Sri Aurobindo

Letters of Sri Aurobindo

Volume I - Part 1

Fragment ID: 9772

It is the external consciousness, the inner consciousness, the superconscient that are meant [by vaiśvānara, taijasa and prājña in the Mandukya Upanishad]. The terms waking, dream, sleep are applied because in the ordinary consciousness of man the external only is awake, the inner being is mostly subliminal and acts directly only in a state of sleep when its movements are felt like things of dream and vision; while the superconscient (supermind, overmind, etc.) is beyond even that range and is to the mind like a deep sleep.