(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 18 September 2016, Midrand, South Africa, Bhagavad-gita 9.9)
Question: When Krsna appears in a devotee’s dream, does it have any spiritual significance?
Yes, of course, it does. It is mercy. However, when Krsna appears in our dream, it may not be Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, giving us a full darshan in the dream. It may just the drawing that we saw in a cartoon and that drawing is now sort-of moving in our dream. I just spoiled your dreams, right! I am really sorry to spoil your dreams. Then again, say that Krsna is revealing himself and that we ARE seeing Krsna in the dream. It is possible. And even if we see the cartoon figure, still Krsna is working through the cartoon deity and giving us a darshan and that is also Krsna’s mercy. So, it is always mercy and we can see where we are at by our reaction to the dream.
We read in the Caitanya Caritamrta about Krsnadas Kaviraja Goswami who had a dream of Lord Nityananda. Krsnadas Kaviraja became ecstatic in the dream. He just fell to the ground in the dream and offered his obeisances. He was just overwhelmed and Nityananda said to him, “Go to Vrindavan and there you will attain all things.” When he woke up, he was just in ecstasy. He was just crying in ecstasy. He was completely overwhelmed and that dream was a life-changing experience. He just went off to Vrindavan, right there and then he left for Vrindavan. So, here we can see how deep a dream goes.
You know, it is not like, “You know, Prabhu, I had an interesting dream last night.”
“Oh, did you?”
“Yeah, I dreamed of Krsna.”
“No, really? Far out, Prabhu! Well, what was he doing?”
“Oh well, he was playing his flute and he had some sweets in the cup and he even threw me one! It was nectar!”
“Wow, what a dream. Well, three months ago, I had a dream of Krsna and Krsna was riding on an elephant. Oh yes, and I was riding there too.”
“Oh really?”
But what did the dreams do to us? Was it a life-changing experience? We get darshan of the deities and Krsna is there on the altar but to what extent are we there? In the same way, we get darshan in a dream and Krsna is there but to what extent are we there? That is the question. Anyway, dreaming of Krsna is great, so may all of you dream of Krsna!