Tattvabodha (Basic)

Hari Om!

In deep sleep, the body, senses and the mind are not functioning. Therefore there is no experience of the world and objects therein. That is one type of ignorance.

The other type of ignorance is not knowing our true nature, what we call as the ignorance of the Self.

Yet in that state the cit, the pure Consciousness, that is also sat, Existence is there and it sustains an ati-sukshma, extremely subtle thought of ‘I know nothing.’ This is how that experience is captured.

One side note, the state of bliss, it is atma ananda, but only the experience of no suffering because the experience of the external world is not there because senses and the mind are not functioning during deep sleep.

We can compare the deep sleep state to a powered on tape recorder in recording mode. Since senses are fully at rest, though the recording mode is on, nothing is being recorded in absence of any signal. However since the tape is running, it will record ‘hiss’. In deep sleep our chitta (tape recorder) is not receiving any signal but is powered on by the presence of conciousness. So in Jagrut avastha, when the tape is played, the ignorance of deep sleep (blank tape) becomes evident. The tape recorder is powered by conciousness in all the 3 states.