If the world is only a dream, how should it be harmonised with the Eternal Reality?

Devotee:  If the world is only a dream, how should it be harmonised with the Eternal Reality?

Ramana Maharishi:  The harmony consists in the realisation of its inseparateness from the Self.

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Devotee:  The spirit remains unaffected by the passing phenomena and by the successive bodies of repeated births. How does each body get the life to set it acting?

Ramana Maharishi:  The spirit is differentiated from matter and is full of life. The body is animated by it.

Devotee:  The realised being is then the spirit and unaware of the world.

Ramana Maharishi:  He sees the world but not as separate from the Self.

Devotee:  If the world is full of pain why should he continue the world-idea?

Ramana Maharishi:  Does the realised being tell you that the world is full of pain? It is the other one who feels the pain and seeks the help of the wise saying that the world is painful. Then the wise one explains from his experience that if one withdraws within the Self there is an end of pain. The pain is felt so long as the object is different from oneself. But when the Self is found to be an undivided whole who and what is there to feel? The realised mind is the Holy Spirit and the other mind is the home of the devil. For the realised being this is the Kingdom of Heaven. “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” That Kingdom is here and now.