By the workings of fate, a woman found herself blessed with a husband as radiant and gentle as the moon—a king who arrived in her life by the mysterious hand of destiny. She, like a lonely female elephant stumbling upon an empty, broken honey-jar in the forest, came to him in solitude, drawn by the currents of fortune. For a long time, she enjoyed happiness by his side. Together, they had a daughter and sons, and as the years passed, she grew old in that forest hollow, much like a gourd vine sheltered beneath the shade of a tree. But then, O lord of people, after some time had gone by, a terrible drought descended upon that village. The suffering was so great that it broke the spirits of all who lived there. Driven by this calamity, the villagers abandoned their homes and wandered far away, only to meet their end in distant lands. Those who remained, O lord, found themselves left behind to endure the suffering alone. They were pitiable, weeping, their eyes brimming with tears, lamenting their fate. When the king heard these words from the lips of the sorrowful women, he was filled with wonder. He gazed at the faces of his ministers, his expression as if transfixed by a marvelous painting. Again and again, he pondered the extraordinary events he had witnessed, questioning those around him with ever-deepening astonishment. Moved by compassion and understanding the world in all its facets, the king took it upon himself to relieve their suffering, treating them with respect and honoring their hearts and minds. After spending a long time there, reflecting on the strange turns of destiny, he finally returned to the city. The citizens welcomed him with honor, and he entered his palace. The next morning, in the assembly hall, the king approached me, still astonished, and asked, “O sage, how has this dream appeared so real to me?” I explained to him, in accordance with the true nature of things and sound reasoning, and his doubts were dispelled from his heart, as a cloud is swept away by the wind. Thus, O Raghava, it is great ignorance that causes such delusion. It swiftly makes the unreal appear real and the real seem unreal. The king pressed further, “How is it, O Brahman, that a dream has attained reality? This confusion weighs heavily on my mind and will not settle.” All of this, O Raghava, indeed arises from ignorance—like seeing cloth in a pot, or the confusion of dreams and similar illusions. That which is far seems near, like a mountain reflected in a mirror; what is long appears brief, as a night does to a youth in love. In dreams, the impossible becomes possible, such as one’s own death, or flying through the sky; the unreal appears utterly real. What is steady seems to move in delusion, just as the earth appears to spin; the weak seem strong, as when a mind is agitated by intoxication. Whatever the mind, colored by past impressions, intensely imagines, it quickly experiences—though it is neither truly real nor unreal. When ignorance—made of ego and similar notions—arises, then, in that very moment, the beginningless and endless delusion appears as infinite. By the force of mere appearance, everything is transformed: a moment can seem as long as an aeon, and an aeon as brief as a moment. A creature whose mind is inverted may fall into any state; under the power of impressions, even a deer may take on the nature of a lion. Poison, delusion, intoxication, ignorance, confusion, ego, and the rest—all these are alike, arising from the mind’s distortions and leading to various results. Just as in the tale of the crow and the palm fruit, so too, by the force of mental impressions, great undertakings and interactions arise on their own. Whatever was experienced before—like the taste of salt by some king in a previous birth—appears to this one, whether good or bad, as conceived in the mind. Just as the mind forgets even great deeds it has done, so too does it remember actions it never performed, as if they truly happened. Thus, one may think, “I have not eaten,” or “I have eaten,” or even experience travel to distant lands in a dream, though these things have not actually occurred. This interaction with the village of Vindhya and Pukkasa is of such a kind—arising in appearance for him in a dream, just like stories from the past. Or, the illusion seen in a dream by Lavana has now quickly entered the awareness of Vindhya and Pukkasa. The awareness of Vindhya and Pukkasa has arisen in the mind of the prince, just as the speech and faces of many people may appear similar to one another. In the same way, even a dream possesses its own time, place, and action; within the context of such experiences, its existence is apparent through its manifestation. Ultimately, the existence of all objects is nothing other than awareness itself; within awareness alone, the diverse succession of creation appears. Just as a tree exists in its seed in past, present, and future forms, so too, existence and non-existence are established as neither wholly being nor non-being. For only existence is present in awareness; in non-awareness, nothing composed of being exists. There is no ignorance at all, just as there is no oil in sand. How could gold be bitter? That would be something other than gold. The pure self, by its very nature, cannot be bound by ignorance. Connection among similar things is clear and gives rise to experience; but the connection of things like resin and wood is not so, and thus there is no real union between the self and ignorance. There is no other self that experiences another; there is only a single underlying reality. All is of the nature of the highest truth, and all distinctions arise from that alone. Awareness, by the force of connection, perceives itself as manifold, even though all things in the world are composed only of pure consciousness and pure being. Then these entities appear, each established in its own experience, but there is no continuous connection among dissimilar things. Without mutual connection, there is no experience of one another; similar things, upon meeting, instantly become one. A single form manifests only because of oneness, not otherwise; when consciousness and awareness unite, the appearance of the seen arises as cognition.