed by dreams).VI.2.138.22
  • susupti or hypnotismWhen the stomach is filled with food, and the lungs are languid with weariness, the breathing then remains without its inflation, and brings on <a> state of sweet and sound sleep of _susupti_ or _hypnotism_.VI.2.139.18
  • holy trance (samādhi)I remembered my former state of holy trance (_samádhi_) and exclaimed; O, had I been an ascetic in another world.VI.2.139.43
  • anaesthesiaThese anchorites stood before me as my pupils, and were employed in their duty of taking care of my person in its state of _anaesthesia_.VI.2.140.52
  • pralaya or anaesthesiaThe consciousness of the dreams that we have in the vacuum of our minds, is what take the name of the worlds; but the sound sleep of the mind or its unconsciousness of anything, is called its _pralaya_ or anaesthesia: and this analogy applies equally to them.VI.2.143.60
  • anaesthesia (Mitra's gloss)(Sound sleep is the state of utter insensibility or _anaesthesia_--gloss).VI.2.146.14
  • reverieIn this manner as you absorbed in your reverie, and thought yourself to reside in the body of another person; you happened to fall asleep, and your hermitage in the forest suddenly caught fire and was burnt down.VI.2.150.41
  • anaesthesia in quietismHabitual reliance in sapience and constant attendance to the precepts of the sástras and preceptors, tend to the removal of the mind’s suspense between unity and duality (_i.e._ between God and the world), and set the mind to its ultimate bliss of _nirvána_--anaesthesia in quietism.VI.2.154.18
  • hynotism [sic, = hypnotism]The soul finds its rest only, while it remains in the fourth state of its sound sleep; or else it passes all along from dreaming to dreaming, in both its state of sleeping and waking, which continually haunt after it, unless it is drowned in its _susupti_ or sound sleep of _hynotism_, the only resort of the wise.VI.2.163.34

In the therapy room

Indications

  • Training therapists in empathic attunement and rapport, together with the discipline of keeping an observing self and a way out
  • Enmeshment, codependency and compassion fatigue in clients who lose themselves in another person's world
  • Absorption in roles to the point of forgetting oneself (overwork, caregiving, a borrowed identity)
  • Dream work: exploring a dream from inside while keeping the witness that knows 'this is a dream'
  • Iatrogenic or social labels and prognoses that become identity (the deer pronouncement): reframing the suggestions a client has absorbed

Cautions

  • Do not use the 'world as dream' teaching with clients prone to depersonalisation, derealisation or psychosis
  • Always re-orient fully at the end; the tale itself dramatises a failed return
  • The fatalistic progression ('no possibility to alter the decree of fate', VI.2.155.54) can harm depressed or hopeless clients; use progression to open choice, not to seal fate
  • Breath-joining exercises with another person need explicit consent and clear boundaries
From the bookThe full clinical note

Indications. First, the training of therapists, hypnotists and anyone who accompanies others: no text in the book is clearer on entering another's frame of reference, or on the discipline that must go with it, a thin observing self and an open way out. Second, clients who lose themselves in another's world: enmeshment, codependency, the carer who after years cannot say what she wants, the professional with compassion fatigue (Figley 1995). For them the village Brahmin with his one old cow is a gentle mirror, and a question can follow: whose dream are you living in, and when did you last look back at your own seat? Third, absorption in a role to the point of forgetting oneself. Fourth, dream work: the deluge passage (139.43–45) models lucid recognition, the dream entered fully and known for what it is. Fifth, clients who carry a label or prognosis that has become an identity; the deer pronouncement (159.21) lets them see the mechanism without being told they are wrong.

How to use it. As metaphor, tell it in three parts that match the therapeutic task: the joining (chapter 138), the forgetting (140.33), and the return that was nearly made (140.49–54). Many clients recognise themselves in the re-entry "for my own amusement", the step back into a familiar entanglement after the exit had been seen. As a protocol for clinicians, the practice below rehearses empathic joining with a deliberate anchor and exit, and is best followed by a few minutes of de-roling. Supervision is the modern form of the pupils keeping watch; the tale's warning is that the watchers can be lost too.

