Just like solar heat causes the error of water
in the mirage to both deer and unwary people, so the unreal world appears as
real to the ignorant part of mankind.
As the false dream of one’s death appears to be
true within the dreaming state, so the false world seems to be a field of
action and gain to the deluded man. Just like one, not knowing what is
gold, sees a golden bracelet to be a mere bracelet and not gold, so the
ignorant, without a knowledge of the causal substance, are ever misled by the
appearances of form.
The ignorant see a city, a house, a hill and an
elephant as they are presented before them, so appearances are all taken only
as they are seen, and not what they really are. As strings of pearls are
seen in the sunny sky, and various paints and taints in the plumage of the
peacock, so the phenomenal world presents its false appearances as sober
realities. Know life to be a long sleep, and the world with myself and yourself
are the visions of its dream. We see many other persons in this sleepy dream.
None is real, as you will now learn from me.
There is only one all-pervading, quiet, and
spiritually substantial reality. It is of the form of unintelligible
consciousness and an immense outspreading emptiness. It is omnipotent,
and all in all by itself. It is of the form manifesting itself everywhere.
Hence the citizens that you see in this visionary city are only transient forms
of men presented in your dream by that Omnipotent Being.
The mind of the viewer remains the same in the
sphere of his dreams and represents images thought of by itself in that
visionary sphere of mankind. The knowing mind has the same knowledge of
things, both in its waking and dreaming states, and it is by an act of the
perceiving mind that this knowledge is imprinted as true in the conscious souls
of men.
Rama said, “If persons seen in
the dream are unreal, then tell me sage, what is the fault in the embodied soul
that makes them appear as realities?”
Vasishta replied:— The cities and houses
seen in dreams are nothing in reality. The illusion (maya) of the embodied soul
makes them appear as true like those seen in the waking state in this ordinary
world. I will give you proof of this. In the beginning of creation and by
the will of the creator, the self-born Brahma himself had notions of all
created things in the form of visionary appearances, like in a dream, and their
subsequent development. Therefore, their creator is as unreal as the notions
and appearances in the dream.
Learn this truth from me, that this world is a
dream and that you and all other men have your sleeping dreams contained in
your waking dreams of this ordinary world. If the scenes in your sleeping dream
have no reality in them, how can you expect those in your daydreams to be real
at all?
As you take me for a reality, so do I also take
you and all other things for realities likewise, and such is the case with
everybody in this world of dreams. As I appear an entity to you in this
ordinary world of lengthened dreams, so you too appear an actual entity to me.
So it is with all in their protracted dreaming.
Vasishta replied:— Yes, night dreaming
is of the same nature as daydreams in that dream objects appear to be real in
both. Upon a man’s awakening from sleep, the night dreams vanish in empty air.
Upon a man’s death, his daydreams vanish in empty air. As the objects of your
night dreams do not exist in time or place upon your waking, so also those of
your daydream can have no existence upon death. Thus everything that
appears real for the present is unreal, and though it might appear as charming
as a fairy form in a dream, at last it all disappears into an airy nothing.
There is one Consciousness that fills all space.
It appears as everything both within and without everybody. It is only by our
illusive conception of it that we take it in different lights. As one picks up
a jewel he happens to see in a treasure house, so according to our own liking,
we lay hold on anything with which the vast Consciousness is filled.
The goddess of intelligence, having caused the
germ of true knowledge to sprout forth in the mind of the king by sprinkling
the ambrosial drops of her wisdom over it, spoke to the king in this way at the
end, “I have told you all this for the sake of Leela, and now, good king,
we shall take leave of you and these illusory scenes of the world.”
Vasishta said:— The intelligent king,
being gently addressed by the goddess of wisdom, asked her in a humble tone.
Viduratha said, “Your visit, O most bounteous goddess, cannot go for nothing,
if when we poor mortals cannot withhold our bounty from those who petition us
for help. I will quit this body to go to another world, as one passes from one
chain of dreams into another. Look upon me, your petitioner, with kindness and
grant me the favor I ask of you, because the great never refuse to grant the
prayers of their suppliants. Grant that this virgin daughter of my minister may
accompany me to the region where I shall be led so that we may have spiritual joy
in each other’s company hereafter.”
Saraswati said, “Go now, king, to the
former palace of your past life and there reign without fear in the enjoyment
of true pleasure. Know king that our visits never fail to fulfill the best
wishes of our supplicants.”
Love.
