LIFE IS A DREAM

This house known as the body has not been made by anyone in fact!

Dreams are real during the dream-state; even so the body is real when it is experienced as a real substance. The notion of 'I am this body' arises in relation to what is truly a piece of flesh with bones because of a mental predisposition; it is an illusion.

Abandon this illusion.

There are thousands of such bodies which have been brought into being by your thought-force.

When you are asleep and dreaming, you experience a body in the dream. Where does that body arise or exist?

'This is wealth.' 'This is body' and 'This is a nation' - all these are notions (conceptual thoughts). Know this to be a long dream, or a long-standing hallucination, or day-dreaming or wishful thinking.

When, by the grace of God or the Self (both are the same), you attain awakening, you will then see all this clearly.

I remarked that I was born of the mind of the Creator: Even so the world arises in the mind as a notion. In fact, even the Creator is but a notion in the cosmic mind; the world-appearance too, is a notion in the mind.

If a man resolutely seeks the source of the notions... he realizes consciousness; otherwise he experiences the illusory world-appearance again and again. For by continually entertaining notions such as 'This is it', 'This is mine' and 'This is my world', they assume the appearance of substantiality.

The permanency of the world is also an illusion: in the dream-state, what is really a brief moment is experienced by the dreamer as a life-time. In a mirage only the illusory 'water' is seen and not the substratum: Even so, in a state of ignorance one sees only the illusory world-appearance but not the substratum (consciousness).

However, when one has shed that ignorance, the illusory appearance vanishes. Even the man who is normally subject to fear is not afraid of an imaginary tiger; the wise man who knows that this world is nothing but a notion or imagination is unafraid of anything.

When one knows that the world is nothing but the appearance of one's Self (infinite consciousness), of whom need one be afraid? When one's vision is purified by inquiry, one's deluded understanding concerning the world vanishes.

When one realizes that death is inevitable to all, why will he grieve over the death of relatives or the approach of one's own end? When one realizes that everyone is sometimes prosperous and otherwise at other times, why will he be elated or depressed?

When one sees that living beings appear and disappear like ripples on the surface of consciousness, where is the cause for sorrow?

What is true is always true (what exists always exists), and what is unreal is ever unreal; where is the cause for sorrow?

Hence, one should not pin one's faith, hopes and aspirations on that which is unreal; for such hope is bondage. O Rama, do thou live in this world without entertaining any hope. What has to be done has to be done, and what is inappropriate should be given up.

Live happily and playfully in this world without considerations of desirable and undesirable. The infinite consciousness alone exists everywhere at all times.

What appears to be is but an appearance. When the appearance is realized as appearance, that which is, is realized.

Either realize 'I am not and these experiences are not mine' or know that 'I am everything' - you will be free from the lure of world-appearance. Both these attitudes are good. You will be freed form attraction and aversion (raga-dvesa).

Whatever there is in the world, in the firmament and in heaven is attained by one who has destroyed the twin forces of attraction and aversion. Whatever the ignorant man does, prompted by these forces, leads him to instant sorrow.

O Rama, for your spiritual awakening I declare again and again that this world-appearance is like a long dream.

Wake-up, wake-up... behold the Self which shines like the sun.

(Concise Yoga Vasistha pg 287 to 288.  ISBN 0-87395-954-X)