Life Is But a Dream

In meditation, thoughts will always come and flit around in their undisciplined silly ways. As soon as we are aware of our shift in attention, we gently bring it back into focus, back into simran. We all know what it is like to have our attention wander. Between one word of simran and the next, a thought intrudes, or a whole train of thoughts, or a sound causes our attention to leap in its direction. We gently bring our attention back to simran, simran, simran.

There is a childhood song we may remember called, “ Row, Row, Row Your Boat”.

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.

There may have been a lot more wisdom, especially spiritual wisdom, in that song than we ever suspected when we sang it as a kid. It advises us to “row, row, row your boat” – no one else can do it for us. Don’t just sit in the boat and do nothing. Take action, take control and steer, and keep on rowing, keep on going. Keep on repeating those names – simran, simran, simran.

Then the song specifically advises us how to do that: “gently”. That’s the same message Baba Ji gives us when he advises us to just relax and do it. Don’t fight it, do it gently, joyfully, relishing each name.

The song further advises us in which direction we should go: Go down the stream, go with the flow, without resistance. Never try to row up the stream. And when we do this we discover that “life is but a dream.”

So it seems that ever since we were kids, there were hints that this world is only an illusion, only a dream and not real.

You will get the feeling that you are nothing, when you merge in the love of the Master. You are not mentally nor symbolically to feel that you are nothing, or, “I am nothing,” nor to feel that you are everything. You will just forget what you are. When you absolutely blend yourself into the love of another person, then you forget what you are. Then you know you are nothing. Everything is ‘he’ or ‘she’. Similarly, we have to forget by meditation that we are anything and know that everything is the Master. That will only be, as I have just explained, when we drive our ego out of us by meditation.
_{Maharaj Charan Singh, The Master Answers}