Once there lived a king in India. One night he saw a nightmare that an enemy king attacked on his kingdom and defeated him. The king after losing everything in the battle left the field in fear of his life and started living a nomadic life. He even started begging for food. One day it started raining heavily and he had to hide himself inside a cave. It started getting darker and the king started feeling hungry. He somehow managed to come out of cave. He again started begging for food from one home to another. After knocking at very doors unsuccessfully, finally an old lady gave him some raw rice and pulses and said that he could make khichdi (prepared by boiling rice and pulses together along-with some spices) and eat it.
Now the king was extremely hungry. He took some wooden logs and started trying to ignite them. The woods were wet due to rain and it became very difficult for him to ignite those wood-logs. Also the smoke was causing irritation in his eyes. Somehow he managed to burn the woods and then he prepared the khichdi. He started waiting for the khichdi to cool down, to be fit enough for him to eat. Then suddenly, two bulls came fighting with each other and kicked down the utensil of khichdi. All the food that the king prepared with so much difficulty got mixed with mud. The king started feeling extremely miserable. He started thinking, 'My whole kingdom is lost to enemy, now I am forced to live a nomadic life and the food that I had prepared with so much difficulty was spoiled by these two fighting bulls. My life has become hell for me.' The pain was too much for the king to handle and he started weeping.
The king became so much lost in the dream that actually a drop of tear came out of his eyes and he woke up from his sleep. He saw that he was still lying on his comfortable bed. Many servants were ready for following his direction. But the impact of the dream was so huge that he started feeling the delusion - 'Whether the dream that he just saw was truth or all that he was seeing after waking up was truth'. He announced in the kingdom that whoever will solve his doubt, he would reward that person.
Many people came and provided their arguments, but the king did not feel content with them. Then one saint also came to the court of king and said, "O king! Undoubtedly whatever you saw in the dream was an illusion; but whatever you are seeing after waking up, is also an illusion." The king felt shocked on hearing this and he asked the saint, "Then what is the truth?" The saint replied, "Just like you left everything of your dream after waking up, you will need to leave everything of the world after the death; no matter how true your dream or this world seems to be. Even this world is not permanent and truth never changes. The real truth is you are a divine soul and you have the potential of attaining moksha (salvation) by embracing the Truth within." After saying this, the saint helped the king in the attainment of self-realization. The king understood the truth and his heart became filled with happiness and all the illusions of his mind were broken.
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