Like a child who has fallen asleep sees and acts in the dream.

The analogy of the sleeping child —nidrāṃ gataḥ— illustrates the naivety of saṃsāra. The child does not know he is dreaming; the dreamer does not know he is dreaming. He acts with complete seriousness: he runs, fears, cries, laughs. Everything is satya, truth, for him as long as the dream lasts. So it is for us in the waking state: we act with total seriousness in a world that is svapna, a dream, from the perspective of paramārtha, the ultimate reality. The difference between the child and the sage is not in the experience —both are dreaming— but in the jñāna, the knowledge. The child does not know he is dreaming; the sage knows that waking reality is svapnavat, dream-like. This analogy is particularly useful for the frustrated practitioner. “If everything is a dream, why do I suffer?” Because you do not know it is a dream. Suffering is not an argument against the unreality of the world; it is the consequence of mistaking the dream for reality. Awakening does not eliminate the dream experience; it transmutes it into vilāsa, divine play. The child who awakens does not deny having dreamed; he simply no longer suffers because of the dream.

The analogy of the sleeping child —nidrāṃ gataḥ— illustrates the naivety of saṃsāra. The child does not know he is dreaming; the dreamer does not know he is dreaming. He acts with utter seriousness: he runs, fears, cries, laughs. Everything is satya, truth, for him as long as the dream lasts. So it is for us in the waking state: we act with utter seriousness in a world that is svapna, a dream, from the perspective of paramārtha, the ultimate reality. The difference between the child and the sage is not in the experience —both dream— but in the jñāna, the knowledge. The child does not know he dreams; the sage knows that waking reality is svapnavat, dream-like. This analogy is particularly useful for the frustrated practitioner. “If everything is a dream, why do I suffer?” Because you do not know it is a dream. Suffering is not an argument against the unreality of the world; it is the consequence of taking the dream for reality. Awakening does not eliminate the dream experience; it transmutes it into vilāsa, divine play. The child who awakens does not deny having dreamed; he simply no longer suffers because of the dream.