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7. SLEEPING
0. Darśanāvāraṇa Karman
In the state of perfection, the soul has infiniteness of knowledge (jnana) and intuition (darśana). The types of karman that obscure knowledge and intuition are respectively called knowledge-covering (jñānānavaraṇa) and intuition-covering (darśanāvarana). There are nine sub-types of intuition-covering karman which include five types of sleep. The effects of these five intuition-covering karman are felt in
(i) sleep with easy awakening (nidrā)
(ii) sleep with difficult awakening (nidrā-nidrā)
(iii) sleep while seated or standing (pracală),
(iv) sleep while walking (pracalā-pracalā) and
(v) sleep accompanied by superhuman deeds (somnambulism) (styāna-gṛddhi or styānardhi).
The object of the karman is to deprive the soul of using its faculty of intuiting truth.
It is not difficult to see that the state of sleeping is equivalent to absence of cognition (pratibodha). Conversely, wakeful state is active cognition or intuition.
1. Program for Sleeping
At least once a day, we cease to be conscious the mind does not operate and only the brain remains partly active as the guardian of our personality and the guarantee of its continuance. When we wake up, we are still the same person as before. At intervals, the program wakes us up for a period of conscious mental activity. There is, therefore, a wonderful opportunity to study the parallel changes in brain and mind as we fall asleep each night and in the morning wake again. By following electrical changes and reports of consciousness, we can see how the activities that we call those of the brain and those of the mind are related, providing
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