The Advaitin's 'Sleep'

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Namaste,

 

..........

"

457.

Regarding sleep as one among the sheaths

Is but the self-forgetful folly

Of mistaking waking as Awareness

Bright. When the notion that the waking state

Is real and worthwhile goes, then sleep

Becomes true Being, non-dual, pure.

 

458.

It is the embryo of the separate self,

Battering the thought that he

Is the seer in dream and waking,

Which sinks confused, crest-fallen, seeing

Nothing at all in sleep.

 

459.

When the ego, the basic folly dies

And all the triads disappear,

The world as objectis no more.

The Self-sun shines and there is one

Pure Eternal Day, the Night of Siva.

 

460.

When the inborn 'vasanas' which produce

Both dream and waking disappear

The nescience of deep sleep, once deemed

The darkness dense of ignorance, shines

As the fourth state transcendent.

 

461.

To the intellect loving wakefuleness

The bliss of sleep appears a sheath,

One of the five. When the "I"-thought,

The puissant intellect, is dead,

The bliss abides as bliss supreme,

Sleep's nature as a nescient sheath

Having eneded. " ..................

 

from 'The Garland of Guru's Sayings', pp. 85-86

[Guru Vachaka Kovai - Tamil, by Muruganar,

tr. : Prof. K. Swaminathan

Publ. : Sri Ramanashram, 1st ed. 1990; reprint 1996