Mandukya_Upanishad

dream as unreal, then you may regard the waking world,also, as unreal, because it is the outcome of some otherimpressions of some other experience undergone in someother state. If the dream world is the effect of a cause, thewaking world, too, may be an effect of another cause. If thecausal relation is responsible for your judging the dreamworld as unreal, the very same reason can apply to theconclusion that the waking world, also, is unreal. And, whydo you hug the waking objects, rather than the dreamobjects? You do cling to dream objects, but you do notthink of them when you wake up. If a comparison of thetwo states is responsible for your regarding the dreamworld as unreal, why do you not make a comparison of thewaking world with another higher state? Why do youconfine your analysis merely to the two states, waking anddream? What makes you think that there are only twostates, and not more? Just as in dream you cannot make acomparison between dream and waking, you cannot makea comparison between waking and a higher life, unless youwake up from this life. While you are in dream, you thinkonly of the dream world and you do not know that there issuch a thing as waking. You forget all your empire of thewaking world while you are dreaming. You are so muchengrossed in the dream world that you are totally obliviousof there being a thing called waking life, and you eagerly gofor the waking world when you wake up, but not before. Ifthis is the case with dream, this is also the case with waking.If, in dream, dream appears to be real, in waking, wakingappears to be real. Waking is real because you are awake,and dream is real when dream is functioning. While you74