It is due to the identification of Consciousness with the objects in the waking state that one begins to feel that one is a human being, and so on. Such feelings are connected with bodies and are not relevant to Consciousness as such. The individual is, accordingly, happy, or unhappy, or indifferent, as and when the forces of the Karmas begin to work differently in the different stages of evolution. When there is a complete cessation of both happiness and sorrow, it means that the Karmas are not actively operating. By contact with physical objects, and also by generating of imaginary ideas, happiness and sorrow are possible, but when there is neither of these experiences there is joy which is not born of sense-contact, and in this condition of silence of the mind true spiritual bliss is revealed.
Egoism is of two kinds, gross and subtle.
The subtle ego-consciousness prevails even when there is an experience of spiritual happiness, when there are no thoughts of anything in particular, and there is silence of mental activity. Just as we can infer that cool water is in a pot by the feeling of coolness outside the wall of the pot, so can we infer that there should be an Absolute due to the very fact that there is cessation of thought and individuality-sense. In proportion to the forgetfulness of the ego by the practice of Yoga does one gain an insight into the spiritual happiness revealed through the development of a subtle vision within. The Kathopanishad succinctly describes Yoga as a resting of the senses in the mind, the mind in the intellect, the intellect in the Cosmic Intelligence, and the Cosmic Intelligence in the Supreme Purusha. The ego, in this condition, having been transcended and absorbed into larger dimensions of being, the Yogin ceases to be a person any more.