Beauty ＆ Pure 149

.: You are the same person that is now awake [as was in sleep]. Is it not so?

D.: Yes.

M.: So there is a continuity in the sleep and the waking states. What is that continuity? It is only the state of Pure Being. There is a difference in the two states. What is that difference? The incidents, namely, the body, the world and the objects appear in the waking state but they disappear in sleep.

D.: But I am not aware in my sleep.

M.: True, there is no awareness of the body or of the world. But you must exist in your sleep in order to say now "I was not aware in my sleep". Who says so now? It is the wakeful person. The sleeper cannot say so. That is to say, the individual who is now identifying the Self with the body says that such awareness did not exist in sleep. Because you identify yourself with the body, you see the world around you and say that the waking state is filled with beautiful and interesting things. The sleep state appears dull because you were not there as an individual and therefore these things were not. But what is the fact? There is the continuity of Being in all the three states, but no continuity of the individual and the objects.

D.: Yes.

M.: That which is continuous is also enduring, i.e. permanent. That which is discontinuous is transitory.

D.: Yes.

M.: Therefore the state of Being is permanent and the body and the world are not. They are fleeting phenomena passing on the screen of Being-Consciousness which is eternal and stationary.