Question: Sometimes I am awakened in the morning feeling a very high state of elation and unity, but I am not conscious of what has taken place. Does any work take place at night on the spiritual plane that we are not aware of?

Sri Chinmoy: You are fully aware of this work. If you had not been aware of it at some point, then you could not have told me about it right now. You are not aware of it on the mental plane, but there are many other planes of consciousness. When you actually have the experience, you see the experience and at that time your soul is aware of it.

Consciousness is like a ladder. You come down the various descending rungs. Right now there is no link between the last rung, where you are now, and the rung where you had the experience. If you remain in the physical consciousness, which most human beings do during the day, then the experience that you had in the inner world cannot function properly. The physical consciousness does not have free access to that particular plane of consciousness where you had the experience. The physical consciousness must have divine light; then only can it have free access to all the planes of consciousness.

During sleep, when the soul moves from one plane to another, it is like a free bird. If the physical consciousness wants to observe consciously what the soul is doing twenty-four hours a day, then it has to be moulded and guided by the soul’s light. In your case, you were conscious at the time of your soul’s experience, but afterwards you could not remember it because you were not aware of all these planes of consciousness that exist between the soul and the physical consciousness.