Cautions. Do not use the teaching that the world is a dream (151.9) with clients prone to depersonalisation, derealisation or psychosis; for them it confirms the symptom. Screen for dissociative disorders before any deep version of the practice. The tale touches self-harm: bodies burned with no way back (151.1–7), and the hunter who "suppressed the respiration of his breath" until he died (158.11). Screen for suicidal ideation before working with it, and never instruct prolonged breath-holding. The fatalistic prophecy (155.54) can harm depressed or hopeless clients; use progression as Erickson did, to open choices, and pair it with 157.29. The deluge and world-fire are vivid; survivors of flood, fire or disaster need trauma-informed pacing. Breath-joining with a real person requires explicit consent, clear boundaries and an agreed signal to stop; the practice below uses imagination only.

The practice

Entering the Client's Dream: Breath, Joining and Return

  1. Take a steady seat and gather attention. Send the attention outward like morning rays and draw it back like evening rays, several times (VI.2.137.7–9).
  2. Let the outbreath carry attention forward and the inbreath bring it home. Then, in imagination, pace the breathing of the person you will accompany (137.9–12).
  3. Notice the doubled view: your world and theirs held side by side, two moons in one sky (138.4–8).
  4. Let the two views merge into one, while a fine thread of your own discernment stays awake (138.11–12).
  5. Walk through the other's scene. When it overwhelms you, say inwardly, 'this is a dream in his breast', and restrain the sorrow (142.2).
  6. Check the anchor of return: see your own seated body and those keeping watch over it, and confirm that the way back is open (140.51–52).
  7. Leave on an outbreath through the 'mouth' of the scene and rest a moment in thoughtless self-awareness (140.49–50; 137.53–54).
  8. Re-alert: count upward, feel your weight and breath, name your own name, the place and the date, and open your eyes.

Practise with a qualified professional if you have a history of dissociation, trauma or psychosis.

From the book · to be read aloudThe full guided script

Entering the Client's Dream: Breath, Joining and Return

For therapists, hypnotists, carers and anyone who accompanies others. Read slowly, aloud, leaving a breath between lines; about twenty minutes. Record it if you wish. The person you accompany here is imagined, not present.

Before you begin. This practice follows the sage's own sequence, and above all his return, made properly. It is safe for most healthy adults. Do not practise it unsupervised if you have, or have had, a psychotic illness, a dissociative disorder, episodes of depersonalisation or derealisation, or trauma that still produces flashbacks; practise it with a clinician who knows your history. Choose to imagine someone you know a little and care for lightly: not someone you are grieving, in conflict with, or worried about in crisis. If you ever pace a real person's breathing, ask first and agree a signal to stop. Never hold the breath in this practice. Never practise while driving, operating anything, standing, or in or near water. Sit; do not lie down. Set a gentle timer for twenty-five minutes: it is your pupil, keeping watch over your seat.

How to return at any moment. Before you begin, press the tip of your thumb to the tip of your forefinger and say quietly, "The way back is open." That is your anchor. If anything becomes uncomfortable, press the fingers together, say the words aloud, breathe out fully, feel your feet on the floor, count up from one to five and open your eyes on five. Nothing in this practice requires you to stay.

Sit down, and let the seat hold you.

Feel where you are held: the chair under you, the floor under your feet, the air on your hands. This is your seat. Remember it. You will come back to it.

Gather your attention to one place, the breath at the nostrils. Cool coming in. Warm going out.

Now let attention go out, wide, as the morning sun sends its rays across the land: to the edges of the room, the sounds beyond it, the sky beyond that.

And draw it back, as the evening sun gathers its rays into its disc. Back to the room, the body, the breath.

Again. Out, wide. And back, home.

Let the breath set its own pace, like a flower letting its scent go and drawing it in again. The out-breath carries your attention forward a little. The in-breath brings it home. Forward. Home.

Press thumb and finger together, lightly. The way back is open.

Now let the person you have chosen be seated in front of you, a few feet away, at rest. You do not need to see them clearly. Notice only their breathing, the slow rise and fall.

Let your breath keep company with theirs. Not copying, not forcing: walking beside. When they breathe out, you breathe out. When they breathe in, you breathe in.

Let your attention ride the out-breath into the space between you, and rest there, as the sage's breath rested in the air before him.

And notice what happens. Your world and theirs, side by side. Two rooms. Two moons in one sky. You may feel what they feel and what you feel, both at once. This doubling is not a mistake. It is the first step. Let it be double.

Now let the two views draw together, slowly, as two rivers meet, as one season runs into the next. One scene. Whatever their world is like, heavy or light, crowded or empty, let it be the only scene for a while.

