Ashtavakra Gita 13.6 -

The world around us is not an unquestionable presence or reality. On whether world comes first or we do, the answer is undoubtedly “we”! We perceive and interact with the world, as already stated. We are the Subject and source of all interactions.

We have three basic states of awareness – wakefulness, sleep and dream. We are awake for about 16 hours of the day. For 8 hours we sleep, unconscious of our body as well as the world. The world, which vanishes for one third of the day, cannot be authentic. Human intelligence cannot give it the status of reality at all.

The mother puts to sleep her child, born after long expectation, and goes to sleep. In wakefulness you may have many a concern, anxiety and botheration, all resulting in dissatisfaction; but in sleep you have none. Sleep is not a negative state, but a positive one of fullness and abundance. You need nothing besides the ‘I’ in sleep.

Without sleep, wakefulness cannot be. We wake up from sleep and go to sleep again, revealing that the sleep state is the source of wakefulness and hence of the extensive world as well, a creation solely of our wakeful state.

How meaningful and relevant then is what Janaka states! He loses nothing by sleeping, nor gains by wakeful activity. Disposing of everything, Janaka asserts: “I am blissfully restful in my own inner transparence”.