the waking world is a long drawn out illusion

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ADVAITA BODHA DEEPIKA[LAMP OF NON-DUAL KNOWLEDGE][Originally

Sri Shankaracharya and other great Sages hadwritten several works like the commentary on the Vedanta Sutrasand thus furnished the methods for those engaged in Self enquiryto accomplish their purpose.From those, Sri Karapatra Swami later condensed thesalient

points

into

Sanskrit

verse

in

a

work

of

twelve

chapters,called Sri Advaita

Bodha Deepika.Still later, some great man seems to have translated thisinto Tamil prose. For some unknown reasons only some eightchapters

of

the

same

are

found

published.]ON SUPERIMPOSITION93. Disciple: Master, what was experienced on previous dayscan now be remembered. Why do we not remember theexperiences of past lives?94-95. Master: This cannot be. See how the waking experiencesrepeat themselves in the dream but are not apprehended in thesame way as in the waking state, but differently. Why? Becausesleep makes all the difference, in as much as it hides the originalbearings and distorts them, so that the same experience repeatedin the dream is differently set, often aberrant and wobbling.Similarly the experiences of past lives have been affected bycomas and deaths so that the present setting is different fromthe past ones and the same experience repeated in a differentway cannot recall the past.96. D.: Master, dream visions being only mental creationsare transient and are soon dismissed as unreal. So they areproperly said to be illusory. On the contrary the waking worldis seen to be lasting and all evidence goes to show that it is real.How can it be classified with dreams as being illusory?97-98. M.: In the dream itself, the visions are experiencedas proven and real; they are not at that time felt to be unreal.Similarly at the time of experience, this waking world also seemsto be proven and real. But when you wake up to your truenature, this will also pass off as unreal.D.: What then is the difference between the dream andwaking states?99. M.: Both are only mental and illusory. There can beno doubt of this. Only the waking world is a long drawn outillusion and the dream a short one. This is the only differenceand nothing more.100. D.: Should waking be only a dream, who is thedreamer here?M.: All this universe is the dream product of the non-dual,untainted, Knowledge Bliss only.D.: But a dream can happen only in sleep. Has the SupremeSelf gone to sleep in order to see this dream?M.: Our sleep corresponds to Its Ignorance which hidesIts real nature from time immemorial. So It dreams the dreamof this universe. Just as the dreamer is deluded into thinkinghimself the experiencer of his dreams, so also the unchangingSelf is by illusion presented as a jiva experiencing this samsara.101. On seeing the dreamlike body, senses, etc., the jiva isdeluded into the belief that he is the body, senses, etc.; withthem he turns round and round through the waking, dreamand deep sleep states. This forms his samsara.