Where does the soul go during sleep?
The presence of the soul is also the defining difference between a living being and an inanimate object. The soul brings consciousness to the body. However, where is the soul during sleep?
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We understand that we are not the body but the soul inside the body. From the soul comes consciousness, which permeates the body, just like the light of the sun permeates the whole universe. Consciousness is present in all living beings and is more or less visible according to the grade of the body. Even a plant has a certain degree of consciousness, and we can see this clearly when we make a time lapse of its growth and see how it moves and avoids obstacles and adapts to features of the environment. Plants also move; they just do so more slowly than us.
The presence of the soul is also the defining difference between a living being and an inanimate object. A computer can be very advanced, but it is still a machine. Even AI systems are just blocks of instructions run by these machines. Without a soul, even the most advanced computer system will never be conscious.
However, where does the soul go at night, when we enter deep sleep, when there is no consciousness at all? Does the soul leave the body? And if not, then how exactly can consciousness disappear? And how can we return each morning as the same person?
This question is answered in the Mandukya Upaniṣad. This is the shortest and one of the most mysterious Upaniṣads, dealing with details of the interaction of the soul and the body, the different states of consciousness we go through during our lives, and how we remain connected with the Supreme Lord, who is present inside our hearts as Paramātma in each of these states.
The Bhagavad-gītā explains that the soul is eternal and indestructible. The body passes through different phases—childhood, youth, old age, sleep, disease, death, etc.— but the soul continues to exist without a change through all these changes.
Consciousness is the natural symptom of the soul. However, the consciousness we ordinarily experience is filtered through the material body and mind. It is therefore possible for our external awareness to disappear even though the soul remains conscious by nature, just as the luminosity of a lamp disappears when we turn off the switch, even though the electricity is still available.
Another example is a man under anesthesia. He may have no awareness of what is happening around him, but he doesn’t cease to exist. When the effect of the anesthetic ends, his external awareness returns.
Deep sleep is somewhat similar. The soul remains present, but its connection with the external world through the senses and mind is temporarily suspended.
The Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad describes three states that we regularly experience:
Wakefulness
Dreaming
Deep sleep
Beyond these three is a fourth state called turīya, or spiritual consciousness.
During wakefulness, we experience the external world through the physical body. We see through the eyes, hear through the ears, etc. Although the soul is the conscious observer, perception depends on a complex arrangement involving the senses, mind, and intelligence. For this complex system to function, we depend on the cooperation of many different demigods (the predominating deities of the senses and other functions we depend upon), all of this happening under the sanction of the Supreme Lord. When someone becomes blind, for example, this does not mean just that the eye was damaged, but that the potency to see was withdrawn due to some karmic arrangement.
During the dreaming state, our external senses stop functioning, but the mind remains active. We may not see or hear what is happening around us, but we may see people, places, and situations in our dreams without using our physical eyes. The dream world is therefore experienced not through the body but in a subtle form through the mind. The dream state is thus an intermediate state of consciousness, where we are not aware of the physical world but are aware of the movements of the subtle mind.
What about deep sleep?
In deep sleep, even this internal mental activity stops. We do not perceive the external world, nor do we see dreams. Our ordinary material identity temporarily ceases.
The Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad describes deep sleep as a state in which a person desires no material object and sees no dream. The consciousness of the soul withdraws from both external perception and the mental world and rests within the region of the heart.
Kṛṣṇa explains in the Gītā that He is situated in everyone’s heart. From Him come remembrance, knowledge, and forgetfulness. He is the one who makes our material experience possible and, in this way, allows us to pursue our material goals. At the same time, however, He accompanies us through this journey, just as a friend accompanies the other.
