First, we can use anupalabdhi to establish the reality of experiences and objects. One moment the experience is present, the next it is not. Because a specific experience is usually not present, I can say that specific experiences are not real (asat). Reality in Vedānta is established by: It is permanently present. What is permanently present? I, consciousness, the self. All objects that are therefore sometimes not present are asat, not real.

This brings us immediately to a second use of anupalabdhi. The means of knowledge śabda pramāṇa (the authority of īśvara, captured in the sounds, śabda, of words) states with certainty: I, brahman, am always there (nitya) as existence itself, shining as consciousness. The māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad explains that three states appear to the self: waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. Let us focus on the state of deep sleep (suṣupti avasthā). This is anupalabdhi in its most radical, total sense. A blanket of tamas envelops us in complete ignorance, in the absence of objects. When we wake up, we can say, “I slept, but objects were absent; there was no manifestation.” With the knowledge of the means of knowledge, śabda pramāṇa, combined with anupalabdhi, we can now deduce: No objects appeared to me; they must have been non-manifest, carried in potential within the causal body, ready to bear fruit again in the dream state or in the waking state. I enjoyed this absence of objects. It was the temporary experience of the absence of objects, the experience of bliss, or rather, a refreshing nap. Furthermore: The absence of objects was temporary: Deep sleep is also not real.

Conclusion: Deep sleep is also part of the relative-transactional world of things that come and go. Anupalabdhi (the absence of an object) tells us nothing about the truth of ourselves. Being or consciousness is never, ever anupalabdhi, not present.

With this, we can state: An object can certainly be absent, or there can be a state in which all objects are absent (deep sleep), but non-existence (abhāva) does not exist. There is only existence (here bhāva in the sense of sat).