The Dreamer’s Awakening

This poem is inspired by Gaudapāda’s teaching in the Māṇḍūkya Kārikā, where he declares that all beings are like the sky — vast, unbounded, and free from any true multiplicity. Though the world appears as many, this plurality is only a seeming, arising within the one, indivisible consciousness.

Prakṛtyā ākāśavad dhairyāḥ sarve dharmāḥ anādayaḥ | Vidyate na hi nānātvaṁ teṣāṁ kvacana kiñcana || (Māṇḍūkya Kārikā 4.71)

"By their very nature, all dharmas (beings, phenomena)

are tranquil and vast like space,

beginningless and without origin.

There is, indeed, no multiplicity whatsoever among them,

anywhere or at any time."

Na nirodho na cotpattiḥ na baddho na ca sādhakaḥ | Na mumukṣur na vai muktaḥ ityeṣā paramārthatā || (Māṇḍūkya Kārikā 2.32)

“There is no cessation, no origination,

no one bound, no one seeking,

no one striving, and no one liberated.

This is the highest truth.”

From Māṇḍūkya Kārikā, Chapter 4 (Ālātaśānti Prakaraṇa), Verses 47–48 (approximate reference):

Yathā'gnir ālataḥ śīghraṃ bhrāmyamāno vibhāvyate | Evam eva cid-ābhāsaḥ saṃsāraṃ pratipadyate ||

As a firebrand, when whirled swiftly, appears as circles,

so too, when consciousness seems to move,

the illusion of the world arises.

Yadā nivartate chittam ālātavat tadā smṛtam | Tadā sarvaṃ nivarteta ekam eva avasīyate ||

When the movement of consciousness ceases,

like a firebrand at rest, all appearances vanish —

and only the One remains.

Here, I explore that vision: the dream of the world, the seeker’s questions, the illusion of separation, and the ultimate awakening to the timeless Self — the silent sky within which all appearances shine and dissolve.

Image Credit: SanJay Shukla - Linkedin

In the stillness before beginnings,

there was no beginning.

Only being, vast and unbroken —

no light, no dark, no word, no world.

Then — not a sound, but a shimmer,

as if the infinite wondered what it was.

A single pulse of knowing

that birthed a thousand names, each crying, “I am.”

Worlds unfolded like thoughts in a sleeping mind.

Forms rose, played, dissolved,

the ocean dreaming waves.

Time stretched across the timeless,

and space unfolded within the spaceless.

The One danced as many,

forgetting its own rhythm.

Thus began the story —

the play of the seeker and the sought.

The bound and the free,

the question and the answer,

each chasing its reflection.

“Who am I?” whispered the wave,

looking out at the horizon of itself.

“I am this body,” it said.

“No — this mind, this breath, this name.”

But names fell away like mist,

and silence began to glow beneath the noise.

“Why this dream?” asked the dreamer,

wandering through its own imagination.

But every why was swallowed by the sky —

for there was never a reason,

only the radiant fact of what is.

All appearances —here and there, now and then,

subject and object, life and death —

they flickered like shadows of light on water.

None were false, none were true.

Just the play of seeing,

the seeing of play.

Then came the great unknowing:

No world ever was.

No one was born, no one died.

No one sought, no one found.

The path was a circle drawn in air.

The seeker disappeared

like salt in the sea,

and what remained was not gained —

it simply was.

The sky never became the clouds.

It only seemed clothed in movement.

And when the clouds cleared,

the sky discovered nothing new —

only itself.

So too the Self,

which never began to seek,

nor ceased to be.

The play of illusion ended,

and the dreamer smiled within the dream,

knowing —

it was all light,

all One,

all this.