The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam explains that every soul has an eternal relationship with Kṛṣṇa that can’t ever be broken, just forgotten. Material life is exactly this state where we become absorbed in the material world and forget this eternal relationship. However, because our life in the material world is not our real existence, it cannot last. Therefore, our material experience has to be regularly interrupted, both at the end of each life and at the end of each day. What happens during these periods? We go back to Kṛṣṇa. At the end of each day, we stay with Kṛṣṇa, in His form as Paramātma, inside the heart, and after the destruction of the universe, we all join Maha-Viṣnu in His cosmic sleep. In reality, we never leave Him; we just think we have done so due to the material coverings. As soon as these coverings are eliminated, we are back with Him.
In ordinary life, we operate under the conception of the false ego, seeing ourselves as separate and independent from Kṛṣṇa. In deep sleep, however, the soul has no active perception of a separate material identity. This is a delicate point. It should not be understood in the sense that we become one. This situation may be compared to different objects in a completely dark room. The objects don’t merge together, but we lose our capacity to differentiate one from the other. Similarly, during deep sleep, the soul does not actually merge into the Lord, but the awareness by which we distinguish “I,” “my body,” “my family,” and “my problems” disappears.
The mind is also not destroyed during deep sleep; it simply becomes dormant. Just as a computer retains all information and software when it is turned off. Everything is there, but it is not operating. As soon as we wake up, however, the mind again becomes active, and we regain our awareness of the external world. This is why the same personality reappears upon awakening. A person may go to sleep thinking about money and immediately remember it upon waking up.
Unless we have a nightmare, we perceive sleep as a peaceful state. During regular life, we are constantly disturbed by the demands of the body, mind, family, society, etc. We experience heat and cold, pleasure and pain, expectation, disappointment, etc., and this continues even in dreams. In deep sleep, however, everything ceases. That’s a state where we experience rest and a form of peaceful, covered happiness.
From this, we can conclude that the material mind and ego are the source of material suffering, because when they become inactive, we experience bliss. In reality, bliss is the natural state of the soul; the false ego, mind, body, and senses are precisely the coverings that prevent us from experiencing it.
We come then to the fourth stage described in the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, the state beyond waking, dreaming, and deep sleep: turīya.
Wakefulness, dreaming, and deep sleep are all temporary material conditions. We continually move from one to another, but none of them reveal our real identity.
When we are awake, we mistake the physical body for the self and become absorbed in the temporary physical world. In dreams, we identify with an ephemeral world created by the mind. In deep sleep, we forget both the external body and the dream identity, but we remain ignorant of our spiritual nature.
Turīya is different. It is an active state of purified consciousness. It is the awakening of the soul to his real identity, his eternal relationship with Kṛṣṇa.
Deep sleep means temporarily forgetting about our material conditioning. Impersonal liberation means to give up material conditioning without awakening to the spiritual reality. The fourth state, turīya, is different from both; that’s the state where we finally reconnect with our eternal spiritual identity. That’s the state where we finally fully wake up from the material covering.
Material life is compared to a dream because that’s a state where we forget who we are and become absorbed in a sequence of dreams in which we experience illusory situations. Impersonal liberation is compared to deep sleep, where we just forget everything and become dormant. From this deep sleep, however, one can at any moment fall back into the nightmare of material existence. Turīya is compared to the true awakened state, where we finally wake up to our eternal spiritual relationship with Kṛṣṇa, our eternal life of bliss together with Him.
This original consciousness is awakened through the process of bhakti, Kṛṣṇa consciousness, through the process of hearing about Kṛṣṇa, serving Him, associating with like-minded devotees, studying the Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and chanting His holy names, which, when done attentively and in a humble spirit, has the power of quickly awakening this dormant spiritual consciousness.
Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa,
Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare,
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma,
Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare.
During ordinary sleep, we forget the material world for a few hours, have a short period of peace, but return to the challenges of day-to-day life unchanged. Through Kṛṣṇa consciousness, however, the heart is gradually purified, and we gradually awaken to the spiritual reality. When this process is finally concluded, we never return to the dream of material existence.
Therefore, the real question is not where we go during sleep, but how we can awaken this original spiritual consciousness.
I published a translation and commentary of the Mandukīya Upaniṣad, in case you want to go deeper. It is available for free here on the website, like my other books:
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