Just as in deep sleep, resting upon it, one knows neither happiness nor suffering, so abiding in Brahman is bliss, never anything else.

The sūtra returns to the analogy of deep sleep (suṣupti), but with a new inflection. Previously it was used to illustrate the absence of an object; here it is used to illustrate the absence of suffering and enjoyment. In suṣupti there is neither happiness nor unhappiness—not because we are insensitive, but because there is no mind to project a duality of value onto experience.

The verb “samāśritya”—“leaning on” or “relying upon”—is technically significant. It is not that we “fall” into sleep; rather, we lean on it, we use it as a temporary support. In the same way, Brahman is not something we “attain,” but something upon which we are always leaning, from which we are never separate. The separation is like that of a fish seeking the ocean: it is already in it, it simply does not know where it is.

“Sukhaṃ nānyat kadā cana”—“happiness, never anything else”—is a definitive statement that redefines the very concept of happiness. There are no “types” of happiness: sensory happiness, mental happiness, spiritual happiness. There is only one happiness that appears in different ways according to the instrument through which it is refracted. Brahman-sukha is the white light; all other happinesses are colors of its prism. The practice of yoga does not seek “another” happiness; it seeks to remove the prisms that scatter the light which is already our nature.