Various States of Consciousness🔗

Please understand how we experience the different states of our being. You have two states of your mind and two states of your consciousness. The mind can be in two states: with thoughts and without thoughts. Now do you have thoughts? Yes; most of you at least! In the deep sleep, do you have thoughts? No. So there are two states of the mind: with thoughts and without thoughts.

In the same way, there are two states of consciousness. One is with the idea ‘I exist’, with ‘I’ consciousness. Now do you have the idea of ‘I’? Yes; now you have the idea. Do you have it in the deep sleep? No. So there are two states of consciousness: with the idea ‘I exist’ and without the idea ‘I exist’.

When these two states of mind and two states of consciousness crisscross each other, we go through four different states. The first state is the waking state; in Sanskrit we call it jagrat. In this state, you have thoughts and you have ‘I’ consciousness. This is the state in which you are now, the waking state.

The next state is when there is no ‘I’ consciousness but thoughts are there. That is what we call the dream state. Here you can’t decide what you want to dream and what you don’t want to dream. Without the control of the ‘I’ the thoughts are just flowing.

You can see in your dream state, there is no continuous ‘I’. Just thoughts flow. That is why sometimes you will dream that you are going to school with your wife, sometimes with your grandkids. It is a confused identity. In the dream, there is no single ‘I’, there are only thoughts. It is just an overflow of different thoughts. There is no consistent ‘I’ which connects thoughts.

In the waking state, ‘I’ is there; thoughts are also there. That is why you can change your thoughts, because ‘I’ is more powerful. In the dream state, there is no ‘I’ but thoughts are just overflowing.

Just thoughts moving around is called swapna, dream state. Swapna is a state where the ‘I’ consciousness doesn’t exist but thoughts exist. That is why you can’t control your dreams. There is no ‘I’. The third state is sushupti means deep sleep. Here there are neither thoughts nor is there ‘I’.

See, these are the three states you usually experience everyday. You go through waking state, dream state, deep sleep state everyday. There is a fourth state where the idea ‘I’ will exist but there won’t be any thoughts. This state we don’t experience usually.

A normal human being just lives in the three states and dies. He doesn’t go to the fourth state. Only rarely, the spiritual seekers experience the fourth state. Here, the ‘I’ consciousness will be there but thoughts won’t be there. There won’t be any movement, there won’t be any waves but the ocean is there. Understand, this state is what we call enlightenment, nirvana, atma gnana, brahma gnana, God consciousness, Christ Consciousness, Krishna Consciousness, Shiva Consciousness…This is the state where you know you exist, and you are alive, fresh, bubbling, open, overflowing. But there are no thoughts. This state is what we call samadhi, turiya, blissful state, nithyananda state.

Whenever you are living in the fourth state, you are living enlightenment. When you are out of the fourth state, you are leaving enlightenment.

Understand, we experience the three states regularly in our life: waking, dream and deep sleep. But we don’t experience the fourth state regularly in our life. Experiencing the fourth state and feeling connected to the fourth state more and more is what I call meditation.

Meditation means a technique or an act which you do to experience and feel more and more connected to the fourth state. Turiya means in Sanskrit ‘the fourth state’. Our masters didn’t give any name, they just called it the fourth state. It represents the spiritual freedom just like in the West you have social freedom.

In the fourth state, the awareness ‘I’ is alive; it is not like in deep sleep where you don’t have the idea ‘I exist’. Here you will have the idea ‘I exist’ but you will not have thoughts. There will be no movements. It will be a pure state, beyond form and formlessness. Don’t think it is formless. It is beyond form and formlessness. Even if I say formless, you will visualize a big ocean or you will visualize a big sky. It is neither with form nor formless; it is beyond.

Q: Practicing unclutching I sometimes feel empty. Is this bliss?

Actually when you feel empty while unclutching, it is peace.

Q: Should I follow my gut feeling and do what I feel instinctively?

If you feel from your being, do it. Your heart is more powerful than your head. So don’t worry; just go with your heart. You will never miss; you will never lose. It will always add more to your life. It is your heart which should be the deciding factor, not your head. If it is head, even if it is success, it will be failure. With your heart, even if it is failure it will be success.

Q: How do we interpret premonition dreams?

People ask me how to interpret dreams. There is no need to find meaning in your dreams. See, only if you see your master in your dreams, that also in multicolor, you know that in the inner space the master is there. If you see your god in the dream, it means in the inner space that god is there. That is ok. Other than that, nothing is useful. I tell these people who come to me asking for the meaning of dreams, your waking state, reality itself has no use, what about your dream!

Q: Where does the wakeup call come from?

Me. Wake up! What do you think I am doing, going from city to city? Do you think I am partying! I am going around giving the wakeup call.

Q: What is awareness? How is it different from consciousness?

I can say, awareness is the path, consciousness is the experience. Sometimes, when the awareness is intense, you can experience the consciousness at that moment.

Q: What should you be aware of during meditation?

Just be aware that you are aware, that is enough.

Q: Why do we get dreams?

If you have the day-dreaming, you will have the night-dreaming. Please understand day-dreaming means living a life with unawareness, almost sleep-walking. Whatever you may be doing, inside something will be going on. If you have day-dreaming, you will have the night-dreaming.

