“Dream” only in the sense that it is not of this plane of gross matter, that it belongs not to the physical world.

Let us try and take a general view of the life of the Eternal Pilgrim, the inner Man, the human Soul, during a cycle of incarnation.  Before he commences his new pilgrimage—­for many pilgrimages lie behind him in the past, during which he gained the powers which enable him to tread the present one—­he is a spiritual Being, but one who has already passed out of the passive condition of pure Spirit, and who by previous experience of matter in past ages has evolved intellect, the self-conscious mind.  But this evolution by experience is far from being complete, even so far as to make him master of matter; his ignorance leaves him a prey to all the illusions of gross matter, so soon as he comes into contact with it, and he is not fit to be a builder of a universe, being subject to the deceptive visions caused by gross matter—­as a child, looking through a piece of blue glass, imagines all the outside world to be blue.  The object of a cycle of incarnation is to free him from these illusions, so that when he is surrounded by and working in gross matter he may retain clear vision and not be blinded by illusion.  Now the cycle of incarnation is made up of two alternating states:  a short one called life on earth, during which the Pilgrim-God is plunged into gross matter, and a comparatively long one, called life in Devachan, during which he is encircled by subtle matter, illusive still, but far less illusive than that of earth.  The second state may fairly be called his normal one, as it is of enormous extent as compared with the breaks in it that he spends upon earth; it is comparatively normal also, as being less removed from his essential Divine life; he is less encased in matter, less deluded by its swiftly-changing appearances.  Slowly and gradually, by reiterated experiences, gross matter loses its power over him and becomes his servant instead of his tyrant.  In the partial freedom of Devachan he assimilates his experiences on earth, still partly dominated by them—­at first, indeed, almost completely dominated by them so that the devachanic life is merely a sublimated continuation of the earth-life—­but gradually freeing himself more and more as he recognises them as transitory and external, until he can move through any region of our universe with unbroken self-consciousness, a true Lord of Mind, the free and triumphant God.  Such is the triumph of the Divine Nature manifested in the flesh, the subduing of every form of matter to be the obedient instrument of Spirit.  Thus the Master said: