(Oct 18,2013 ) Spiritual Message for the Day – Turiya or the Fourth State by Swami Sivananda

 

Turiya or the Fourth State

Divine Life Society Publication: Experiences of Four States by Swami Sivananda

TURIYA or the fourth state is that state in which the individual soul rests in his own Sat-Chit-Ananda Svarupa or the highest Brahmic consciousness during Nirvikalpa Samadhi. There are three states, Jagrat, Svapna and Sushupti, for a Jiva who is whirling in the mire of Samsara. Turiya is that state which transcends all these three states. Hence the Turiya or the fourth. Turiya is Atman or Brahman.

Brahman is Sat-Chit-Ananda Vigraha or the embodiment of knowledge and bliss. He has no beginning or end. He is the cause of all causes. He is the shelter, support and the Lord for all.

Languages are many but the language of heart and the mental pictures are one. Cows have many colors but the color of the milk is one. Prophets are many but the essentials of their teachings are one and the same. Schools of philosophy are many but the goal is one. Opinions and methods of worship are many but the Brahman or God is one.

There are two paths in Yoga to realize the Self viz., the Pipeelika Marga and the Vihanga Marga. Just as the ant slowly marches, so also the aspirant slowly marches on in the spiritual path. He practices Karma Yoga to purify his heart and then takes up Upasana to steady his mind. Finally he treads the path of Jnana Yoga and eventually reaches the goal of life. This is Pipeelika Marga or the ant-path. Just as the bird flies in the sky at once, so also the aspirant of the first class type at once practices Jnana Yoga and attains knowledge of the Self. This is the Vihanga Marga or the bird-path.

Man can be compared to a plant. He grows and flourishes like a plant and dies at the end but not completely. The plant also grows, flourishes and dies at the end. It leaves behind the seed which produces a new plant. Man leaves his Karma behind - the good and bad actions of his life. The physical body may die and disintegrate but the impressions of his actions do not die. He has to take birth again to enjoy the fruits of these actions. Therefore, Samsara or phenomenal existence is without beginning and end. But there is no Samsara for a Jivanmukta or liberated sage who is resting in his own Sat-Chit-Ananda Svarupa. Man destroys the Samskaras which bring him again and again in this earth to reap the fruits of his actions by acquiring knowledge of the Self and becomes free.

Have a deep study of the Upanishads. Every Mantra is pregnant with deep, original, sublime and soul-stirring thoughts. A deep study of these wonderful Upanishads will clearly indicate as to what magnanimous heights those Rishis of yore had climbed in the spiritual ladder. The Western scholars and philosophers pay their homage to the Rishis and appreciate the grandeur and originality of the Upanishads.

Do not argue. Give up lingual warfare, intellectual gymnastics and quibbling. Have living faith or unshakable conviction in the existence of the immoral, All-pervading Brahman or the Eternal, the words of your preceptor and the Srutis. Learn from your preceptor the fundamental tenets of Advaita Vedanta. The Advaita Vedantin admits six Pramanas but the final court-of-appeal for him is the Srutis. Srutis contain the inspired revelations and experiences of realised sages. Sruti Bhagavati says, Ekameva Advitiyam Brahma, Ekam Sat Viprah Bahudha Vadanti, Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma, etc. To understand and know the Truth, much logic and argumentation is not necessary. Truth is very simple. It can be realized by simple meditation. Intellect is a finite instrument only. It is an automatic and routine faculty. It is not self-sustained and self-luminous. It will betray you. Intuition only is infallible or unerring.

Those aspirants who are well qualified and well equipped will be really benefited in the path of renunciation or Nivrittimarga. Many renounce the world and take to Sannyasa in their temporary zeal. They do not make progress in the spiritual path, because they lack the preparation and qualifications without which spiritual life is not possible.

The man who sits by calming the mind, who does nothing at all physically, is the most active man in the whole world; whereas that man who runs hither and thither and who is always very busy, does nothing in substance. This may be paradoxical to you. Very few can comprehend this.

Husk is natural to rice and rust to copper, yet they disappear through efforts! Even so Ajnana which clings to the Jiva or individual soul can be made to disappear through the ceaseless Atmic enquiry. Destroy the Avidya. May you rest incomparably firm in your own Self!

Do not mistake Tandri for Savikalpa Samadhi and deep-sleep for Nirvikalpa. The glory of the state of Turiya or Bhuma is ineffable. Its splendor is indescribable. If the body is light, if the mind is clear if there is cheerfulness, know that you are meditating. If the body is heavy, if the mind is dull, know that you were sleeping while meditating.

Through ignorance and lust comes death. Through knowledge the deathless state or the immortal Atman is reached. Both life eternal and death abide in the body. Life is a lightning flash or breath. Time is but a thunder-clap of death. Live in Atman. You will attain immortality. Go beyond time. You will attain eternity.

Withdraw the Indriyas. Meditate. Live in the Self. Your whole being will be uplifted into a kind of rapturous delight or mystic ecstasy. You will feel the divine thrill of joy. Wonderful peace will envelop you. You will be drowned in the ocean of bliss. All desires will melt into nothingness all names and forms will vanish. You will behold the Self only everywhere. This wonderful state is indescribable. You will have to feel it yourself. Just as the dumb man cannot express his feeling of joy when he tastes the sugar-candy, so also you cannot express the bliss of Samadhi or Union with the Supreme Self. Words are finite to describe this state. Language is imperfect to express this experience. It is the language of the supreme silence. It is the supreme stillness of the immortal soul. It is the peace that passeth all understanding. This is Turiya or the fourth state.

