How can we obtain the real from the unreal?

Once when I was thinking on this question, I thought I had hit upon a paradox. If everything is unreal, how can it lead us out of the unreal? I asked myself if this world appearance is unreal – as the yoga vashista and other advaitic texts proclaim, then all our sadhana is also unreal. So what is the point of doing sadhana. for eg. in a dream, all that i experience is unreal, how can any action that i do in a dream lead me to wake up. For only when i wake up do i realize it was a dream!

I decided that this was a question fit to be asked of Guruji. And one day I got my chance. It so happened that I was in a car with Guruji and the drive was a long one In a period of silence, I shyly popped this question to HIM.

“Guruji, how can my actions in my dream take me out of it? if they cant, then what is the point of doing sadhana to get liberation from this world existence?”

Guruji smiled and liberated me from the question very simply!

“In the dream, when a lion roars, you wake up!”