There are occasions when man passes through states which are different from the waking one. Man is not always waking; he is in other conditions also, when he still exists. Dream is one instance. Man exists even in dream; he is not dead. But here the waking consciousness does not operate; the senses are not active. One does not see with the eyes, does not hear with the ears. If a sound is made near the ears when one is dreaming, he may not hear it; if a particle of sugar is placed on the tongue, he may not taste it. A mechanism operates even in the state of dream. And, "I dreamt yesterday," is what everyone generally says when one wakes up from dream. Did "I" exist in dream? Yes, "I" did exist. In what condition did "I" exist? Not as the body, for the body was inactive. One was not aware of the existence of the body. One could not identify oneself with the body. Man was not the body at all, for all practical purposes, in his dream. What was he, then? Well, one may say, "I was only the mind." The mind was operating; the mind was existing; the mind was functioning; the mind was experiencing the whole phenomena of what could be regarded as a dream life.

So, man can exist even without the body. This is strange. Did he not exist in dream without association with the body? Though it is true that in the waking condition an association with the physical body is absolutely essential, in other conditions, like dream, one does exist without the body. There are, then, states of consciousness when one can exist without association with the body. If man can exist without the body, his real essence cannot be the body. Dream is an example, numbness is an example, and swoon is an example, to prove this fact.

Deeper still, there is a state called sleep. What happens in sleep? Even the mind does not operate here. This is important to note. The intellect, feelings, volitions, and sense organs all cease to operate. But does man exist in sleep? Yes, he does exist. In what capacity? What is man then? "I am" is the assertion that everyone generally makes on waking. But in what way was one existing? In what state was this "I", the self? In the state of deep sleep the "I" did not exist as the body. lt did not exist as the intellect which was then not functioning. There was no psychic operation of any kind in the state of sleep. When there is no body, no mind. what remains in man? Nothing remains; it is a vacuum, as it were. Man was in an inexplicable darkness, which is identified with sleep. No one knows anything in sleep.

What does everyone say about sleep when one wakes up in the morning? "I knew nothing; I had a good sleep." But when one says, "I knew nothing, I had good sleep," one is making a self-contradictory statement. If nothing was known, how could one know that one slept well? It is not true that one does not know anything, though it appears there is no object of consciousness in sleep.

One does not know anything in sleep, because there is no external object there. Whenever one speaks of knowledge, one always refers to a relationship between the subject and the object. One connects one's mind with a content which is outside it. As there was no object outside the mind in the state of sleep, one says, "I had no knowledge." But, it is not true that there was no knowledge of any kind. There was some kind of knowledge. The Vedanta analysis is interesting. It asks, "My dear friend, you said that you slept yesterday. How did you know that you slept yesterday? Who told you this?" Everyone makes this statement for himself. Again, one says, "I knew nothing." If he knew nothing, how could he know that he slept?

Here is a subtle point on which one has to bestow some thought. It is impossible to remember that one slept, unless one had an experience. Memory, remembrance, is a function which follows as a result of an experience that one had earlier. If one did not have an experience before, one cannot have a memory thereof later. The memory of having slept is a necessary consequence of one's having had an experience of sleep.

Now, again, let us go a little deeper into this point. Does one have a memory of having slept'? Yes. Now, if memory is a result of an experience that one had, would that experience have been an unconscious experience? A stone does not remember anything. The stone does not say, "I slept yesterday." The memory of a past experience - here, in this case, memory of sleep - should imply the presence of some sort of a consciousness. If the consciousness was completely obliterated in sleep. one would not remember that one slept. One would be like a stone, and a stone says nothing.

There is a strange mystery within us. Man is a miracle. He is not an ordinary individual as he thinks he is. Man is not a Tom, Dick, or Harry, as he appears. Every human being is a wonder in himself, or herself, and it is the study of deep sleep that unravels the mysteries of man. In other conditions, man knows very little about himself.

