Acharya Prashant clarifies that when Maharshi refers to the state of deep sleep existing within the waking state, he is actually referring to the fourth state of consciousness, known as Turiya. While classical deep sleep still contains a seed of ego identification and primordial darkness, Turiya is the state where ego identification is completely lost. Turiya is not merely a fourth state in a sequence but the foundational background of the waking, dreaming, and sleeping states. It is the witness state that remains unaffected by the birth or death of the individual person, as it exists outside the personal identity.