Uninterrupted Practice and Awareness during Sleep

 Q: How can sadhana become uninterrupted since it is necessary to sleep? 

Anandamayi Ma: When one becomes established in ceaseless practice it continues also during sleep.

Question: How can one know this? 

Ma: If one meditates before retiring and wakes up in the same kind of state with which one fell asleep one can presume that it has gone on throughout the sleep. 

Question: But during sleep, one does not know. 

Ma: No, not in this case. Although there is a much higher state when one is conscious even in sleep.

- Death Must Die, p. 521

All sadhana, all spiritual practice, has the final goal of shifting into pure awareness. For this shift the ceaseless thought activity is the only obstacle. That is why the practice must become continuous, like the flow of oil.