Question: Guru, can the aspirant tell whether he is falling asleep or if his mind has just become quiet and he is feeling soothed?

Sri Chinmoy: Sometimes the aspirant knows, but sometimes he cannot tell. It is like a teacher and a student. The student may think that he is going to get a score of a hundred out of one hundred, but when the examination paper is graded, he finds he has failed the examination — or vice versa.

The students cannot necessarily tell how they are doing. Only the teacher can say. Sometimes the student is right. He feels that he is going to get good marks, and he does. But most of the time, the students miscalculate. In your case, you think that you are falling asleep, but you are totally wrong. So only the teacher knows if the student is doing extremely well or not.