And as the views become one, notice a thread of your own discernment that stays awake. It does not argue. It does not leave. It grows finer, quieter, and it remains. Feel that thread now. It is the part of you that knows whose seat you are sitting in.

Walk a little in their scene. Let it show you something: a room, a road, a weather, a feeling in the chest. You do not have to fix it or understand it. Only accompany.

If it becomes too much, if a flood rises or a fire, say inwardly, as the sage did: this is a dream in their breast; I am here to see it, not to drown in it. Let the sorrow be there, and let it pass through you without taking you.

Breathe out.

Now, before going any further, check your anchor. Press thumb and finger together. From the thread of discernment, turn and look back at your own seat. See yourself sitting there, breathing. See the room, and whatever keeps watch over you: the timer, the quiet, the people who know where you are. The body is there. The passage is open.

You will not go back in for your own amusement. You have seen what you came to see.

Leave now, gently, on an out-breath. Let your attention ride out of their scene the way it came in, through the space between you, on the breath, home.

Let their breathing go its own way. Let yours go its own. Two people, two breaths, each with its own pace.

Let the person you imagined be at rest where they are. They do not need you to stay.

Now rest a moment in thoughtless awareness: no scene, no person, no task. Only knowing that you are here, sitting quiet in one state, awake.

(Silence: one to two minutes.)

Now begin to come back, fully.

Feel the weight of your body on the seat, the floor under your feet. Press the feet down a little.

Let the breath grow fuller: belly, chest, shoulders.

Move your fingers. Press thumb and forefinger together one last time and say quietly, "The way back is open. I am back."

If any feeling of theirs is still with you, name it and say inwardly: this belongs to them; I return it with respect. Breathe out, and let it go.

I will count from one to five, and on five your eyes open, clear and rested.

One. The breath is your own, and full.

Two. Hands and feet are warm and yours.

Three. The sounds of the room return, near and far.

Four. One deep breath in, and let the shoulders roll once.

Five. Eyes open. Here. Now. Fully alert.

Sit a moment before you stand. Say your name aloud, the place where you are, and today's date. Name three things you can see and one you can hear. Name one way in which you differ from the person you imagined. If you feel slow or still partly elsewhere, repeat the count from one to five, stand, walk a few steps, wash your hands or drink some water. Do not drive or operate anything for ten minutes.

Then go about your day as the sage went about his, unmoved and kind.

Meta Pets World · Your ally · Meta Pet 13

Breathing into another's dream, and finding the way back

Listening through Love card
13Listening through LoveI listen with the ears of love.

Listening through Love walks with the hunter and the sage because the sage enters another's world through the breath and finds it doubled before it becomes one. The two worlds held side by side, not yet heard as one, are Discord; the slow breath that follows the pupil's breath is Discernment through deep listening; the single world shared from inside the pupil's heart is Empathy. And the sage's failed return is the warning that keeps empathy honest.

  1. Shadow · what you avoidDiscord

    Discord: as his senses mingle with the pupil's, he feels 'a duplex feeling of all external objects, which appeared in their reduplicated forms' (VI.2.138.4), two worlds jarring against each other.

  2. Gift · what is hidden in itDiscernment

    Discernment: before anything else he listens with the breath, 'my breath being accompanied with my mind' and drawn in with the air 'inhaled by the pupil sitting before me' (VI.2.137.10).

  3. Essence · what you embodyEmpathy

    Empathy: 'the double view of the world now became one; just as the erroneous sight of the two moons' resolves into one (VI.2.138.11), though later he forgets himself 'by my habitual mode of thinking' (VI.2.140.33).

The sage in today's tale breathed his way into a pupil's dream, and then forgot the way home. Listen deeply today, with love. Just keep one hand on your own heart.

— Felicia
Today’s contemplation

You listened through love: when two views of the world become one, what does fear sound like, and is it yours or theirs?

To close the night

Tonight, write one honest sentence about someone you truly listened to today, or someone you did not.

The Ally Journey · about 15 minutes

Light trance, eyes open if you prefer. For the full, deeper script, see “The practice” above and its cautions.

