14. Ráma said:—If the persons seen in the dream are unreal, then tell me sir, what is that fault in the embodied soul, which makes them appear as realities.
15. Vasishtha replied:—The cities and houses, which are seen in dreams are in reality nothing. It is only the illusion (máyá) of the embodied soul, which makes them appear as true like those seen in the waking state, in this visionary world.
16. I will tell you in proof of this, that in the beginning of creation the self-born Brahmá himself, had the notions of all created things, in the form of visionary appearances, as in a dream and their subsequent development, by the will of the creator; hence their creator is as unreal as their notions and appearances in the dream.
17. Learn then this truth of me, that this world is a dream, and that you and all other men have your sleeping dreams, contained in your waking dreams of this visionary world. (i.e. The one is a night dream and the other a day dream, and equally untrue in their substance).
18. If the scenes that are seen in your sleeping dream, have no reality in them, how then can you expect those in your day dreams to be real at all?
19. As you take me for a reality, so do I also take you and all other things for realities likewise, and such is the case with every body in this world of dreams.
20. As I appear an entity to you in this world of lengthened dreams; so you too appear an actual entity to me; and so it is with all in their protracted dreaming.
21. Ráma asked:—If both these states of dreaming are alike, then tell me, why the dreamer in sleep, does not upon his waking, think the visions in his dream, to be as real as those of his day dreaming state?
22. Vasishtha replied:—Yes, the day dreaming is of the same nature as night dreams, in which the dreamt objects appear to be real; but it is upon the waking from the one, as upon the death of the day dreamer, that both these visions are found to vanish in empty air.
23. As the objects of your night dreams do not subsist in time or place upon your waking, so also those of your day dream, can have no subsistence upon death.