Ham raat guzaar aiye, kis khuab ki bahon mein. Whether it was a good dream or a bad dream, is another story. What we see and experience in a dream state, seems to be happening in reality, but the moment we come out of the dream, we realize that it was merely an illusion and not a reality.

Nature and material world are composed of five tatvas. What relates to nature (like human body and material objects) are temporary, ever-changing, destructible and mutable while the soul derives from God and is, therefore, unborn, eternal, everlasting and primeval. The human body and the material world, because of their very nature, are prone to decay, but the soul is incorruptible. This material world is not real and the unreal has no permanent existence. The soul and God are real, are part of each other and the ultimate truth, and the real never ceases to be. This reality of both has thus been perceived by the seers of truth.

We practically observe every day this changing world with a naked eye and what we see with our own eyes does not need any proof. In this destructible and unstable dreamland, nobody belongs to you nor can any material object be yours forever. Everything is subject to change – relationships, objects, insatiable desires, actions, circumstances, situations. Change is the very essence of life in this material world. What existed yesterday, does not exist today; what exists today, will not be so tomorrow and the never ending wheel of time will continue to revolve. Our own body changes every minute. Modern scientists maintain that in seven years the whole body changes and that not even a drop of old blood remains. Our close relatives, our loved ones who were so very dear to us, our friends on whom we relied implicitly, left us. So much so, we did not even realize when our childhood, our youth left us quietly. But one existence, i.e. jeevatma, that kept watching these changes as a spectator, is the only real, stable and permanent entity. It is a law of nature that the one who takes birth, grows, changes, decays and, over a period of time, will be destroyed. In such a situation, any attempt made to establish a permanent relationship in this temporary world is a mirage.

The irony is that we try to establish our identity with the unreal and thus get caught in the web of “I, me and mine” and land ourselves into problems. What is important for us to do is to play our role assigned to us by the Almighty in as best a manner as possible, relinquishing all attachment to it. The reality is that you are not the body but a soul, which is an inseparable part of the Supreme Soul, and you have to go back to Him one day, sooner or later. So let us live this life with awareness and understand WHO AM I?