The queen, distressed and forlorn, sat within her chamber, while another woman—a friend from some unknown place—approached her side. Observers, seeing this, would quickly conclude, “The queen is here, troubled, and some companion has come to comfort her.” Such are the ways of people lacking discernment; they act as they see, without pausing to inquire or reflect. Like a clod of earth that, rolling along, strikes a tree and moves on without awareness, so too do the ignorant pass by fire, mountains, and even the gods, blind to their true nature. Just as, upon awakening, one cannot say where the body of the dream has gone, so too, all that is experienced in this world of matter is ultimately unreal. In the midst of these doubts, the queen prayed, “O Lord, where does the very peak of the dream go when I awaken? Please, dispel my uncertainty, as the wind scatters an autumn cloud.” She was shown: in dreams, as in confusion or imagination, objects like mountains exist only within awareness. These movements, these forms, all merge inward, just as the wind, after roaming, returns to its own stillness. When the wind’s motion ceases, it merges into its essence, becoming one with itself. There is, in truth, never any duality between awareness and dream objects—just as liquidity is not separate from water, nor movement from the wind. If the notion of duality arises, that is supreme ignorance; this is called saṃsāra, the cycle of birth and death, which springs from the false idea of separation. For, in the absence of contributing causes, what is the nature of awareness? The apparent duality of dream objects within the dream is meaningless. In truth, the waking state is just like a dream—there can be no doubt. Just as a city in a dream is unreal, so too is the world at the dawn of creation. Objects seen in a dream have no true existence; only awareness is eternal reality, while dream objects are unreal. Just as a mountain may suddenly appear in the sky during a dream—or gradually—so too, in the waking state, the elemental sky appears in stages. Those nearby, witnessing another’s actions, might see someone as flying upward or as dead, because their perceptions are overpowered by the force of knowledge-transference. All these creations are but false perceptions, born of delusion; they appear as mere illusions, empty, like experiences in a dream. The experiences in dreams, the perceptions between death and awakening, and other such wanderings all seem vivid and real, but they arise falsely, like the fleeting sequence of a mirage or the drying up of a river, all within the subtle, vehicle-like body. Meanwhile, awareness, by the force of intention, quickly restrained the living being before her, like a skilled rider halts a horse, checking the movement of the mind itself. Then, a question arose: “Tell me, Lady, how much time has passed here in this palace, while I was absorbed in samadhi and the king’s corpse lay here?” A gentle answer came: “A month has passed in this palace. These two maidservants have remained in the inner chamber to guard you, while you slept and the body was carried here. Listen, beautiful one, to what has happened to your body here: within a fortnight, the sinews decayed. Lifeless, fallen to the ground, dry as a withered leaf, your corpse, cold as snow, lay beside the wooden wall. The ministers came, declared you dead by the signs of decay, and, out of fear, removed you from the house. What need is there for many words? They placed you on the funeral pyre with sandalwood and ghee, and you were swiftly reduced to ashes. “Afterwards, the queen’s death caused loud and tumultuous lamentation; all your attendants performed the funeral rites. Now, seeing you here in bodily form, it will be regarded as a great marvel that you have returned from the other world. Yet, by the power of your true resolve, you are seen here with that very body, your noble mind focused upon your son. Whatever impression you held regarding the body, that very form has arisen in you, O child, just as it was before. Everyone perceives everything according to their own impressions; the vision of the child Vetala is a clear example of this. “You have now become endowed with the subtle body, O accomplished and beautiful one; your former body is forgotten and departs of its own accord. For one whose vision is established in the subtle body, physical affliction fades, even if it seems to appear to the awakened one, like a rain cloud in the sky. When the subtle body-state is established, the physical body becomes like a corpse—like a waterless cloud, or a flower without fragrance. From today, as your awareness of the subtle body has matured, the body is forgotten, just as the state in the womb is forgotten in youth. “Today, on the thirty-first day, we have reached this sky; in the morning, these two maidservants were still deluded by sleep. So come, Lila, let us reveal ourselves to her for the sake of play, by the play of thought, so that activity may proceed.” As soon as the thought arose, “Let us appear before Lila,” the two goddesses became visible there, shining in that vision by the power of awareness. Lila, wife of Viduratha, her eyes filled with wonder, gazed upon the house, radiant with a mass of light—like something carved from the moon’s disk, washed with streams of gold, like a cool flame, or a slender vine with a solid support. Seeing the house before her and perceiving the playful summons, she rose and, in haste, fell at their feet. When the queen Majjaya arrived, she said, “Victory to you, givers of life! I have come before you, as the one who clears your path.” Having spoken thus, those proud women, radiant in youth, sat down on the seats, like graceful vines upon the summit of Mount Meru.