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Reality and unreality are not qualities of the objective world, they are qualities of subjective consciousness.

For Buddha everything is real. For you, fast asleep, snoring, everything is unreal.

Just think of it in this way: you are sleeping in a room and somebody is sitting by your side alert and awake. The room is the same. Both are in the same room, in the same space. One is fast asleep, the other is sitting by the side. Are they in the same room? Can they be in the same room?

Because one who is asleep is dreaming, dreaming of a thousand and one other rooms except this one. Have you ever dreamed about the same room in which you were sleeping? – no, never. A dream is always somewhere else. That’s the function of the dream: to take you somewhere else.

The man who is asleep is dreaming. He is not aware of this room and the reality of this room. He has his own imaginary reality. The man who is awake and sitting by his side is in this room. His alertness gives him a totally different quality of reality.

Buddha, walking, moving from one village to another village, and by his side his disciple, Ananda – both are in two different worlds. Ananda is fast asleep, dreaming; Buddha is awake, non-dreaming.

When you are not dreaming, you are encountering reality. But when you are dreaming, you are encountering only your dream – unreality. What is the criterion for reality? – Alertness. Become more alert; then the world becomes more real. Become even more alert; the world becomes even more real.

When you are at the peak of your awareness, the world is so radiantly real that it is difficult to call it matter. One has to call it God, nothing else will do.

It is so radiantly real, it is so eternally real that one has to say that time has ceased. Reality is neither past, nor present, nor future; it simply is. It is herenow. Now is not part of time. In fact, you should not use the word now. Only enlightened people should be allowed to use it, because your now is just not there.

What do you call “now”?

The moment you call it “now” it is already past. Or, if you call it “now” before it is past, then it is in the future. You are so asleep that by the time you come to recapture it, it is already gone. It is very slippery.

Now is possible only when you are so alert that there is not a single dream in your mind, not a single thought, no ripples arising. Then you are totally present. When you are present, then reality is present.

It is your presence that reveals the presence of reality. Then you are in the now, and the now is eternal. Then it never comes and goes, it is simply there. Then nothing comes and nothing goes.