Turiya - The state of Perfect Bliss (Fourth dimension)

Turiya - The state of Perfect Bliss (Fourth dimension)The law of memory is that the person who remembers and experiences must be one and the same individual, or else memory is impossible. So, as we can remember all our experiences in all the three states, waking,dreaming and sleeping. There must necessarily be a single common factor, which was a witness of all the happenings in all the three states. There must be some entity within us, who is present in the waking world, who moves and illumines the dream, who is a distant observer in the deep-sleep world, and yet who is not conditioned by any of these 3 realms. This entity, conceived as the fourth state 'Turiya', is the Real, the Changeless, and the Intelligent Principle.We must note that the mind of a dreamer and dreamt are one and the same because while dreaming we believe everything dreamt as true and at the same time when we get up we realize that everything was a mere dream and there was nothing real. Thus the waker realizes that there was nothing but his mind in both the situations. Thus it is concluded that mind only sees the dreams.When the mind is withdrawn from the worldly objects, it enters into the dream state wherein again it gets preoccupied with the world of plurality though such projection of plurality is by itself. When the mind itself is dropped we experience blissful state in which the ‘sleeper’ alone is the Lord. When the outside world and dream world are taken away from the mind what remains is only the consciousness and the man is said to have reached the dreamless deep sleep state. At this state the man is nearest to the Self and hence he is said to have been overpowered by light. This leads us to the question “Who that ‘sleeper’ is? He is the jivatman . At this state of deep sleep the sleeper experiences bliss which, however, is of a negative kind. Negative because it is merely constituted of absence of agitations and as soon as he awakes from sleep he goes back to the previous state of worldliness. This is called ignorance in Vedanta.Same is the case with the trance,trance is a temporary phenomenon,it gives us a glimpse of samadhi.When we are neither seeing the dream nor awake and consequently do not experience any agitations or disturbances of the mind either due to external world or due to internal projections, we experience negative bliss which is called the state of deep sleep. So consciousness does two things at the same time. It distinguishes between objects and transcends the objects by standing above them. Secondly, it distinguishes the states of consciousness (waking, dream and sleep) and stands above them as turiya – that is, the fourth state of consciousness.As a bird goes to a tree to roost, even so, O friend, all this rests in the Supreme Atman. Avdhoot GeetaNow the state of deep sleep, susupti, is described by way of a simile. The birds go back to their nests after daylong flying for taking rest and get back fully refreshed thereafter for the next day’s activities. Similarly in the deep sleep state we go back to our resting place and feel very happy and wake up quite refreshed. Sankara says that in our waking state we are bound by our ignorance, desires and actions (avidya, kama, and karma). First, there is ignorance, avidya, and because of our ignorance, we have desires, kama, Then our desires create our actions, karma, some may be good and some may be bad. All these actions produce results that we have to experience. Thus we get trapped in this cycle of cause and effect, karya and karana, while we are awake. But during deep sleep, all these drop off for the time being and both the body and the mind are at rest. All our upadhis, our ego and other limiting adjuncts, which make us feel that we are different from others, like I am intelligent and the other is dull, I am beautiful and the other is ugly and so on, are at rest. Our condition then, as Sankara puts it, is advayam, ekam, sivam, santam. There is no duality, advayam; there is only one i.e. consciousness alone is, ekam; that consciousness is peace, santam and auspicious, sivam. The whole universe which is an offshoot of our ignorance disappears during that short interval of deep sleep.This state gives us glimpse of the Fourth dimension Turiya - The state of Perfect Bliss (Fourth dimension)The law of memory is that the person who remembers and experiences must be one and the same individual, or else memory is impossible. So, as we can remember all our experiences in all the three states, waking,dreaming and sleeping. There must necessarily be a single common factor, which was a witness of all the happenings in all the three states. There must be some entity within us, who is present in the waking world, who moves and illumines the dream, who is a distant observer in the deep-sleep world, and yet who is not conditioned by any of these 3 realms. This entity, conceived as the fourth state 'Turiya', is the Real, the Changeless, and the Intelligent Principle.We must note that the mind of a dreamer and dreamt are one and the same because while dreaming we believe everything dreamt as true and at the same time when we get up we realize that everything was a mere dream and there was nothing real. Thus the waker realizes that there was nothing but his mind in both the situations. Thus it is concluded that mind only sees the dreams.When the mind is withdrawn from the worldly objects, it enters into the dream state wherein again it gets preoccupied with the world of plurality though such projection of plurality is by itself. When the mind itself is dropped we experience blissful state in which the ‘sleeper’ alone is the Lord. When the outside world and dream world are taken away from the mind what remains is only the consciousness and the man is said to have reached the dreamless deep sleep state. At this state the man is nearest to the Self and hence he is said to have been overpowered by light. This leads us to the question “Who that ‘sleeper’ is? He is the jivatman . At this state of deep sleep the sleeper experiences bliss which, however, is of a negative kind. Negative because it is merely constituted of absence of agitations and as soon as he awakes from sleep he goes back to the previous state of worldliness. This is called ignorance in Vedanta.Same is the case with the trance,trance is a temporary phenomenon,it gives us a glimpse of samadhi.When we are neither seeing the dream nor awake and consequently do not experience any agitations or disturbances of the mind either due to external world or due to internal projections, we experience negative bliss which is called the state of deep sleep. So consciousness does two things at the same time. It distinguishes between objects and transcends the objects by standing above them. Secondly, it distinguishes the states of consciousness (waking, dream and sleep) and stands above them as turiya – that is, the fourth state of consciousness.As a bird goes to a tree to roost, even so, O friend, all this rests in the Supreme Atman. Avdhoot GeetaNow the state of deep sleep, susupti, is described by way of a simile. The birds go back to their nests after daylong flying for taking rest and get back fully refreshed thereafter for the next day’s activities. Similarly in the deep sleep state we go back to our resting place and feel very happy and wake up quite refreshed. Sankara says that in our waking state we are bound by our ignorance, desires and actions (avidya, kama, and karma). First, there is ignorance, avidya, and because of our ignorance, we have desires, kama, Then our desires create our actions, karma, some may be good and some may be bad. All these actions produce results that we have to experience. Thus we get trapped in this cycle of cause and effect, karya and karana, while we are awake. But during deep sleep, all these drop off for the time being and both the body and the mind are at rest. All our upadhis, our ego and other limiting adjuncts, which make us feel that we are different from others, like I am intelligent and the other is dull, I am beautiful and the other is ugly and so on, are at rest. Our condition then, as Sankara puts it, is advayam, ekam, sivam, santam. There is no duality, advayam; there is only one i.e. consciousness alone is, ekam; that consciousness is peace, santam and auspicious, sivam. The whole universe which is an offshoot of our ignorance disappears during that short interval of deep sleep.This state gives us glimpse of the Fourth dimension