Nature Of The Self Session 10 - Turiya & Turiyatita

Listen to Ektaji talk about Ramana Maharshi's teachings on non-duality. These teachings are aimed at the experiential understanding of the true nature of the self and that consciousness is the only existing reality.

Transcript

Salaam.

Salaam.

Salaam.

Yesterday we did the three states.

What are the three states?

The waking state,

The dream state and the deep sleep state.

And we also got a glimpse of the background.

In yesterday's self-exploration,

We got a glimpse of the Turiya state,

The fourth state.

The fourth state which is the substratum.

That which is the background for the three states.

For the waking state,

For the dream state and the deep sleep state.

Yes,

Everybody remembers that?

From there,

The next question has come up.

That is the background for the next question.

The questioner asks,

How are the three states of consciousness inferior in degree of reality to the fourth which is Turiya?

What is the actual relation between these three states and the fourth?

Answer.

There is only one state.

That of consciousness or awareness or existence.

The three states of waking,

Dream and sleep cannot be real.

They simply come and go.

The real will always exist.

Stop there and highlight that.

Why are waking,

Dreaming and deep sleep states not real?

Because they arise and fall.

They arise and fall.

They arise and fall.

A wave arises and falls away.

So when it arises and falls away,

It is born,

It exists and it dies.

Which means it is no more after some time.

So it is not real,

It is not permanent.

What is real?

What is permanent?

That which does not arise and fall but that which is always constant,

Constantly there.

The waking state arises and falls,

Dreaming arises and falls,

Deep sleep arises and falls but there is a substratum on which it arises and falls which is permanent,

Which is continuous.

So therefore these three states are not real.

Do you understand what is the meaning of the word real?

Simply put,

That which is permanent and continuous is real.

That which is impermanent,

That which is transient,

Incontinence.

Discontinuity is unreality.

It is unreal.

The three states of waking,

Dream and sleep cannot be real.

They simply come and go.

The real will always exist.

The I or existence that alone persists in all the three states is real.

I means I say I am awake now and I am dreaming.

I know I am dreaming.

About deep sleep state what do I say?

I slept very soundly so that I was continuous in all the three states.

Yet if I go to look for that I,

I look within,

I do a self-inquiry.

Can I find the I?

There is no localised one point or one entity which can be called the I.

It is more like a field.

This field of no things.

This field which is nothing but a background for the waking,

Dreaming and deep sleep states to arise and fall.

That is what is referred to when I say I am awake,

I am dreaming or I was sleeping soundly.

This field is the field of knowingness.

That is why it is called knowingness.

It knows when there is waking state,

It knows when there is dreaming state and it knows when there is absence of waking and dreaming.

It says I slept soundly.

It means absence of physical and mental objects which were there in the waking and the dreaming states.

So that I is real.

Again,

It is not the ego I.

It is that field of knowingness or background which does not really speak or say I.

But when we refer to it,

We use the word I.

But then we forget that I am that background,

I am that consciousness,

I am that nothingness.

And because I forget,

Now I need to fill up the gap of what I have forgotten and I fill it up with a wrong assumption that I am the body or I am the mind.

I only identify with the waking state.

I fill in the gaps by identifying with the waking state.

But really if I go to explore within,

I recognise I really means that background.

I have mistakenly assumed I as this physical body and the mind that goes with it.

The I or existence that alone persists in all the three states is real.

The other three are not real.

And so it is not possible to say they have such and such a degree of reality.

You cannot say waking state is about pow kilo real.

Yeah,

One fourth kilo real.

No,

You cannot say it is 25% real.

No,

You cannot say that.

You cannot say it is such and such degree of reality.

Anything that arises and passes away is unreal.

Just like the dream in the night,

The tiger was chasing you.

You were sweating and panting and scared.

When you got out of the dream,

Do you give it any importance?

No,

It was unreal.

Was it 5% real?

It was 5 degrees real.

Charana real?

Pow kilo real?

No,

It was not real at all.

Do not negotiate.

Do not bargain with me.

It was unreal.

There was no tiger.

Do you get it?

Exactly in the same way.

The moment you recognize your true nature,

The background of no thing is,

You realize,

Aha,

This is all the same.

These are all tigers chasing behind me.

They are not real.

Yeah,

So you can't say it is pow kilo real,

Half kilo real.

It is not real.

Just waking up till the truth is required.

Just waking up.

We may roughly put it like this.

Existence or consciousness is the only reality.

Consciousness plus waking is equal to waking state.

Consciousness plus sleep is equal to deep sleep state.

And consciousness plus dream is equal to dream state.

In this background,

Right now there is consciousness plus the waking.

Consciousness is the background and that was waking.

When the waking goes away,

Dreaming comes up.

It is consciousness plus dreaming.

Now see this is just consciousness.

In that there is deep sleep.

So it is consciousness plus deep sleep.

Very clear?

The background is the real permanent continuous state.

Waking,

Dreaming,

Deep sleep are like waves that arise and fall.

So now in your three equations,

What is the only common thing?

Consciousness.

That which is continuously present.

That is real.

Consciousness is the screen on which all the pictures come and go.

The screen is real.

The pictures are mere shadows of it.

So this is the screen.

On this screen,

It's nothing but a white screen.

On this white screen,

You see pictures.

Pictures are merely shadows.

They come up,

They play and then they are gone.

So the screen is real.

Because by long habit,

We have been regarding these three states as real,

We call the state of mere awareness or consciousness the fourth state.

You have a habit of calling waking state as waking state.

You have a habit of calling dream state as dream state.

You have a habit of calling deep sleep state as deep sleep state.

So because you have this habit of calling these three states and you are just a beginner learning about your own sleep and dreams.

