Question:

Ektaji, I have one question. You were saying that if one is established in 100% awareness of the subtle body at death, you become enlightened. Does this happen only at the time of death or can it happen even when you are in the waking state?

Answer:

It is a process. The 100% awareness/complete mindfulness/sakshi bhava happens in the waking state first.

Only when you are completely awakened in the waking state, will it move to the subtle body [dreaming state].

And only when you attain the awakening in the subtle will it move to the deep sleep state.

When you attain that state, you have transcended to a state beyond the waking/dreaming/deep sleep states. Then you live meditatively, moment to moment, and you even sleep meditatively,

When you attain it in life. then only do you manage to be like that at death. 

Question:

In the deep sleep state if the consciousness is out of the physical body and retracted to the subtle body only, then why doesn’t the physical body stop functioning?

Answer?

Have you lit a bonfire ever? When there is enough fuel for the fire, it rises high and is bright yellow. But after a while when the fuel/wood/paper etc. is exhausted, the fire becomes almost non-existent but the embers are still there, if you add fuel to the embers, the fire will light up again.

So now you can say that when the fire is up and bright, it is 100% there but when it is down to the embers, it has reduced to 1%. This 1% is there because the wood exists. The wood is the karma. As long as the karma exists, the flame will burn even if it is at 1%. But 1% is not enough for your physical body to be awake and functioning voluntarily. It is just sufficient for the embers to keep glowing, which means, the involuntary functions like heart-beating and breathing and organs functioning continues on account of Karma. That is what is the dreaming and deep sleep state. 

At death, the 1% embers are also exhausted because the wood of karma is exhausted. The fire is then put out!