Though Thus There Is A Continuity Of The Same Cognising Entity In The Waking

 - and dream states, it may be urged that the continuity does not exist in the state of deep sleep when there is no cognition at all of anything. The Acharya points out

- that the absence of any object of cognition does not prove the absence of the cogniser. If a person looks into a dark room and does not see anything,

- it does not mean at all that he does not see. He does see but no object is seen. He does not close his eyes nor does he lose his power of sight

- It is not his fault that nothing is seen. He cannot possibly say "I do not see" for he did see, that is, exercised his capacity to see 

- but found no object on which that capacity can operate. The denial of the object of seeing confirms, on the other hand, the existence of the seer even then

- In the state of deep sleep, as the mind and all the organs are quiescent, the sleeper cannot at that time say "I do not experience anything".

- But when he wakes up, he does say "while sleeping, I did not experience anything". This statement recalling a past experience is impossible

- unless there was a past experience. This memory is sufficient proof of the fact that in sleep the experiencer was quite intact though there was no object to be experienced.