May Turiya be your center, ideal and goal!!

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Turiya or the Fourth State - Experiences of Four States by Swami Sivananda

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(Oct 16,2013) Spiritual Message for the Day –States of Consciousness

States of Consciousness

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter 10 – The Philosophy of Life by Swami Krishnananda

 

In his exposition of the Mandukya Upanishad, Swami Sivananda gives the following account of the Jiva as constituted of certain states of consciousness (Principal Upanishads, vol. I, pp. 420-32):

The Jiva is the supreme consciousness appearing to undergo the three states of waking, dream and deep sleep. Waking is the condition where the consciousness is associated with external objects having a pragmatic existence for the Jiva. The experiences of the waking individual are made possible by the operation of nineteen powers that form the subtle body within. The distinguishing feature of the waking consciousness is that its contents are physical objects. The nineteen principles become for the Jiva the means of the enjoyment of objects, as well as of the suffering of mortal life.

From a study of the waking state one will have to proceed to the study of dream and deep sleep. When we begin to analyze the universe for the sake of realizing the Atman, we will have to deal with the wakeful state first, and understand the nature of the gross objects in the beginning. It is then that we can gradually enter the subtle and the causal nature of things (p. 422). The Jiva in the waking state goes by the names of Visva, Vijnanatma, Chidabhasa, Vyavaharika-Jiva, Karma-Purusha, etc.

Dream is the second quarter, where the Jiva is called the Taijasa, and where it is conscious of internal objects and works by means of similar nineteen avenues of knowledge and action. The objects of the dreaming consciousness are subtle in comparison with those of the waking state. The mind in dream creates various objects out of the impressions produced in it by the waking experiences. The mind can reproduce the whole of its waking life, through the force of Avidya, Kama and Karma. In the dream world the mind is the perceiver as well as the perceived. It creates objects without the help of any external means.

Here the external senses are at rest, there is only a manifestation of the knower and the known with affinities to things enjoyed in the waking condition. The dream phenomena are nothing but the states of the mind alone, though the Jiva here considers the externality of experience as real. The dream world is objective only to the dreamer.

That is the state of deep sleep wherein the Jiva does not desire any object, nor see any dream. This third quarter of the Jiva is termed Prajna, whose sphere is ignorance, in which all experiences become one, which enjoys bliss and provides a key to the knowledge of the other two states. Sound and the other objects of sense are not felt here due to the cessation of the objectifying function of the mind. Even the ego is here at rest. There is only Avidya or the veil of nescience.

An analysis of dreamless sleep leads us to the recognition of the existence of the Atman in all the three states. The remembrance of sleep, when one returns to the wakeful state, indicates that the witness of the three states is one. This witness is the Atman. The bliss of sleep, however, is not to be confused with the bliss of the Atman. As the mind is in a state of quiescence, due to the absence of desire and activity, it is wound up in sleep into an unconscious condition of absence of all pain and an unwitting proximity to the Absolute. Our impassioned craving for sleep, even if it may mean the rejection of all other pleasures of life, gives us an inkling of there being a positive bliss underlying it.

As the soul in the state of waking, dream and sleep is called, respectively, Visva, Taijasa and Prajna, the Universal Soul animating the physical, the subtle and the causal universes is designated Virat, Hiranyagarbha and Isvara. The Virat, having entered the microcosmic gross body and having the Buddhi as its vehicle, reaches the state of Visva. Hiranyagarbha, having entered the microcosmic subtle body and having the Manas as its vehicle, reaches the state of Taijasa. Isvara, who is coupled with the Avyakta, having entered the microcosmic causal body and having Avidya as His vehicle, reaches the state of Prajna. In the macrocosm, Virat is the last manifestation of Isvara, while in the microcosm, Visva is to be considered the first manifestation of the Jiva. In a sense, the waking state of the Jiva forms a link between itself and the manifestations of Isvara. Hence in the waking state the Jiva is supposed to be at its best.

Fill a pot with the water of the sea, tie a rope to the neck of the pot, and immerse it in the sea. Though the water of the pot is one with the water of the sea, it appears to be separate on account of the limiting adjunct, viz. the pot. When the pot is drawn out by means of the rope, the water of the pot gets differentiated. But the ether, which is contained in the pot and is also outside it, forms a single homogeneous whole, and cannot be distinguished thus. Even so, the pot of the subtle body which is filled with the water of ignorance and to which is tied the rope of the impetus of past good and evil deeds, gets involved, in deep sleep, in a collective causal state, which is the adjunct of Isvara in the cosmic plane. With the individual ignorance, which is its own adjunct, the Jiva in dreamless sleep gets immersed in this vast sea of stillness. It appears to be discrete due to its containing in itself, potentially, the subtle body. When the Antaryamin, or the Inner Ruler, draws the rope of Karma, it gets differentiated, and comes back to the waking state. But the Atman remains a silent witness of the three states, as a support for the pot of the subtle body, which is the vehicle of individual ignorance.

The Atman is the real witness of the three states, even of the contingency of Jivahood. This witness-state is called the Turiya or the fourth state of consciousness.

In Moksha, or the final liberation of the soul, when all objective perception is overcome in the consciousness of Brahman, even the character of being a witness drops from the self, and it realizes its majestic independence.

The Kaivalyopanishad says that the states of consciousness are appearances of one Brahman, and that one who knows this is freed from all bonds (Verse, 17).

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States of Consciousness: Chapter 10 – The Philosophy of Life by Swami Krishnananda
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