Most of the philosophers of the West confine themselves to the waking experience. Thus. there were agnosticism, scepticism, empiricism, and other "isms", which cropped up as a consequence of the study merely of the waking condition, as if man is only in the waking state and nothing else is in him. The Vedanta tells us that in the state of deep sleep one does not die, one lives. one exists, and this fact is known by the memory that follows subsequently. Memory is not possible without a previous experience, and that experience has no sense if it is not attended with a kind of awareness. So, in the state of deep sleep there was consciousness. It was covered over with some peculiar obstacle. Like a cloud covering the sun, one's consciousness in sleep was covered by certain impressions of desires unfulfilled. When the sun is hidden by the thick clouds, no one says that the sun is non-existent. Sometimes, there is an eclipse of the sun, or there are dark clouds covering the sun in the rainy season. It would then look as if midday is like midnight. But nevertheless the sun is there.

This analysis would reveal that the essence of the self, the "I", in the state of deep sleep is not one of a total abolition of existence, but an existence pure and simple, a featureless transparency, consciousness proper. The "I" had no body, no mind, no psychic functions, no relationships, no friends. no enemies. The "I" was neither a father, nor a mother, nor a man nor a woman, nor a king, nor a beggar; nothing of the kind was the "I" in the state of deep sleep.

What a wonderful state! Anyone can imagine what one was. Nothing conceivable was man; but he did exist. He was levelled down to the condition of that in which everything exists finally. Man was in a state of pure existence wholly, and nothing else. One was not even a human being, not rich, not poor, not healthy, not unhealthy, not thirsty, not hungry; nothing could apply to that state of being. But one existed, still.

Everyone was in the state of deep sleep, in a condition of pure being - impersonal, featureless, indeterminate awareness associated with existence. What was everyone in the state of deep sleep? Only existence which is associated with consciousness in an integral manner. It was not existence and consciousness. It was existence which was consciousness, Sat-Chit. The Vedanta philosophy uses the word "Sat-Chit", which means Existence-Consciousness. The difficulty of language is such that no word can be used at all to designate what Sat-Chit means. They are not two different things or states. It is Being which is Consciousness, or Consciousness which is Being. Being is Consciousness, and Consciousness is Being. So the hyphen is used, Existence-Consciousness, because no other way is known to write it down. Everyone is only Existence-Consciousness in the state of deep sleep.

If the Self is Consciousness, naturally it cannot be divisible. It is not partite, it is impartite. If one imagines a division of Consciousness, theoretically at least, or academically, one has to imagine a space between two parts of Consciousness, because what distinguishes one thing from another thing is space, or time. Now, can one imagine that there is space between two parts of Consciousness? If there is space, who is to be aware of this space? The Consciousness itself has to be aware of the space that is imagined, as if existing between two of its parts. Consciousness should be present even in that middle, the so-called imagined space. It is impossible, therefore, to imagine a division in Consciousness. It is indivisible; hence, it is not finite; therefore, it is infinite.

Existence which is Consciousness is of the character of Bliss. Why is it Bliss? Because, all suffering and finitude, every difficulty and penury of any kind, is the result of the finitude of one's nature. When one has become the infinite, all desires are fulfilled. The desires are not abolished or destroyed in the infinite, as people may imagine. All wishes are totally fulfilled in their reality. We enjoy at present dream objects, a shadow of the substance, as it were. But there, one becomes the archetype or the original of things, as if one in dream rises into the waking life and beholds the reality of things as they are. Even this Bliss is not separate from Existence-Consciousness. Existence, which is Consciousness, itself is bliss.

If the Self is Existence-Consciousness-Bliss in deep sleep, can it be otherwise in the waking and dream states? No, because it is indivisible, thus, infinite; it would be the same always. Thus, essentially, the Self is Sat-Chit-Ananda, Existence-Consciousness-Bliss. Here Infinity and Eternity get blended into All-Being.

But, no one wakes up from sleep as infinite being. The waking experience is always the same story of finitude and all its resultant sorrow. The glory discovered by a probe into sleep vanishes in mortal waking. Where is the solution to this elusive problem?