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Is It Sleep, Or Is It Samadhi? · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  When the consciousness moves inward, away from the awareness
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  of the external reality, it is frequently interpreted as sleep
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  by those who experience it for the first time.
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  The reason they believe it is sleep is due to a lack of
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  communication between that inward state of consciousness
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  and the outward external awareness and the identification
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  with the known conception of sleep, which in some ways mimics
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  the action of samadhi with respect to the absence of
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  conscious attention of the external waking ego personality.
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  Swami Vivekananda in his lectures on Raja Yoga states the
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  following quote. There is a still higher plane
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  upon which the mind can work. It can go beyond consciousness.
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  Just as unconscious work is beneath consciousness, so there
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  is another work which is above consciousness and which also is
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  not accompanied with the feeling of egoism.
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  The feeling of egoism is only on the middle plane.
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  When the mind is above or below that line.
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  There is no feeling of I and yet the mind works.
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  When the mind goes beyond this line of self consciousness, it
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  is called samadhi or superconsciousness.
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  How, for instance, do we know that a man in samadhi has not
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  gone below consciousness, has not degenerated instead of going
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  higher? In both cases the works are
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  unaccompanied with egoism. The answer is by the effects, by
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  the results of the work. We know that which is below and
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  that which is above. When a man goes into deep sleep,
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  he enters a plane beneath consciousness.
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  He works the body all the time. He breathes, he moves the body,
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  perhaps in his sleep, without any accompanying feeling of ego.
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  He is unconscious, and when he returns from his sleep he is the
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  same man who went into it. The sum total of the knowledge
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  which he had before he went into the sleep remains the same.
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  It does not increase at all. No enlightenment comes.
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  But when a man goes into samati, if he goes into it a fool, he
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  comes out a sage. End Quote.
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  He continues quote. What makes the difference?
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  From one state a man comes out, the very same man that went in,
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  and from another state the man comes out enlightened, a sage, a
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  prophet, a St. His whole character changed, his
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  life changed, illumined. These are the two effects.
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  Now the effects being different, the causes must be different as
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  this illumination with which a man comes back from samadhi is
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  much higher than can be got from unconsciousness or much higher
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  than can be got by reasoning in a conscious state, It must
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  therefore be super consciousness and Samadi is called the Super
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  conscious state. End Quote.
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  Srioro Bindo notes quote. It was not half sleep or quarter
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  sleep or even 116th sleep that you had.
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  It was a going inside of the consciousness, which in that
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  state remains conscious, but shut to outer things and open
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  only to inner experience. You must distinguish clearly
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  between these two quite different conditions. 1 is
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  nidra, the other the beginning at least of samadhi, not
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  nirvikalpa. Of course this drawing inside is
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  necessary because the active mind of the human being is at
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  first too much turn to outward things.
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  It has to go inside all together in order to live in the inner
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  being, inner mind, inner vital, inner physical, psychic.
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  But with training one can arrive at a point when 1 remains
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  outwardly conscious and yet lives in the inner being and has
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  it will the indrawn or the outpoured condition.
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  You can then have the same dense immobility and the same in
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  pouring of a greater and pure consciousness in the waking
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  state as in that which you erroneously call sleep.
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  End Quote Reference Sri Aurobindo Basis of Yoga Chapter
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  5 Physical consciousness, Subconscious sleep and dream
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  illness Page one O 3.