Brahma Sutras (Shankaracharya)
by George Thibaut | 1890 | 203,611 words
English translation of the Brahma sutras (aka. Vedanta Sutras) with commentary by Shankaracharya (Shankara Bhashya): One of the three canonical texts of the Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy. The Brahma sutra is the exposition of the philosophy of the Upanishads. It is an attempt to systematise the various strands of the Upanishads which form the ...
III, 2, 8
8. Hence the awaking from that (viz. Brahman).
And because the Self only is the place of deep sleep, on that account the scriptural chapters treating of sleep invariably teach that the awaking takes place from that Self. In the Bṛ. Up. when the time comes for the answer to the question, 'Whence did he come back?' (II, 1, 16) the text says, 'As small sparks come forth from fire, thus all prāṇas come forth from that Self (II, 1, 20). And Ch. Up. VI, 10, 2, we read: 'When they have come back from the True they do not know that they have come back from the True.' If there were optional places to which the soul might resort in deep sleep, scripture would teach us that it awakes sometimes from the nāḍīs, sometimes from the pericardium, sometimes from the Self.--For that reason also the Self is the place of deep sleep.