“Row row row your boat, gently down the stream; merrily merrily merrily, life is but a dream.” Is this part of your childhood? Or maybe adulthood? We sing it and feel at ease. It has deep meaning yet we rarely reflect on it. This is the wisdom of the east. The ancient wisdom of India, China, Japan, Mongolia, Central and Southeast Asia. Everything is like a dream. When we dream, the images seem so real. When we are with a friend in our dream we feel so happy and have a big smile on our dream face. When we awaken, the images fade. We recognize they were only a dream. Life is the same. Images seem so real, yet when we awaken spiritually, they all seem like a dream. Nevertheless, we are still here. You are still here. But not like we think. The mind, particularly thought, is the creator of our world. Language categorizes and defines our reality. It structures our reality into “subject (me),” “object (her),” and “action – verb (talking).” There is no ‘objective’ reality existing out there. We are fooled into thinking there is. This is ignorance, ignorance of reality. Just having a glimmer of momentary understanding is enough to start unraveling ignorance. It takes time since it is so counter-intuitive. But well worth the journey. This is not easy to understand. Please be gentle with yourself. Just reading this gains tremendous merit and future understanding and inner peace.
