"Your consciousness is there – even while you are physically asleep your consciousness is there, but now more covered than when you are awake.

"You are asking, 'If I'm not conscious, am I asleep? Are these the only two possibilities? Is there some stage in between? How to tell the difference?'

"You are not unconscious in the sense a person falls into a coma; you are not conscious in the sense a Gautam Buddha is conscious. You are in between. A thick layer of thoughts does not allow you to be in the present. That's why, while you are listening to me, you are listening and yet the listening is very superficial – because deep down there are so many thoughts going on. You are listening but it is not reaching you, and as I stop speaking, suddenly you realize that you have been listening, certainly, but you have not understood it. It has not penetrated you; it has not become part of your being. Something has prevented it, like a China Wall. Those thoughts are transparent, but they are thicker than any China Wall can be.

"You are neither asleep nor awake, you are in between – awake as far as your day to day mechanical activities are concerned, and asleep as far as a clear consciousness is concerned. A pure consciousness, a deep innocence like an unclouded sky, is absent.

"The pope was sitting with his cardinals signing papers and proclamations. The phone rang and his secretary answered. 'Your holiness,' she said. 'It is about the abortion bill. A reporter wants to talk to you.'

"'Don't bother me,' the pope interrupted.

"'But he wants to know what you are going to do about the bill.'

"'Just pay it,' the pope replied. 'Pay it quick!'

"In what position will you put the pope? Asleep or awake? He is in between; he has heard the word bill, but he has interpreted it in his own way. He has forgotten completely that the bill is about abortion, and certainly he has not been aborted, and he has not to pay any bill.

"But this is the situation of us all. We hear what we want to hear; we hear only that which adjusts with our preconceived notions, prejudices."