Bright red pepper-pod . . .
it needs but shiny
wings and look . . .
Darting dragon-fly!

When mind is mixed up with reality it creates unreal world.

Hindus call this world maya, illusory, dreamlike, mind-stuff. What do they mean? Do they mean that it is unreal? No, it is not unreal, but when your mind gets mixed into it, you create an unreal world of your own. We don’t live in the same world; everybody lives in his own world. There are as many worlds as there are minds. When Hindus say these worlds are maya, they mean reality plus mind is maya. Reality, that which is, we don’t know. Reality plus mind is illusion, maya. When somebody becomes totally awakened, a buddha, then he knows reality minus mind. Then it is the truth, the brahman, the ultimate. Plus mind, and everything becomes a dream, because mind is the stuff that creates dreams. Minus mind, nothing can be a dream, only reality remains in its crystal purity. Mind is just like a mirror. In the mirror the world reflects. That reflection cannot be real, that reflection is just a reflection. When the mirror is no longer there the reflection disappears. Now you can see the real.
A full-moon night, and the lake is silent and the moon is reflected in the lake and you try to catch the moon. This is all that everybody has been doing for many lives: trying to catch the moon in the mirror of the lake. And of course you never succeed – you cannot succeed, it is not possible. One has to forget about the lake and look exactly in the opposite direction. There is the moon.

Mind is the lake in which the world becomes illusory. Whether you dream with closed eyes or you dream with open eyes makes no difference. If the mind is there, all that happens is a dream. This will be the first realization if you meditate on dreams.
The second realization will be that you are a witness: the dream is there, but you are not part of it. You are not part of your mind, you are a transcendence. You are in the mind, but you are not the mind. You look through the mind, but you are not the mind. You use the mind, but you are not the mind. Suddenly you are a witness – no longer a mind. And this witnessing is the final, the ultimate realization. Then, whether “dream while asleep” or whether “dream while awake” makes no difference, you remain a witness. You remain in the world, but the world cannot enter in you anymore. Things are there, but the mind is not in the things and the things are not in the mind. Suddenly the witness comes in and everything changes.