KingdomCommentaries on Prophecies in Daniel,...
Tablet Three
VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS
BY DANIEL
Chapter 7
"In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel had a dream and visions of his head upon his bed: then he wrote the dream, and told the sum of the matters." (Daniel 7:1)
<1>This is a dream by Daniel himself. Also it is not a usual dream but it is a "dream and visions." It is the kind of dream which comes to a person as a message from the spiritual world (Unconscious Mind, Universal Mind).
"Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea." (Daniel 7:2)
<2>As it was explained, wind is the symbol of the illusion of life (Maya). These illusions which are the cause of all suffering are four: attraction, desire and its fulfillment, attachment, and greed. <3>The excess (unnecessary) attraction toward the external world and its temporary pleasures create desires in man. Fulfillment of desires causes man to become attached to the external world, attachment increases the desires and brings greed to have more and more, and greed drowns the man deeper into the ocean of Maya (illusion).
<4>As the man sinks deeper into these four illusionary phenomena, they become even stronger to confuse the person. <5>That is why they are like the "four winds of the heaven" which hit "the great sea."
<6>Water is a symbol for consciousness. When symbolized as a river, sea, or ocean (restless waters), it implies confused consciousness (mind). <7>The confusion of the mind is created by these four "winds of the heaven." As the hurricane creates much restlessness in the ocean, also it is these four winds which cause desires to arise in the consciousness and create attachment, greed, more attraction, more desires, and so on. <8>"The great sea" here is the symbol of the collective consciousness of the people of the earth. ("Great sea" -- ocean -- is different than "sea." The great sea is the symbol for the collective consciousness of many humans, but sea is the symbol of the confused mind of one unit consciousness or human).
"And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another." (Daniel 7:3)
<9>"Four great beasts came up" from this confused world. They arose from the earth with earthly standards (these beasts are different than the ones described in The Revelation. Those beasts have arisen from the sea, not from the great sea).
<10>As it will be described later on in this chapter, "These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth" (verse 17). Again the emphasis is that they "shall arise out of the earth," so that great sea (earth) is from where their standards have come. These kings are not from heaven but from earth. They are as confused as others on earth, and have arisen from this confusion. <11>They are "diverse one from another," or they are not from the same quality but are different with separate purposes.
<12>Also, the fourth beast had ten horns on his head, "...fourth beast,... and it had ten horns" (verse 7). <13>These ten horns are the ten kings which would come out of the fourth kingdom, "And the ten horns out of this kingdom [fourth kingdom] are ten kings that shall arise;..." (verse 24).
<14>In the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar, the ten toes which had come out of the feet and legs of the fourth kingdom were the ten kings who would arise in later days. Here in Daniel's dream, these ten horns have the same meaning as those ten toes.
<15>Therefore, the vision-dream of Daniel and the dream about the metal image have identical messages and also are complementary. So the first beast will be as the first kingdom, or the head of gold, or the Chaldean Empire with King Nebuchadnezzar as its leader.
<16>The second beast is the same as the silver part of the metal image. The third beast is the brass part, and the fourth is the iron part of the image. The ten toes are the same as the ten horns, which will be ten kings who will arise from the earth.