So how do we take a beginner there?

We say,

See it is the fourth state.

The fourth state is nothing but the background on which these three states are arising and passing away.

This is only beginner level.

Because you still not understood the deeper level.

As you start recognizing,

Yeah,

This fourth state is there all the time,

All the time the sense of I am is there.

It's just a sense.

It does not say I.

The one that says I or speaks I is just the mind.

It is speaking on behalf of the CEO.

The CEO does not speak.

The silent CEO.

He runs the show but he does not speak.

He is the boss but the boss doesn't speak.

He is silent boss.

This is the manager who speaks on his behalf.

This is the mind that says I.

It is saying I on the behalf of that CEO.

The CEO is constantly there.

Whether there are thoughts arising,

Perceptions arising,

Sensations arising,

Whatever arises and passes away.

The sense of I am which is the presence.

It knows the thought.

It knows the feeling.

It is a knowing presence.

So this background,

The CEO,

He knows everything but he is silent.

He doesn't say anything.

He is just silently watching.

That is the Turiya state.

That's it.

It is that simple.

It is not something which is very difficult.

It is not something which is very complicated.

I need to meditate for lifetimes to understand this.

No.

You've been with it all your life.

Just for the sake of explanation,

It is explained that way that it is the fourth state.

But when you start seeing it as just a background for the arising and passing away of waking state,

Dreaming state and deep sleep state.

Do you anymore call it a fourth state?

Fourth state was beginner rhythm,

Nursery kg.

Now I get it.

I can see that it is the substratum.

It is there all the time.

Now he takes into the next level of your understanding of the knowledge.

Because by long habit,

We have been regarding these three states as real,

We call the state of mere awareness for consciousness the fourth.

There is however no fourth state but only one state.

What does this mean?

If you have seriously been doing your self-exploration in silence,

Isolation and away from everything and everybody,

You start recognizing,

Oh,

This field of nothingness in that only thoughts arise.

The thought is not made of another material other than that field.

A wave arises in the ocean and sets in the ocean.

Can you say wave is separate from the ocean?

No.

So now that you understand waking state arises and falls,

What is waking state?

Thoughts,

Feelings,

Perception of sight,

Sound,

Taste,

Touch,

Smell and sensations in the body.

Close my eyes,

They are nothing but arising.

I can just see them as arising,

As some wave arising and falling,

A wave arising and falling.

Oh,

They are not made of any different substance.

They are made of the same background of nothingness or the same turiya.

So in other words,

You can say thought is another turiya in action.

When the thought rests,

It becomes turiya.

Turiya is nothing but a sensation which is an action.

So turiya in action is equal to thought.

Turiya in action is equal to sensations.

Turiya in action is equal to perception.

Turiya in action is equal to feeling.

Feeling at rest is equal to turiya.

Sensations at rest is equal to turiya.

Thought at rest is equal to turiya.

Perception at rest is equal to turiya.

Oh,

There is nothing else.

There are no two substances which I can separate out.

Even in two liquids like water and oil,

You can see them separately but here they are not separate.

Close your eyes and you see it is all the same.

There is no difference.

Difference is only in the label that I put on it.

I spell one as thought,

Another as perception of sound,

Another as perception of taste,

Another as feeling.

I am putting these labels.

Remove the labels,

Close your eyes and just see in your direct.

Seeing this is called vipassana.

Vipassana means special seeing.

Inner seeing.

Seeing things as they are.

When you recognize there is no difference,

There is no fourth state.

There is just one state.

H2O arising and falling is called wave.

When the H2O is at rest,

It is called the ocean,

The ocean bed.

It is all H2O.

It is very clear how there is no fourth state.

There are no states.

Everything is just to real data.

There is no difference between dream and the waking state except that the dream is short and the waking is long.

Both are the result of the mind.

Because the waking state is long,

We imagine,

Please highlight,

We imagine that it is our real state.

But as a matter of fact,

Our real state is turiya or the fourth state which is always as it is and knows nothing of the three states of waking,

Dream or sleep.

Because we call these three avasthas or states.

Avastha is a Sanskrit word for state.

Because we call these three avasthas,

We call the fourth state also turiya avastha.

But it is not an avastha but the real and natural state of the self.

When this is realized,

We know it is not a turiya or fourth state.

For a fourth state is only relative.

But it is turiyatita,

Transcendental state.

Is turiya the same as the sense of I am?

And the turiyatita is basically the pure consciousness?

Yes,

Correct.

But don't give it those names also anymore.

Once you start seeing it Raghu,

Drop names,

Drop labels and just recognize it as one.

Those names were there.

I used them as stepping stones.

I learnt ABCD to learn to construct sentences.

Now that I have constructed sentences,

I don't keep revising ABCD in my head.

Correct?

Like that.

So now,

Once you,

If you feel you are getting it,

You are getting turiyatita,

You are understanding it experientially.

Now leave these words behind.

The sense of I am,

Presence,

Knowing presence,

Consciousness,

Awareness.

These were just words.

Stepping stones for me to recognize the state.

Just be there.

This is self exploration.

We have a mental block just because we are very big complicated Sanskrit words.

We have a mental block.

And here to break your mental block today.

It's only mental.

It's not very difficult to get it.

You can recognize it.

First you recognize it as the background.

That's when you call it turiya.

But when you start seeing,

Oh what background,

The thought which arises in it is not made of a different substance than the background.

It is the background.

It is like a wave arising in the background of the ocean.

I can't say ocean is separate and wave is separate.

So I can't say turiya is separate and waking,

Dreaming,

Deep sleep are separate.

No,

It is just one.

It is turiya theta.

Turiya theta means beyond turiya.

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