Chapter 3: States of Consciousness🔗

Let me try to giv e you a simple diagram so you can understand what meditation can do, and why meditation needs to be practiced.

We experience two states of mind in our day to day life. One with thoughts, another one without thoughts. We know we have thoughts when we are awake. In deep sleep, do we have thoughts? No. So there are two states of mind: with thoughts and without thoughts.

Our Being also experiences two states. In one state, we have a clear identity of ‘I’. When we are awake, all of us are very clearly connected with the ‘I’ consciousness, we have an identity about ourselves. But, in deep sleep, we do not experience the ‘I’ consciousness, am I right? When we are in deep sleep, we don’t have the feeling of ‘I’.

So, understand that in the mind we experience two states: one with thoughts and one without thoughts. In the Being also we experience two states: one with the identity of ‘I’ and one without the identity of ‘I’. In deep sleep, we don’t remember our identity. In the waking state we remember our identity - I am this, I am that. When we are awake, our ‘I’ consciousness will be like an undercurrent – alive all the time.

Now let us understand how these two states of mind and the two states of being connect with each other and create different states in our consciousness.

The first state is when we are with thoughts and with 'I' consciousness. This is what we call the jagrat state or waking state. We are all now in that state. I can't say all of us, but at least most of us who are still awake! We are very conscious of our identity, and we have thoughts also.

In this waking state, the frequency of 'I' is more than the frequency of thoughts. That is why we are able to control the thoughts in this state. If we wish to, we can control a thought - we can expel a thought or create a thought. This is possible in the waking state.

The next state is the dream state. In this state, we have thoughts but there is no 'I' consciousness. We are not conscious of our identity in our dreams. That is why sometimes in your dreams, you will see yourself studying in college but sitting with your son next to you! This shows that there is no clear, logical identity of yourself in the dream state.

In the dream state, the frequency of 'I' consciousness is lower than the frequency of thoughts, that is why you are not able to control the thoughts. That is why you get erratic and illogical thoughts.

In the waking state, the frequency of 'I' is more and that is why we are able to control our thoughts. In the dream state, the frequency of 'I' is less than that of thoughts and that is why we are not able to control the thoughts in our dreams. If at all we had the freedom to dream what we want, we all know what we would be dreaming, what kind of dreams we would be choosing!

In the third state, there is neither 'I' consciousness nor thoughts. This state is called sushupti. It is the deep sleep state.

These are the three states that we constantly experience in our lives – the waking state, the dream state and the deep sleep state.

But there is a fourth state that we have not experienced. It is called turiya. In this state, there are no thoughts but the identity 'I' is there. The 'I' consciousness exists but without thoughts. Very few people experience this in their lives. Some people experience this for a few seconds and then go back to their regular waking state.

If you receive a sudden shock or if you are sitting with nature in a completely relaxed state and in deep silence, maybe in those few moments you experience thoughtlessness. The identity is alive, the 'I' consciousness is alive but there are no thoughts. This is the fourth state of sushupti.

All our physical and mental illnesses take root in the dreaming state.

The dream state starts penetrating and overlapping the deep sleep and waking states. If our waking state is penetrated by the dream state, it is called daydreaming, like when we fantasize or imagine. If our deep sleep is penetrated by dreaming, it is called disturbed sleep.

Continuously at night or during the day, our dream state disturbs us. When our deep sleep state is disturbed by dreams, it results in chronic fatigue and insomnia problems. When our waking state is disturbed by dreams, we will be daydreaming with much less awareness of the world around us.

You might have experienced that sometimes you will get into your car, drive for ten kilometers and reach your office. Only when you stop in your parking lot, take out the keys, and get out, suddenly you will realize you have driven for so many miles. You would have taken hundreds of decisions from the time you got into the car and started driving: to press the clutch, press the brakes, press the accelerator, put on the indicator, watch the traffic light,... You would have made all these decisions, but without having any awareness of it. Suddenly you realize, ‘Oh! I finished driving to the office!’ When this happens, be clear, the dream state is overlapping or penetrating the waking state.

When the frequency of our consciousness comes down we will not be fully aware about the decisions we are making. We will not be aware of the kind of words we are thinking. We will not be aware of what is going on inside of us. It will be as if we are living in a house, but we do not know what is happening inside that house!

and the deep sleep state are penetrated by the dream state, we will have physical and mental disorders.

Let me come back to the question, why meditate. Meditation is needed to create an increasing influence and awareness over both your thinking state and the unconscious state. Instead of the dream state penetrating the waking state and the deep sleep state; with meditation, the turiya or blissful state will start penetrating the waking and deep sleep states!

The more and more we meditate, the more we raise our awareness and the more we raise our consciousness of the fourth state – turiya. Turiya itself means fourth. You cannot give an exact name to this state. You can call it by any of these names: samadhi, enlightenment, atmagnana, brahmagnana, nirvana... They are all different names but denoting the same state. When this state starts penetrating and overlapping the waking and deep sleep states, we will see good health happening in the body, mind and being.

The purpose of meditation is to experience this fourth state at least once. We should experience this fourth state and bring more and more influence of the fourth state into our waking and deep sleep states.

The purpose of meditation itself is to bring the fourth state of turiya into our waking state and deep sleep state.