Question:

Ekta Di, If I am holding a baby’s hand, there is touch perceived in awareness. Now, if the body falls asleep holding the baby’s hand the touch is no longer perceived in awareness. Awareness is permanent and is all-pervading so why is no sensation of waking state experienced in sleep? Ideally, if awareness is the only reality then the three states (waking/deep sleep/ dreaming) should be occurring in awareness and we should be fully aware in all three states as awareness.

Answer:

When you hold the hand long enough, the sensation disappears into awareness. This means there is only Awareness. You had labeled it as a sensation. By labeling something, it does not become that dear.

By labeling a ‘wave’ as wave, it does not stop being water. By labeling sensation as sensation, it does not stop being ‘awareness’ dear. 

Saying that No sensation of waking state is experienced in deep sleep’ is like saying ‘No wave is experienced at the bed of the ocean’.

You are forgetting that a wave & the bed of the ocean are both nothing but water. You are forgetting that ’sensation’ [waking-state] and ‘deep sleep-state’ are nothing but awareness. Everything is only awareness. Everything is only consciousness. Every morning this becomes evident to you when you awaken that there is nothing for you to possibly experience outside of your own awareness/consciousness.

When you recognize the above truth in your own experience then only will it become possible for you to become aware in deep sleep that the body and brain are lying unconscious. Then you know the ‘absence of sensations’. That is also a knowing. Something needs to be there to know the absence as well. That Knowingness is not different from Awareness. 

At the moment, this is not your direct experience but you have the potentiality to get there once you recognize Ajata Vada [There is only consciousness] in your direct experience.

#AtmaNirvriti #AtmanandaKrishnaMenon #AdvaitaVedanta #Non-Duality