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.
The embrace in deep sleep
This, indeed, is his form that is beyond longing, free from evil, and without fear. As a man, fully embraced by his beloved wife, knows nothing outside, nothing within, so this person, fully embraced by the Self that knows, knows nothing outside, nothing within. This, indeed, is his form in which every desire is fulfilled, in which the Self is the only desire, in which there is no desire and no grief.
This deep-sleep state is the self's form that is beyond all craving, washed clean of evil, and without fear. Just as a man locked in the embrace of the wife he loves is aware of nothing outside or inside himself, so the self, wholly embraced by the all-knowing Self (prajna atman), is aware of nothing outer or inner. This is its form in which every desire is already attained, in which its only "desire" is the Self itself, in which there is no desire left and no sorrow at all (akama, sokantara).
Where the schools meet, and where they part
In deep sleep the awareness of an outer world and an inner world both fall away, and what the mantra calls knowing nothing outside, nothing within is read by all three schools as a real condition of the self and not as the self's annihilation.
A Self that knows, the Prajna in whose embrace the sleeper is said to rest, is named in this very state. What that nearness amounts to, and whether the bliss and fearlessness named here are the Self's own or a quiet that still veils it, the schools do not agree.
For Sankara the embrace by the Self that knows is non-duality itself: the difference of knower and known was only projected by ignorance, and in deep sleep that projection lies still, so the sleeper is simply one. The man embraced by his wife who knows nothing outside or within is the very figure of there being no second thing to know. This is not the loss of the self but its own true form, beyond longing, free of evil, without fear; waking and dream merely overlay it with limiting adjuncts. The deep sleeper is already Brahman, veiled only by the night of avidya. So for Advaita the bliss and the fearlessness the verse names are the Self's own, and deep sleep is the nearest the unawakened come to that presence.
Madhva reads the same embrace as the dependent jiva resting in the supreme Self, never dissolved into it. He leans on the waking recollection I slept blissfully so long: such a memory, the Saksi's own intuition of self, time, and bliss in dreamless sleep, proves a real distinct experiencer was present, for no one wakes doubting whether it was his own self or another's that had slept. The bliss is enjoyed, yet it is derived and dependent, the soul being the reflection (pratibimba) of Brahman the original; and even here the finite soul does not recover its native self-luminosity, for Maya still veils it. So deep sleep displays the eternal difference of soul and Lord, not their merging.
On Ramanuja's settled doctrine, applied here, deep sleep is the contraction of the jiva's attributive consciousness (dharma-bhuta-jnana), which grows almost inert yet is never destroyed; the I endures, distinct, throughout the night. The Self that knows, in whose embrace the sleeper lies, is the antaryamin, the Paramatman who holds the jiva as His body (sarira) in inseparable union (aprthak-siddhi). Knowing nothing outside or within names the stilling of object-cognition, not the erasure of the knower or of the difference between supported soul and supporting Lord. The state is communion sustained by the inner ruler, a likeness to Brahman's serenity, never absolute identity with Him.
When the sleeper knows nothing outside and nothing within, has the second thing truly ceased to be (so that only the One remains), or has it only gone quiet for a while (so that a distinct soul still rests, held, in the embrace of a distinct Lord)?
Why does the mantra say the deep sleeper, embraced by the Self that knows, knows nothing outside and nothing within?
- Because the sleeper has travelled to another world far away
- Because the self has been destroyed and nothing is left to know
- Because the difference of knower and known has, at least, subsided, so there is no second thing held off as an object
- Because the senses are merely tired and will recover by morning
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How does Madhva use the morning memory I slept blissfully so long?
- To prove that deep sleep is simply unconsciousness with no experience at all
- To prove that dreams and deep sleep are the same state
- To prove the self merges fully into Brahman and loses all distinction
- To prove a real, distinct self was present and experiencing in deep sleep, so the difference of soul and Lord is never lost
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The embrace in the dark
Every night the same door opens. The senses fold away, the dreaming pictures fade, and for a while we know nothing at all, neither the world outside nor any thought within. The Upanisad does not call this a blank. It calls it an embrace: as a man held by his beloved knows nothing outside and nothing within, so this person, held by the Self that knows, rests beyond longing, free of evil, without fear.
Sankara hears in that embrace the sound of duality going still. The second thing, the object set over against us, was only ever projected by ignorance; let that projection rest, and the sleeper is simply one. Deep sleep, on this reading, is the Self's own true form briefly uncovered. We are already that fearless bliss; waking and dream only lay their adjuncts over it.
Madhva listens to the morning instead. We wake and say, I slept well, I slept in bliss, and that quiet memory, he argues, could belong only to someone who was there to have it. A real self rested and a real bliss was tasted; no one wakes wondering whose sleep it was. Yet the bliss was borrowed, the soul a reflection leaning on its original, still veiled and still dependent. The dark holds two, not one: the soul, and the Lord who embraces it.
Ramanuja's school keeps that distinctness and reads the dimming gently. The light of the soul's awareness has not died; it has drawn in, contracted almost to stillness, ready to spread again at dawn. The one who embraces is the inner ruler, holding the soul as His own body, nearer than the soul is to itself. Communion, not collapse; likeness, not sameness.
So the same dreamless peace is read three ways, and the readings do not fold into one. One voice says the second thing has ceased to be. Two voices say it has only gone quiet, and that a distinct soul still rests, held, in the embrace of a distinct Lord. The night keeps its counsel, and the question it raises is left standing.
Whether the deep sleeper is the One alone with no second, or a distinct soul resting in the arms of a distinct Lord, is exactly where these schools part, and we let them part.
When you wake and know that you slept well, who was it that rested in the dark, and in whose embrace?
In the commentaries
On the crux Sankara reads deep sleep as the Self resting in its own true form, beyond longing, free of evil, and without fear. The simile of the man fully embraced by his beloved wife, who in that moment knows nothing outside and nothing within, is for Sankara a figure of non-duality and not of mere unconsciousness: where there is no second thing, there is nothing to be known as other. The phrase embraced by the Self that knows means embraced by the supreme Prajna, the Self that is pure awareness; the difference of knower and known, which ignorance had projected, is at rest, and so the one sleeper is simply one. This, he says, is the Self's natural and fearless condition, which waking and dream only overlay with limiting adjuncts.