54. Going beyond the Three States🔗

The next kind of sleep is is sleep-sleep. This is the ultimate sleep. You may think, 'What can we do about sleep-sleep?' Understand, if you work on the dream state and go deeper and deeper, gradually you will master sleep-sleep also. Every day I am talking about the techniques which Patanjali is expressing. If you can, work on each technique on that same day. If you can't, at least play with one or two techniques. You will see new doors open in you. If you are interested in working on the sleep state, take up the powerful technique which I gave you to master dream-sleep and take it to the next level, the deeper level.

When you start working on the dream-state, as I told you, take up a pleasant object or a thing. If it is a person, it will be really nice, because you can easily meditate on him, connect with him, feel him. Feel him inside your inner space visually, alive. Just fall asleep with that one intense visualization. In ten days you will see, he is there continuously; you will see his form in the dream, clearly, in multicolor. Means, you have mastered the dream, you have created a continuity in the dream. Now you have mastered the knowledge of how to avoid dream-sleep.

Now, if you continue the same technique for around three months, you will start experiencing his presence in the deep sleep state. You will experience his energy, but not his form. If you have been contemplating on your Master, the moment you wake up, you will know you have been with your Master throughout, even though you do not remember his form, the color of his dress and all that. You know for sure that you were with him; you have been with him the whole night.

Please understand, this is what is the real Shivaratri! Lord Sri Krishna says in Bhagavad Gita, ‘A Yogi is a person who does not sleep when everybody sleeps.’ This is what he means! You are awake throughout! Your consciousness is awake throughout! Try this technique; step, by step, you will master waking-sleep, dream-sleep and sleep-sleep. You will have that continuity in all three states – waking, dream and sleep. That is what we call turiya, the fourth state. If you are continuous, unbroken, conscious, in all the three states, what you experience is called the fourth state, turiya.

Try to be continuous throughout the nidra which is happening in all the three states, so that it can lead you to joy. If you do not maintain that continuity, if you are falling asleep - day-sleep, dream-sleep, deep- sleep – it will lead you to more and more anguish and pain, which is happening in all of us, which is happening in our lives. So try to create and maintain the continuity.

People ask me, ‘If I am continuously present, continuously aware, in all three states, then how will I rest?’ Relax! Understand, that continuity itself will be such a deep restful awareness that you don't need any separate rest. It will not be restless awareness. Don't think it will be a load on you. Sometimes, if you don't sleep well at night, you feel tired in the morning. This state will not be like that! During that time, you may not have slept, but you were continuously thinking. All broken ideas! It is like a garage sale inside your head! You would have collected all the things, and become completely confused with your possessions – how to organize, how to market, how to price them, how to get rid of them - and you would be suffering with them. Please understand, if you haven't slept well at night, and you are tired in the morning, understand that you have been doing a garage sale the whole night! The whole night you have been doing a garage sale with your thoughts, nothing else! I am not talking about that state!

If you maintain the continuity, that very continuity will be a deep restful awareness. I can say that is the ultimate break you can give yourself. Now, you don't have a break, because the brakes are not under your control! The continuity is the ultimate brake. It looks like a paradox! Right now, you think you have a break – sleeping, dream, waking – but that is not the real break. Even though there is a brake, you don't know when it will break! Having mastery over the over the brakes is the real break.

I have a story for you about brake: A huge fire broke out near a farm. The county fire department were called out, but the blaze was too big for them to tackle, so a call for additional assistance was made to a part-time volunteer force. The volunteer brigade turned up in a dilapidated old truck which spluttered along the track leading to the fire. The county fire chief was about to apologize to the farmer for the embarrassment the volunteer force was causing, when to his amazement, the volunteer truck fearlessly drove into the very heart of the fire. Within minutes, the center of the fire was extinguished, breaking the blaze into two controllable sections. An hour later, the entire fire was out. The farmer was so impressed that he immediately presented the captain of the volunteer force a check for a thousand dollars. The local newspaperman asked the captain what he was going to spend it on. The captain said, ‘I am going to get the brakes on the damn truck fixed.’

If you can brake your break, only then it is a break! Otherwise it can't be called a break. If you catch that continuity, you can brake at any time; you can brake at any time. The brake is under your control, so the break is also under your control.

So, let us have a break now! Understand these great ideas from Patanjali, experience these meditations and catch that continuity - the fourth state. Living in the fourth state is what I call Living Enlightenment - jivanmukti. Let you all achieve and radiate the Living Enlightenment state, jivanmukti.

Deepen your practice to master dreams by gradually moving to the subtler and subtler levels of this technique.

SUTRA 11

Anubhūtaviayāsampramoa smti (1.11) Recalling of mental impressions of past events from the subconscious mind is memory.