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Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣadबृहदारण्यक उपनिषद्

Yajnavalkya Kanda. Adhyaya 4, Brahmana 3. The self-luminous Self: waking, dream, and the light of man

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Each mantra is given four ways: the Sanskrit in its Devanagari script, the same sounds in Roman letters, an English translation set in our own voice, and then the line once more in plain words, for a first and unhurried reading.

Not every passage is opened to the same depth. A few central mantras carry the full cross-school commentary, where the schools are set side by side. The rest are kept here whole and faithful, set in their place but not expounded, so the book stays entire and nothing is dropped for being thought minor.

Where the schools read a line differently, the difference is kept open. None is crowned and none is corrected. Each is met on its own terms, and where they contradict, the contradiction is left standing for you to sit with.

॥ 4.3.17 ॥

And from waking to dream again

स वा एष एतस्मिन् बुद्धान्ते रत्वा चरित्वा दृष्ट्वैव पुण्यं च पापं च पुनः प्रतिन्यायं प्रतियोन्याद्रवति स्वप्नान्तायैव ॥
In transliteration
sa vā eṣa etasmin buddhānte ratvā caritvā dṛṣṭvaiva puṇyaṃ ca pāpaṃ ca punaḥ pratinyāyaṃ pratiyonyādravati svapnāntāyaiva ||

In English

And this one, having rejoiced and roamed in that waking state, and having only seen good and evil, hurries back again, by the reverse path, to the very same starting point, the dream.

In plain words

After resting and moving about in the waking world, where he merely witnesses good and evil, the self returns by the same route once more to dream. The circuit of the three states is now complete, the self crossing among them and bound by none.

In the commentaries

Sri SankaraAdvaita

Sankara reads the completed round-trip among waking, dream and deep sleep as proof that the self is other than all three: it is the constant witness that passes through them, while its agency in any one of them is only apparent and figurative.

Sri Sankara, Brhadaranyaka-bhasya 4.3.17 (via Madhavananda)