Prasna Upanishad
1. Then Sauryayanin Gargya asked him, “Blessed one, what
things in the person sleep? What things in it stay awake?
Which god sees dreams? Whose happiness is it? And in
what are all these established?’
2. He told him, ‘Gargya, just as, when the sun sets, its
rays all become one in its circle of fire, and when it rises
they come out of it, time after time, so everything becomes
one in the highest god, the mind. So at that time a person
does not hear, does not see, does not smell, does not taste,
does not touch, does not speak, does not feel pleasure, does
not excrete, does not move about: folk say, “He is asleep.”
3. ‘Only the fires of breath stay awake in this city. The
lower breath is the Garhapatya, the Anvaharyapacana the
diffused breath; since it is drawn from the Garhapatya, the
AhavanTya is the breath (prana), from ‘drawing’ (pranayana).
4. The central breath (samdna) is so called because it makes
the two offerings, the in-breath and the out-breath, equal
(sama). The mind is the patron of the sacrifice. The fruit of
the sacrifice is the up-breath (udana): every day it brings the
patron of the sacrifice to brahman.
5. ‘Here, in sleep, the god experiences greatness. Whatever
object of sight he has seen, he sees again; whatever object
of hearing he has heard, he hears again; whatever he has
experienced in different regions and directions, he experiences
again and again. What he has seen and what he has not
seen; what he has heard and what he has not heard; what
he has experienced and what he has not experienced; what
is and what is not?he sees it all. He sees it, being all.
6. ‘When he is overwhelmed by light, the god sees no dreams.
Now there is bliss, in this body.
home, all of that flocks to the supreme self:
of water, fire and the element of fire, air and the element
of air, space and the element of space, the eye and that
which can be seen, the ear and that which can be heard,
smell and that which can be smelt, taste and that which can
be tasted, the skin and that which can be touched, the hands
and that which can be held, the loins and that which can
be enjoyed, the anus and that which can be excreted, the
feet and the path that can be taken, the mind and that
which can be thought, the intelligence and that which can
be understood, the ego and that with which one can
identify, consciousness and that of which one can be
conscious, light and that which can be illuminated, breath
and that which can be supported.
taster, the thinker, the understander, the doer, the self of
knowledge, the person. It flocks to the supreme imperishable
self.
bodiless, bloodless, pure imperishable, attains the supreme
imperishable. Knowing all, he becomes all. There is a verse
about it:
11. ‘Good man, the one who knows the imperishable,
In which the self of knowledge with all gods-
Breaths and beings too, stand firm,
All-knowing, has entered into all.’