Gauḍapāda on Sleep

Gauḍapāda’s analysis of sleep in the Māṇḍūkya Kārikā.

Gauḍapāda On Sleep (Advaita Vedānta)

Three States
1. Waking (Vaiśvānara): External, sensory experience, appearing real but ultimately dream-like.
2. Dream (Taijasa): Internally projected experience, no less illusory than waking.
3. Deep Sleep (Prājña): Absence of differentiation, blissful but still ignorance — seeds of illusion remain.
Problem with Deep Sleep
- Blissful non-duality is present, but only in a latent/ignorant form.
- It’s not liberation, because the cycle of waking and dreaming resumes.
Turiya (Fourth State):
- Not another “state” but the ground of all three.
- The Atman as unchanging witness of waking, dream, and deep sleep.
- Realizing this is mokṣa (liberation), beyond suffering and illusion.

Islam (Qur’an 39:42)
- Sleep = minor death: Allah takes the soul and either returns it or keeps it.
- Emphasis: dependence of the soul on God’s will.
- Deep sleep is not liberation, but a sign of Allah’s power over life/death.
Patañjali (Yoga Sūtras I.10, I.20, II.18–20)
- Sleep (nidrā) = a vṛtti (mental modification) characterized by absence of content.
- The seer (draṣṭā) remains pure and unchanged in all states.
- Goal = stilling the mind to reveal the seer, not “resting” in deep sleep.
Advaita Vedānta (Gauḍapāda)
- Waking, dream, deep sleep = all unreal, masking truth.
- Even blissful ignorance of deep sleep ≠ liberation.
- Only realizing Turiya (the witness behind all states) = freedom.

Islam: Sleep involves the movement of the soul by God’s command (ontological dependence).
Patañjali: Sleep is a mental event; the seer never moves, it just witnesses (ontological permanence).
Gauḍapāda: Sleep is illusory ignorance; real truth is Turiya, which is the Self beyond all states (ontological non-duality).

✨ In short: