उद्दालकः हारुणिः श्वेतकेतुम् पुत्रम् उवाच स्वप्नान्तम् मे सोम्य विजानीहि इति यत्र एतत् पुरुषः स्वपिति नाम सता सोम्य तदा संपन्नः भवति स्वम् अपीतः भवति तस्मात् एनम् स्वपिति इति आचक्षते स्वम् हि अपीतः भवति
uddālakaḥ hāruṇiḥ śvetaketum putram uvāca svapnāntam me somya vijānīhi iti yatra etat puruṣaḥ svapiti nāma satā somya tadā saṃpannaḥ bhavati svam apītaḥ bhavati tasmāt enam svapiti iti ācakṣate svam hi apītaḥ bhavati
Uddālaka Āruṇi said to his son Śvetaketu: "Learn from me, my dear, what sleep is. When a man, as they say, sleeps, he has become united with Being, my dear: he has gone into his own. Therefore they say of him 'he sleeps' (svapiti): for he has gone into his own (svam apīta).
e589627ed81c · publicado 26 jul 2026, 23:39:08 UTC
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A new lesson begins where all philosophy humbly halts — with sleep. Where does a man go when "he is not there"? Uddālaka's answer is astonishing: a sleeper is not absent — he has come home: satā sampanno bhavati — "he has become united with Being". And language itself is called to witness: svapiti ("he sleeps") the father hears as svam apīta, "gone into his own". The people's speech, without knowing it, has for millennia been professing that sleep is a return to Being.
Every night, then, every man — the righteous and the thief, the knower and the ignorant — is a guest at the Source: that is why sleep heals, that is whence the morning's freshness of strength. But he is a guest without memory and without a meeting — like an infant in arms who does not know whose arms they are. The whole difference between the sleeper and the sage is not where they go but whether they recognise: and bhakti is the art of that same nearness with open eyes — not to dissolve into "one's own" but to recognise Him in one's Own.