  1. Threshold. Sit steadily, eyes open or lowered. Take three slow breaths, the Umbral, sending attention outward on each out-breath and gathering it home on each in-breath.
  2. The tale in one line: a sage breathes his way into his pupil's heart, sees the doubled world become one, then forgets himself in that dream and cannot return (VI.2.138.11; VI.2.140.33).
  3. Meet the card. Look at the art of Listening through Love and notice what you hear while you look. Read the affirmation: 'I listen with the ears of love.'
  4. Shadow. Where was there discord this week because you were not really listening, only waiting to speak? Recall one conversation and the moment you stopped hearing the other person.
  5. Gift. Think of that person. In imagination only, let your breathing slow to the pace you imagine theirs to be. Hold their view beside yours, two moons in one sky, while you stay clearly yourself.
  6. Essence. Let the two views become one, keeping a fine thread of your own awareness awake. Rest for three breaths, saying: 'I listen with the ears of love.'
  7. Return. Come back along the breath to your own body. Say your name, the place and today's date, feel your feet, open your eyes fully, and write tonight's honest sentence.
Open the card in Meta Pets World Alchemical Journey in the app Begin a 30-day Bond The card on this siteVisit Tjinkuma All sixty-four allies →

The 30-day Bond

You listened through love: each day of the Bond, listen to one person until you can hear what their fear sounds like.

The Sister · Tjinkuma

Pintupi (Aboriginal Australian) · Western Desert, Australia · Tjukurpa

Visit Tjinkuma, the Pintupi songline-keeper of the Western Desert, who listens to country so closely that its Tjukurpa sings through her, and who always knows the way home.

Guided Meditation

#13 · Listening through Love

Voice & guidance: Prof. Luis Miguel GallardoWatch on YouTube (ES also available)
For facilitatorsA session with “The Hunter and the Sage: The Dream of King Sindhu” and Listening through Love

Aim. To help the client, or the practitioner, join another's world through deep listening while keeping the discernment that makes a safe return possible.

ITM 3 Gift Discovery. The gift here is Discernment, the fine thread of one's own awareness kept awake inside empathy (VI.2.138.11), exactly what the sage loses (VI.2.140.33); finding that thread is Gift Discovery work.

The session (60–75 min)

  1. Arrival and Umbral (5 min): three slow breaths, attention sent out like morning rays and drawn back like evening rays.
  2. The tale (5 min): the hunter's question about dreams, the sage's breath entering his pupil, the doubled view merging, the century as a village Brahmin, the failed return and the prophecy. Point to the tale page for the full text.
  3. The card (8 min): Listening through Love, its affirmation and koan. Ask what fear sounds like in the client's closest relationships.
  4. Shadow inquiry (10 min): a discord inventory: relationships where the client hears only their own world, and, conversely, those where they lose themselves in the other's.
  5. Trance practice (20 min): 'Entering the Client's Dream: Breath, Joining and Return', from the full guided script on the tale page, at light depth, with the other person imagined, never physically joined, and the anchor of return checked twice.
  6. Gift and Essence integration (12 min): practise in the room: the client listens to the facilitator for three minutes, then reports what they heard and, separately, what they felt; close with the affirmation.
  7. Closing and Bond (5 min): full re-orientation, name, place and date; assign the 30-day Bond with Listening through Love.

Integration questions

  • When the two views became one, what kept you knowing which was yours?
  • What did you hear in the other person that you had not heard before?
  • In which relationship do you need more joining, and in which more return?

In a circle

In a circle, tell the tale and name the failed return as its warning. Lead the practice at light depth for about fifteen minutes, with an imagined person only. Then, with explicit consent, form pairs for a speaker and listener exercise: three minutes of speaking while the listener simply breathes and attends, then the listener reflects back what they heard and, separately, what they felt; swap roles. No breath-matching between participants without consent and clear boundaries. Close with everyone saying their own name, the place and the date aloud, followed by the affirmation.

Cautions

  • Do not use the 'world as dream' teaching with clients prone to depersonalisation, derealisation or psychosis.
  • Always re-orient fully at the end; the tale itself dramatises a failed return.
  • The fatalistic prophecy can harm depressed or hopeless clients; use progression to open choice, never to seal fate.
  • Breath-joining with another person needs explicit consent and clear boundaries.

Training and certification in the Meta Pets Method: metapetsworld.org/facilitators ↗

The correspondence between tales and Meta Pets is contemplative: the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha does not contain the Meta Pets; each tale enacts its ally’s arc. Felicia is an artificial-intelligence companion; her words are contemplative reflections, not clinical advice.

