The conflict of human society is between worlds

Man exists as if in sleep. Man is asleep. Whatsoever is known as waking is also a sleep. Initiation means to be intimate contact with one who is awakened. Unless you are in intimate contact with one who is awakened, it is impossible to come out of your sleep, because the mind is capable even to dream that it is out of sleep. The mind can dream that now there is no more sleep, and in any dream you cannot know that it is a dream. You can only know that it was a dream when you are out of it.

You can never know a dream in the present. You always become aware of it when it has gone, when it has passed. No one can ever say, “This is a dream.” No present tense can be used for a dream. You always say that this was a dream, because in a dream, the dream itself appears to be real. If a dream is not appearing as real, it will be broken. Only if there is an appearance of reality can dream be created.

When I say man is asleep, this is to be understood. We are dreaming continuously twenty-four hours a day. In the night we are closed to the outward world, dreaming inside. In the day our senses are opened toward the outside world, but the dream continues inside. Close your eyes for a moment, and you can be again in a dream. It is a continuity inside. You are aware of the outside world, but the awareness is not without the dreaming mind. It is over, and imposed on, the dreaming mind, but inside the dream continues. That is why we are not seeing what is real, even when we are so-called awake. We impose our dreams on reality. We never see what is, we always see our projections.

…the dreaming mind
creates a world around it
which is not real.

If I look at you and there is a dream in me, you will become an object of projection. I will project my dream on you, and whatsoever I understand about you will be mixed with my dream, with my projection. When I love you, you appear to me one way. When I do not love you, you appear to me completely different. You are not the same. I have used you just as a screen and projected my dreaming mind on you. When I love you then the dream is different, so you appear different. When I do not love you, you are the same, the screen is the same, but the projection is different. Now I am using you as a screen for another dream of mine. Again the dream can change. Again I can love you, then you will again appear different to me. We are never seeing what is. We are always seeing our own dream projected on what is.

So the dreaming mind creates a world around it which is not real. That is what is meant by maya, illusion. By illusion it is not meant that the world is not, the noise outside on the street is not. It is but as it is. We can never know it unless the dreaming mind stops inside. For someone the noise may be music, for someone else just disturbance. In some moment you may not be aware of the noise, in another you will become aware. In some moments you will tolerate it, in some moments it will become unbearable, intolerable. The noise is the same, the street is the same, the traffic is the same, but your dreaming mind changes.

With your dreaming mind the whole thing around you takes on new colors. When we say the world is illusion, maya, it does not mean that the world is not; it is. But as we see it, that seeing is illusion. It is nowhere to be found. So when someone is awakened it is not that this world just disappears, but the world that was known by him before his awakening disappears completely. An altogether new world, an objective world, comes in its place. All the colors that were given by you, all the shapes, all the meanings and interpretations that were given by you according to your dreaming mind, are no more.

… there are
as many worlds
as there are
dreaming persons.

As far as this world of maya, this world of illusion, this world of projection is concerned, we never live in one world. Each man lives in his own world. And there are as many worlds as there are dreaming persons. I am not the same to each one of you. Each one projects onto me something. I am one as far as I am concerned. But if I myself am dreaming, then even for me, I am different each moment. For each moment my interpretation will differ. If I am awakened then I am the same. Buddha says somewhere that the test of the enlightened one is that he is the same always, just like the sea water. Anywhere, everywhere, it is salty.

If I am awakened, then for me I am the same – not only in this life, but I have been the same in all lives that have gone. I have been the same for eternity. The real me has remained the same. It is unchangeable, only the projection changes. The screen remains the same, the film changes, the picture changes. But the screen is never seen. You see the picture on it projected. When there is no projection then you see the screen, otherwise the screen is never seen. And the screen remains the same. The picture changes, and you see a change in me. If I am awakened, I will be the same for me, but you will look at me in so many ways, because you will come to me with your dreaming mind which will project. To someone I may look like a friend and to someone I may look like an enemy. He will project himself. We create a world around ourselves, and everyone lives in his own world. That is why there is a collision; worlds collide, your world and mine. So when two persons begin to live in one room, there are two worlds living there, and the collision is inevitable. There are not only two persons living in the room, the room has enough place for two persons – but the room has not enough space for two worlds. Whenever there are two persons in a room, there are two worlds.

The whole conflict
of human society,
of human relationship,
is between worlds,
not between persons.

The whole conflict of human society, of human relationship, is between worlds, not between persons. If, really, I am a person without a world created by my dreams and you are also a person without a world created by your dreams, we can live in a room for eternity without any collision, because this room is enough for two persons. But for two worlds even the whole planet is not enough. There exist so many worlds, as every individual is a world. And he lives inside his world and is closed. This is a sleep. You have around yourself a filmy enclosure of projections, ideas, notions, conceptions, interpretations. You are a projector going on and on projecting things which are nowhere, only inside you, and the whole world becomes a screen. You can never be aware by yourself that you are in deep sleep.

Osho, I Am The Gate, Ch 7, Q 1