Once a question was asked by a very good student to an excellent teacher:
"Master you speak that everything is an illusion, but I see everything as real and solid. Can you be an illusion? Can I be illusion? Can the world be illusion? Master, please help, I am confused."
The Master kept quiet and then said, "Let us have a walk in the forest." After walking for awhile the master said, "It is very hot, you go down and get some water at the river there and I will stay in the shade."
So the student goes and slides the vessel into the water of the river. He looked up and saw a beautiful young girl across the river, immediately fell in love with her, and proposed to marry her.
"This is not the custom here. All the marriages are arranged by our parents," she said. "But I also like you and so you must speak to my father. Come and follow me and I will show you who my father is. He is the proprietor of the village. We have a lot of land, cows and horses. So I will point him out and hide behind the doors and see what he says."
So they went to the village and when they were near she said, "That man sitting there, smoking a hooka and chewing paan is my father. Go and speak to him."
He went there and said, "I saw your daughter one hour ago at the river and fell in love with her. Can you marry her to me?"
The father said, "Who are you?"
"I am a brahmin from a nearby village," he replied.
"What is your education?" asked her father.
"I have learned philosophy, the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Sastras. I know astronomy, geology and oceanography and all the eight sciences of the world.
The father said, "Very good. You look quite young and qualified. I don't hesitate to give the hand of my daughter to you, but with one condition. She is my only child and I am very attached to her. So if you want to marry her you must stay here with me, and you can't take her to your village.
"Agreed," said the boy.
"We will announce it to all our neighbors and you will be married in one month," said the father.
After a month they were married and after three years they had one child. Then after five years the parents registered their will in the name of their son-in-law. Now, all the village belonged to him. A couple of years later both her parents died, and after ten years they had another child and then another.
After 18 years there came a flood and the river was rising. All the farms were destroyed and they went to a nearby hill to stay, but slowly the water was rising there as well. The cows were floating away and everything was destroyed.
Finally, the water came up to his shoulders and he put one child on his shoulders and a child in one hand and his wife and another child in the other. But the current was very strong and his son slipped as he reached for him the wife slipped and as he went to hold the wife the other son slipped away.
So, now with everything lost, the river receding. He sits there at the edge of the river and cries about the loss of his children. Finally, the river recedes until it is at the original level.
He feels a hand on his shoulder and his teacher asks: "What are you thinking about? Your vessel is in the water. Why don't you draw it? This should have taken you one minute, but already it has been five minutes!"
He looks at his face and stammers, "Fi, five, five minutes you say! Did you say five minutes? What about my wife and what about the children?!"
The master replies, "This is the answer to your question. All this is illusion. Just now you came and you fell in love with a girl, but where is that girl now? You are just fetching water for me. All these things are just coming from the mind. They never existed! No wife was there, no children were there, no marriage was performed and no village was there. The mind creates an instant and in that instant you lived nearly 20 years and in the same instant your vessel was emerged into the water."
So this is how it stands and you have to be wise.
