Question: My father slipped into coma for 3 months before leaving his body. What is the state of consciousness when one is in coma?
Answer by Romapada Swami: There are three states to the living conditions of an individual:
(1) Awake (jagrata) state: where the soul acts through the subtle and the gross body;
(2) Dreaming (svapna) state: where the soul manifests its activity only through the subtle body;
(3) Unconscious (susupti) state: where the soul is active but the activity of the soul is not perceived through either the subtle or the gross body.
The unconscious state is a broad category; it includes the state of consciousness when under anesthesia, as well as when the living entity is within the body of Maha Visnu during the cosmic annihilation. A comatose condition is another (where one may not be aware and may not respond to the external stimulus at all). Yet another is a vegetative state (where one may not be aware of his surroundings but may give some partial responses to stimuli, such as blinking eyes, etc.).
Coma is a stage of deep sleep where the physical senses are muted.
Consciousness is withdrawn from physical level to subtle level. This stage is called susupti.
In all of these categories of consciousness, the conditioned soul is active to differing degrees. While in all circumstances, the subtle body contains stored imprints from the past.
Depending on the stored impressions associated with the subtle body (which are formed on account of past interactions with material nature or one’s karma), the living entity qualifies himself for the next body.