The song

From the cycle The Sixty-Four Tales

A Hundred Years in Another's Breath

Vāyur anilam amṛtam athedaṃ bhasmāntaṃ śarīram · Oṃ krato smara kṛtaṃ smara

Title: A Hundred Years in Another's Breath Título: Cien años en el aliento de otro

Figure: The forest sage who rode his breath into his pupil's dream, and the hunter, his new disciple, who hears the tale

Where in the text: Book VI (second half, Nirvāṇa-prakaraṇa), Mitra chapters 137–164; the song draws on chapters 137–140 and 147–151, and on 158 for the ending.

Hypnotic phenomenon the song enacts: RAP and AMN — two breathing rhythms begin out of phase and fall into step as the sage's world doubles and becomes one with his pupil's; then the opening motif vanishes through the village choruses, as he forgot himself; the outro does the re-alerting he never did, and gives the listener back their own breath.

Mantra: Vāyur anilam amṛtam athedaṃ bhasmāntaṃ śarīram · Oṃ krato smara kṛtaṃ smara (वायुरनिलममृतमथेदं भस्मान्तं शरीरम् । ॐ क्रतो स्मर कृतं स्मर) Source: Īśā Upaniṣad 17. Meaning: "The breath to the deathless wind, and this body ends in ash. Om, O mind, remember; remember what was done": the sage rode his breath out of the body and found both bodies burned (150.27–151.4), and inside the dream he had forgotten himself (140.33).

Lyrics (English)

Performance: two breath-rhythms open out of phase, the sage's out-breath against the pupil's in-breath, and fall into step during verse 2. The opening motif is absent from both choruses: the listener forgets it as the sage forgot himself. In the outro the hunter's rough voice joins, the opening motif returns and resolves, and the last lines re-alert.

Verse 1 (the sage) I sat cross-legged and sent my thinking out like the morning sun, and drew it in like evening. I breathed out, my mind riding the breath, and my pupil breathed it in. Down his veins, caged in his ribs, into his heart: a light like the moon, the whole world in it like a mirror.

Verse 2 (the rhythms fall into step) Two suns. Two moons. Two skies. Then, like oil in water, one. He had eaten; he grew drowsy; his senses drew in like a tortoise. I slept his sleep. A flood came. A father, a mother. I was born, and I forgot.

Chorus (folk drone and cowbell; the opening motif is gone) One old cow, a garden of greens, a water pot, my wife, my children: a hundred years in a village in somebody else's breath.

Verse 3 A guest came and said, "You are a dream to me, as I am to you." I rode the breath out of the mouth and sought the way back in by the lungs: no passage. Wildfire had taken the hermitage; both our bodies ash, blown off like flowers.

Chorus One old cow, a garden of greens: so I went home to them again, a hundred years in a village in somebody else's breath.

Bridge (mantra) (the wind, the ash) vāyur anilam amṛtam (the breath, to the deathless wind) athedaṃ bhasmāntaṃ śarīram (and this body ends in ash) oṃ krato smara kṛtaṃ smara (mind, remember; remember what was done)

Outro (the hunter's voice joins; the opening motif returns and resolves) "The guest who told me this — look: he's sitting here beside you." — The man from your dream, awake? Sage and hunter went down to the pool to bathe. Breathe in, by your own nostrils, to your heart. The passage is open. Nothing here has burned. Stand up. Go down to the water.

Letra (castellano cantable)

Interpretación: dos ritmos de respiración empiezan desfasados, el aire que suelta el sabio contra el aire que toma el discípulo, y se acompasan durante el verso 2. El motivo inicial no aparece en ninguno de los estribillos: quien escucha lo olvida como el sabio se olvidó de sí. En el final entra la voz áspera del cazador, vuelve el motivo inicial y resuelve, y los últimos versos despiertan.

Verso 1 (el sabio) Me senté con las piernas cruzadas y mandé lejos mi pensamiento como el sol de la mañana, y lo recogí como la tarde. Solté el aire, con mi mente a lomos del aliento, y mi discípulo lo respiró. Por sus venas, preso entre sus costillas, hasta su corazón: una luz como la luna, y en ella el mundo entero, como en un espejo.

Verso 2 (los ritmos se acompasan) Dos soles. Dos lunas. Dos cielos. Luego, como aceite en el agua, uno. Él había comido; le entró sueño; sus sentidos se recogieron como una tortuga. Dormí su sueño. Vino un diluvio. Luego un padre, una madre. Nací, y olvidé.

