Turiya

The sign of an authentic Guru is this: he does not want you to pray to him for your enlightenment; he wants you to establish the state of turiya, the eternal Witness, in your own heart.

True liberation is not a guru-disciple relationship. It is the radiance whose Self-luminosity outshines every relationship. The is why the Yoga Vashista declares: "For the liberated, real devotion is not a relationship between I and Thou, but a relationship between I and Am."

A Guru does not teach you to worship the Light, but to be the Light. A Guru is not interested in teasing your thirst with drops from the glance of his eye, but in quenching your thirst completely. He does that by filling your heart with the ocean of guru-tattva, the Guru within. We must remember that Jesus did not merely say, "I am the Light." He said, "You are the Light."

Years ago, I was sitting with my teacher Maharishi - who never claimed to be a personal Guru. He explained the subtle mechanics of meditation in a completely unique way that I never heard before or since. "The impulse of grace that effortlessly draws the mantra into the silent field of transcendental consciousness (turiya), is precisely the same impulse that draws the disciple to the Guru." ~Mahesh Yogi 

Yet we sometimes get so attached to the outward form of our Guru, that we make the master into a surrogate mommy or daddy or lover. We may waste years in the emotional fluctuations of this affair, letting real "sadhana," or spiritual practice, fade into the background. Sadhana is not fixation on a personal Guru. That is just a subtler form of bondage: bondage with chains of gold instead of iron ones.

When we take away the beads and saris, the incense, chanting and lotus blossoms, sadhana really means developing "turiya," the fourth state of consciousness. Through regular deep meditation, interspersed with dynamic and committed action, we establish turiya, the inner Witness, as our permanent experience. Not just in the ashram or the temple, but 24/7, in gain or loss, pain or beauty. Whether we are busy in the market place, or sitting by a forest pool; whether we are dreaming, or even when the body is in deep sleep, the Witness shines inside us as boundless silent bliss-consciousness.

The Mandukya Upanishad, 6-7, defines Turiya as the fourth state of consciousness, beyond waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. Turiya is the silent seed of creative intelligence, the "atman" who dwells in the core of the heart and never sleeps. A beautiful verse in the Bible describes this state: "I sleep, but my heart wakes."

Turiya is the singularity, the womb of the cosmos, from which both mind and matter arise as waves of energy. Being absolute and singular, turiya is beyond relationship. One does not feel devotion to turiya: one IS turiya. And from this silent, immoveable, imperishable IS-ness, one witnesses the ever-changing phenomena of the mind, the senses, and the world, without being entrapped or identified with them. This is real liberation, minus the romance.

The sign of an authentic Guru is this: he does not want you to pray to him for your peace and enlightenment; he wants you to establish the state of turiya, the eternal Witness, in your own heart.

When an awakened heart establishes turiya, then the inner freedom, self-luminosity and bliss of the Witness abide permanently, through all other states of awareness. The action of the external world remains the same, whether painful or pleasant, in gain or loss, but nothing shakes the immoveable repose, the radiant clarity, of that inner Witness.

To establish turiya, we practice regular deep meditation, morning and evening. But between meditations, it is essential to engage in dynamic action, thereby infusing awareness of the Witness into the nervous system during all its phases of action, perception, feeling, and thought. Meditation awakens direct experience of turiya; action ingrains that experience into the personality.

When we have established turiya as our own eternal Self-luminosity, then we innocently radiate that gift of light to the world, as the energy of compassion and peace. Our actions no longer arise from an ego frantically caught up in winning or losing, envy or regret, anxiety or fear  - but from the unwavering serenity of I AM. We act from the divine center, without confusion. For in our own awareness we have awakened "the light that shines in darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it" (John 1:5).

*****

Here is a beautiful and innocent talk about the meditation practice I have found most graceful.