yathā śayānaḥ puruṣo
manasaivātma-māyayā
sṛṣṭvā lokaḿ paraḿ svāpnam
anuviśyāvabhāsate
yatha -- as; sayanah -- sleeping; purushah -- a person; manasa -- with his mind; eva -- alone; atma -- own; mayaya -- by his imagination; srishtva -- creating; lokam -- a world; param -- separate; svapnam -- dream; anuvisya -- entering; avabhasate -- he appears.
The Lord is like a sleeping person who creates a separate world in his imagination and then enters his own dream and sees himself within it.
In the illusion of his dream, a sleeping person creates an apparent world, complete with cities populated by the fictional products of his imagination. In somewhat the same way, the Lord manifests the cosmos. Of course, the creation is not illusory for the Lord, but it is for those souls who are put under the control of His Maya potency. As her service to the Lord, Maya deludes the conditioned souls into accepting as real her temporary, insubstantial manifestations.