Estribillo (bordón de aldea y cencerro; el motivo inicial ha desaparecido) Una vaca vieja, un huerto de verduras, un cántaro, mi mujer, mis hijos: cien años en una aldea dentro del aliento de otro.

Verso 3 Llegó un huésped y me dijo: "Tú eres un sueño para mí, como yo para ti." Salí en el aliento por la boca y busqué volver por el paso del pulmón: no había paso. Un incendio se llevó la ermita; nuestros cuerpos eran ceniza, volada como flores.

Estribillo Una vaca vieja, un huerto de verduras: y volví a casa con ellos, cien años en una aldea dentro del aliento de otro.

Puente (mantra) (el viento, la ceniza) vāyur anilam amṛtam (el aliento, al viento que no muere) athedaṃ bhasmāntaṃ śarīram (y este cuerpo acaba en ceniza) oṃ krato smara kṛtaṃ smara (mente, recuerda; recuerda lo hecho)

Final (entra la voz del cazador; vuelve el motivo inicial y resuelve) "El huésped que me lo contó, mira: está sentado aquí, a tu lado." — ¿El hombre de tu sueño, despierto? Sabio y cazador bajaron a bañarse a la charca. Respira por tu propia nariz, hasta tu propio corazón. El paso está abierto. Aquí no ha ardido nada. Levántate. Baja al agua.

One line to carry

EN: Go as deep as you like; keep the way back open. ES: Baja tan hondo como quieras; deja abierto el regreso.

Libreto note

The tale every hypnotist should know by heart. To learn how the world gets into our dreams, a forest sage rides his out-breath into his pupil's in-breath and down into the heart, where the whole world shines as in a mirror. Two suns, two moons, then one: rapport taken to its limit. He sleeps his pupil's sleep, is born into his dream and forgets: a hundred years, one old cow, a garden of greens. When he tries to come back, the passage of the lungs is gone: a wildfire has taken both bodies. Two breaths that fall into step, a village chorus that loses the opening theme, and an ending that does what he did not: it brings you back.

Source check

Source check (Mitra, Book VI, second half)

  1. Sitting in padmāsana; "I stretched my thought all about and afar; and then retracted them… as the rising sun stretches out his beams in the morning, and afterwards draws them back… in the evening"; "my breath being accompanied with my mind, was reposed in the air before me… inhaled by the pupil sitting before me, and intromitted into his nostrils"; arteries and veins, "the cage of the ribs"; a shining substance like "cooling moon", the light that "reflected like a mirror all this triple worlds" — ch. 137, vv. 7–24.
  2. "Two suns and two moons… the heaven and earth appeared in their two fold forms"; his sensations mixed with the pupil's "as a drop of oil is mixed with and diluted in water"; "the double view of the world now became one"; the pupil, after his meal, "drowsy and inclined to sleep", his senses drawn in "like the members of a tortoise" — ch. 138, vv. 3–16.
  3. The deluge in the pupil's dream — ch. 139, vv. 23–41; born, "this person as my father, and that one as my mother"; "forgot myself as one of them by my habitual mode of thinking"; "an old cow only for my treasure, and the greens of my garden"; "my utensil an only water pot"; "a whole century of my life time" — ch. 140, vv. 30–40; wife and children — ch. 147, v. 17.
  4. The guest after his meal: "I am a visionary being to you, as you are the phantom of a dream before me" — ch. 149, vv. 5–6, 14; "I became a breath of air"; "I sought to enter that body, by the passage of its lungs; but finding neither that or any other passage"; returning "by my returning affections"; the hermitage burnt, both bodies burnt, the cold ashes "blown away by gusts of wind, as they bear away the heaps of flowers" — ch. 150, vv. 27–30, 41; ch. 151, vv. 1–4.
  5. "Behold him to be the venerable personage, that is now sitting beside you"; the hunter's wonder at the dream-sage "now… seen in this waking state" — ch. 150, vv. 3, 6–7; the hunter "rising with the sage, went to bathe themselves to the nearest pool" — ch. 158, v. 2.

Read the full text

Source: Vihari-Lala Mitra, The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki (1891–99), public domain.

Collaborate on this research

Researchers, clinicians and institutions are welcome to write. Replication, data-sharing and site partnerships for the trials in progress are all open conversations.

luismiguel@shooliniuniversity.comThe FP20 scaleWorld Happiness FoundationORCID 0009-0005-3222-6092

Educational and scholarly content. Hypnotherapy and regression material is complementary and not a substitute for medical or psychiatric care.