While speaking on this subject I should quote a Hindustani saying, they call this world, 'the dream of life'. In the Vedanta it is called, 'the dream of Brahma', that is 'the dream of God'. It makes a person afraid that all this should be unreal, that all our affairs to which we give so much importance should be a dream.

Myself, three or four times I have experienced great disappointments, in America, and in places where people came to talk to me at the receptions and lectures. They said, "Do you mean to say that all this is a dream, that it is not real? Now you are standing, I am sitting, you are speaking. Is this all a dream?" That means, "What a foolish idea to call this a dream." Really to him who has experienced only materially, by his five senses, without even a glimpse of an idea of something else, this seems real, and we cannot blame him for thinking it real.

It is only when he awakens from this life that he sees that it is unreal. While you are dreaming, if someone would come and tell you, "Do not believe it, it is a dream," you would never believe that, you would think, "It is real." The dream is recognized as a dream, because of the contrast of the physical life, as everything is recognized by its contrast. You say, "Woman," because there is man. Day is recognized by night. But the contrast of the dream of life is very hard to find.

Let us see what things there are that make a dream be called a dream. There are three things, (1) its changing character, (2) its momentariness, and (3) its deluding nature. This life has the same attributes.

If we consider ourselves, our body, the body of another, we see that at every moment it is changing. At one moment we find ourselves so angelic, so good, so mild, at another we find ourselves so rebellious that we would fight with Satan.
Then its momentariness, its transitory nature. Where are those who were so great, like Dara and Secundar, that such might promise to last always? Nothing is left.
Then its deluding nature. How jealous we are if our rival gets what we hoped for. It may be a passing joy. Tomorrow the joy and the rival may not be, but whilst they last, how jealous we are. If great riches come into our hands, we think it so great a thing. It promises us all. It all passes, but while it is there, we are so happy or so sad. This is its deluding nature.

And why is it called the dream of Brahma, the dream of God? Because we each of us experience a part only of the dream, and only God, the Whole Being, experiences, all the time, the whole of the dream.