Life is but a dream!

As children, most of us sang the mesmerizing, wistful lullaby that ended with the words, “Life is but a dream.” This is in reality a deep, sophisticated truth, hiding, like an underground stream, in an unlikely place. This world we perceive as real is quite possibly just an illusion, not unlike a film being projected on a screen. But most of us are so involved in the projection that we don’t understand it for what it is. We are completely caught up in this illusion of life and death and take everything way too seriously.

There are times, when things happen in our lives that leave quite an impact. A few of us there, tug it to our hearts—knowing a precious moment has gone forever. We can ask and ask but we can’t have again what once seemed ours —the way things looked, a certain dream come true, a remembered voice, a loved face. They’ve gone and you can only wait for the pain to pass. But it becomes important then to remember the clichéd saying ‘Don’t cry because it's over, but Smile because it happened.’ Far easier said than done. It can be very difficult to practice for the person actually going through it. 'Coz pain hardens the soul and great pain hardens greatly, whatever the comforter may say, suffering does not ennoble. God is strange in that way. He knows it'll hurt like hell yet he throws things ourway to see how much we'll endure.


Sadly, one of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon, when life would be perfect, when dreams would not be required ‘coz they’ll be our reality. 


But ‘Life is a jest'. What can help, is remembering life is not a play whose lines have already been written, whose end is already known… But just like an improviser, we do have choices to make and the more we embrace the illusionary quality of this performance, the lighter we can be on the planet, on others, and on ourselves.


So take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting, this much you should know-- You are not wrong who deem that my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away in a night, or in a day, in a vision, or in none… Remember all that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream.