 Anvaya and vyatireka is a method of discriminative reasoning to determine the relationship of what persists and what does not persist between two things. It reveals whether one term is independent of another. For example, in the analogy of the clay and its forms (see  §2.1  above), when a particular form of clay (such as a pot) occurs, then clay occurs (continuity). And when that particular form (pot) is absent (discontinuity) after being shaped into a plate, then clay still occurs. One may apply this method, for example, to consciousness and mental states. Consciousness is continuous through the discontinuous states of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep and never subject to its negative instance of discontinuity. Consciousness itself can never be absent. One cannot escape from one’s own consciousness, nor can one directly separate a particular mental state from consciousness because consciousness itself is not mutually exclusive of anything and not subject to the negative instance of vyatireka. However, separating consciousness and a particular mental state is possible through anvaya and vyatireka because the states themselves are mutually exclusive. For example, dream reality and waking reality are mutually exclusive, pointing to the fact that consciousness is independent of them even as it persists through both. (See Cardona 1981; Satchidanandendra 1964 [1989]; Halbfass 1991: 162–77; Comans 1996: 59–63; and Mayeda 1992: 51–58 on anvaya and vyatireka).