“Sages and mystics throughout the ages have called the reality we perceive through the five senses a dream.
We consider ‘dream’ to be the experience of the mind that takes place in bed at night after falling asleep and before waking up. It is a different level of experience to the wakeful state as it does not primarily involve the body moving through time and space, perceiving through the five senses.
It is interesting to note that after waking up, what seemed to have been a long dream may have taken place within a few moments. When we wake and recall a dream that seemed to be very detailed and have been going on for some time because of the events that took place in the dream, the fact is that the dream may have taken only a few seconds to have been dreamt.
It is the same for all of us: upon waking from the dream state, the dream is seen to lack the same quality of experience compared to the wakeful state. When viewed from the wakeful state, the events of a dream will often seem like complete nonsense. The mind thus classifies the wakeful state as ‘real’ and the dream ‘unreal’ in comparison. However, while dreaming, the dream state is the only level of experience the dreamer is conscious of, and so the dream is experienced as ‘reality’ while the dream is being dreamt. It takes the event of ‘waking up’ before the mind applies the tag ‘dream’ to the prior level of experience.
A very similar process takes place in the mind of one who awakens to a state of consciousness beyond that perceived through the five senses. The mind may hold that state of consciousness as incalculably more real than the prior experience of the reality of the senses.
In the same way we view a dream as unreal after waking up, the mind, after experiencing a state of consciousness closer to what is referred to by sages and mystics as ‘ultimate reality’, will view the experience of the reality of the senses as unreal in comparison. The reality of the senses is thus termed ‘dream’ as it lacks the more solid quality of experience of that state of consciousness beyond the senses.
That state of consciousness is absolutely pure, infinite and ever unchanged, without beginning or ending. It is love unqualified, beyond differentiation or the power of imagination.”
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