Sūtra 3.2.9

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of Sūtra 3.2.9:

स एव तु कर्मानुस्मृति-शब्द-विधिभ्यः

sa eva tu karmānusmṛti-śabda-vidhibhyaḥ

sas – he; eva – indeed; tu – but; karma – karma; ānusmṛti – memory; śabda – of the Śruti-śāstra; vidhibhyaḥ – from the instructions.

“It is he, because of the karma, the memory, the Śruti-śāstra and the teachings.” (9)

Sūtra pagination:
Adhyāya 3:
  Devotional Service;
Pāda 2:
  Glories and Virtues of the Lord;
Adhikaraṇa 5:
  The Same Person Returns to the Body.

Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa’s commentary (Govinda-bhāṣya)

The word tu [but] removes the doubt. The same person who had gone to sleep arises from it, and no one else. The reasons are four: First, he finishes the work that he had begun before going to sleep. The world karma in the text means ordinary worldly work. Second, he has memory in the form “I am the person who went to sleep and have now awakened.”

Thirdly, the text of Chāndogya Upaniṣad [6.9.3] states:

“Whatever these creatures are, whether a tiger or lion, or a wolf or a boar, or a worm or an insect, or a gnat or a mosquito, that they become again and again.”

This means that on awakening, the creatures come back into the same body they had before then went to sleep. Fourthly, scriptural injunctions like ātmānam eva lokam upāsīta: “One should worship with the aim of attaining the spiritual kingdom” [Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.4.15] show that one should make efforts directed at attaining release. If everyone who went to sleep got liberation, then these injunctions about mokṣa would be redundant.

When it is said that a jīva enters into Brahman during sleep, what is meant is like a sealed jar of salt water being plunged into the Ganges. When he awakens, it is like the same jar taken out of the river with the same water in it. In the same way the jīva, covered by his desires, goes to sleep and for the time being puts aside all his sensory activities and goes to the resting place, namely the Supreme Brahman, and again comes out of it to get further experience. By this resting in Brahman he does not become similar to Brahman, as a person who has obtained mokṣa; therefore for these four reasons, the same person who had gone to sleep wakes up again into the same body.