Q: Is compassion enlightenment?

No; enlightenment is an experience. Compassion is a quality that happens as a result of it. Enlightenment is beyond qualities.

Q: What is the difference between seeing the world as a dream in the case of maya and yukti?

When you consciously remember that everything is a dream, it is a technique. It awakens energy in you. And you will not become lazy. Usually people don’t consciously remember. When they are hit by some incident in life, they just brush it aside saying, ‘O, everything is a dream.’ They use these ideas just to justify their laziness. They themselves don’t believe strongly. If you consciously believe and start remembering, your food, hunger, everything will have a change. Straightaway the quality with which you walk, with which you talk, will change. It will become part of your very inner space. That is what I mean by yukti.

Q: If we had a glimpse of bliss through art or meditation, how can we make the blissful state to happen again and perhaps stay longer? Once it happens, will it naturally happen again? It doesn’t happen naturally; you should know the science. Only then it can be brought back again and again. That science is what I call meditation. We will enter into that science now. It is very simple. All you need to do is unclutch and rest in that restful awareness. Continuously unclutching and resting in that restful awareness is the technique.

Q: What is the significance of chin mudra?

Please understand, these mudras are very powerful to change the energy flow in our system. You can see very clearly, if you put your hands facing upwards and inhale and exhale, your body will feel in a particular way. If you just turn your hands downwards and inhale and exhale, your body will feel in a different way.

So the movements and mudras are very closely connected. This chin mudra gives you a kind of compete circle feeling.

Q: Please explain more about the nature and consequences of identification.

Identification means unable to stay in that aloneness of you, wanting something to feel as you. When you want something, you will naturally choose something which is not you. You don’t have to choose what is you to identify with yourself. You are already that. Whenever you can’t be with that aloneness called kaivalya or ekatva in Sanskrit, when you are not able to be in that aloneness, you want to associate with something. So naturally you will choose what is not you. So if you start choosing anything which is not you, if you start identifying with it, it leads to suffering and sadness.

Q: In our experience, don’t we grow and our spirits evolve? So how can conflict-free life be a good thing?

No. Through conflict, you don’t learn. When you get out of the conflict, you learn. Whenever you get out of the conflict, you will be exploding. So when you live the conflict-free life, everyday will be an explosion.

Q: How can we live day to day life without thoughts?

Thoughts have nothing to do with your day to day life. I can tell you one example. You sit in your car, drive for half an hour, park your car in your office. Suddenly when you come out of the car, you realize that for the last half an hour you were driving.

You were doing completely something else mentally during your whole driving. At least you took 100 decisions – taking left, taking right, putting brake, stopping at signal. But you did not remember that you were driving.

Please understand, without your mind, you did the whole thing. So your mind can be occupied in the unconscious state and you can drive. Why can’t you drive when your mind is occupied in the superconscious state? It is possible. And I have seen it in my own experience.

Q: Can acceptance be applied to worldly goals or should there be continuous effort for excellence in worldly affairs?

It is a tricky question. I tell you, these two are not self-contradictory. Even though it looks externally, acceptance and worldly goals or putting your effort is paradoxical.

Please understand, only when you accept this moment, you can put your effort for further affairs. As long as you have a conflict with this moment, you will never be able to completely put your effort. You will never be able to put your effort for excellence. So acceptance of this moment suddenly releases tremendous energy which you are wasting in conflict. So it is not self-conflicting as we always think. Acceptance and putting your effort for achieving the goal is complementing each other, not contradicting each other.

Q: Could you clarify what is mind and what is consciousness?

Mind is what you think as you. Consciousness is what is actually you. Mind is what you believe as you, what you show as identity to the outer world or what you believe as you in the inner world. But consciousness is actually what is you.

Q: Is the fully awakened state radically different from being in the body?

I can say yes, radically different from being in the body, and something more. It can't even be described as just radically different from being in the body. It is something more. It is like you outgrow it, it is completely different. See, it is not that you are out of body. If I say it is just radically different from being in the body, people start thinking that it is out of body. No.

See, when you are in the body, you think you are the body. When you are fully awakened, you think body is also you. It is not that you negate the body; body is also you.

Q: How can the guru change my karma what I am supposed to go through?

The moment you have put the question, the whole juice is lost. It can't be changed for you.

That is the big problem. See, it is such a sensitive issue. It is like master stretches his hand and if you stretch your hand of trust, the connection happens and he can lift you. The moment you think, 'I am too heavy. How can he lift me?' it is over. Now the process is difficult. Now you have to come up, do something by yourself.

It is a very subtle science. Usually I don't talk about these mystical experiences. But sometimes I have to talk. See, the strong feeling connection with the master is not a weakness. Many times, this devotion or surrender or feeling connection is taken as weakness; it is not.

Intellect is one channel with which you can connect to the Master or the world. Heart is the other channel with which you can connect to the Master or the world. You think, the person who doesn't have the second channel is strong. No! The person who is able to go through the second channel also is the strong person.

But somehow, society gives so much of importance to the intellect and logic, the feeling connection channel is never respected. It is again and again promoted that if you feel connection, you are weak. Devotion is considered to be a very weak thing.