The “Three Sates Plus Turiya” of Mandukya vs.The Direct Path
In the last couple of my Posts at this site, I have been writing about the thesis of Swami Iswarananda Ji and the Upanishadic support he cites for his argument that the deep sleep is Brahman experiencing Itself and it is the universal Oneness of (= same for) all creatures. References from Brihadaranyaka Upanishad quoted by the Swami Ji were given in my last write up (here). I discussed the citations from Chandogya here.
However, the Mandukya Upanishad starkly stands out in its unequivocal declaration that “deep sleep” too is a transitory state. Corresponding to the ‘Individual’ with a gross body in the awake state in a physical world, a subtle body is conceived to exist in the dream state in a subtle world and a causal body in the deep sleep state in a causal world. Proposing a hierarchy of structure, the Upanishad gives a schema of beings at individual level and at the collective cosmic level in creation.
The Upanishad also comes out with a helpful upAsana model in order to transcend the individuated egoistic separate ‘self’ and achieve union with the Cosmic Consciousness. The suggested method comprises a gradational meditation from gross to the subtler and the subtlest levels finally merging in the ineffable Brahman. The primordial sound (nAda) ‘OM’ representing Brahman forms the bedrock for such a meditation. So the contemplation proceeds by splitting ‘Om’ into the three basic sounds of A, U and M and then pointing the meditator to the silent background from which the sounds A, U and M arise and dissolve into.
The Mandukya Upanishad takes the first sound ‘A’ to represent the wakeful state, the next ‘U’ sound to the dream state and ‘M’ to deep sleep. The Upanishad does not say what exactly is the order of sequence in which the three states of awake, dreaming and deep sleep occur. The Upanishad does not also say whether it is a single or multiple number of cycles of this sequence that we go through during our slumber. One may infer the order in which the states occur in our life from the way the three sounds of A, U and M are positioned representing the awake, dream and deep sleep states respectively.
Scientific research carried out over a period of more than half a century demonstrates that the architecture of our
sleep pattern as experienced by us every night is vastly different from the simple picture of awake state transitioning into dream state and then going into deep sleep before waking up again. A typical hypnogram (the sleep cycle) we go through each night is shown in Fig. 1 on the right.
During our dreaming, for some unknown reason, our eye balls keep rapidly moving sideways. This is called “Rapid Eye Movement” (REM) sleep. Most of our dreaming occurs in the REM phase. (Some dreaming may also happen under conditions of Non-REM (NREM) too). Further, we find that our deep sleep has several stages in it, the deepest stage being the fourth one.
We usually go through 4 – 5 wake-sleep cycles of each about 90 minutes duration every night. That means we get 4-5 dreams every night. It is our experience that the duration of the REM dream-phase increases and the deep sleep becomes shallower as the night progresses. Most often it is only the last dream before we get up that we tend to remember. As Prof. Walker puts it in a lighter vein, we suffer from “psychosis” in our sleep because we become ’hypnotic’ (imagining unreal dream scenarios), ‘delusional’ (believing in the content of our dream while dreaming) and ‘amnesiac’ (mostly forgetting what we dreamt).
If we neglect, for the present, the NREM dreams and the sub-stages in deep sleep, we can see from Figure 1 that our nightly song is not simple AUM or even AUM-AUM. The Neuroscientific findings show that it is more like AMU-MU-MU-AMU-MU-MU-A…….
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Shri Atmananda Krishna Menon (1883 – 1959), was a well-known Indian sage and philosopher. He is considered nowadays as one of the three important Advaita teachers of the 20th century, the other two being Ramana Maharshi and Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Shri Atmananda spearheaded the teaching of The Direct Path model of Advaita.
The Direct Path is a Knowledge-based (jnAna yOga) approach. It stands out in its directness in comparison to the more traditional approach which he referred to as “Cosmological path.” Dr. Ananda Wood, a disciple of Shri Krishna Menon, clarifies that “In the ‘cosmological’ approach, an ‘individual person’ or ‘jiva’ is considered as an incomplete part of an encompassing universe. Hence that approach aims at ‘bringing the individual under the universal’. It requires an expansion of consideration to a universal functioning — which is ruled by an all-powerful ‘God’ called ‘Ishvara’, or which expresses an all-comprehensive reality called ‘Brahman’. In contrast, the Direct Path is an “an approach which brings ‘the universal under the individual’.” Jean Klein, another disciple of Shri Atmananda spread the Direct Path teaching of Advaita in the West. It is very much popularized by a succession of teachers like Francis Lucille, Rupert Spira and others.
The Direct Path approach too considers deep sleep as Brahman. I had posted an article on the experience of deep sleep and its significance in knowing the swabhAva (natural state) at my Blog here.
Sakta Advaita Pundit Brahma Shri P. Venkatasriram observed at one of the online discussion fora that the Direct Path also conforms to the muNDaka Upanishad mantra:
praNavO dhanuH sharOhyAtmA
brahma tallakSya muchyatE
aprmattEna vEddhavyaM
sharavat tanmayO bhavEt
He pointed out that while the upAsana path of enquiry is kartru tantra, the vichAra of the Direct Path is vastu tantra.
[Incidentally, his two word description of my Post as a “beautiful article” earned me over 220 pageviews of that article (Total views todate: 900)! I take this opportunity to express my sincere gratefulness to him for his kind words.]
I give below the extracts from Swami Iswaranada’s book, “God Realization Through Reason” regarding the Mandukya Upanishad in order to show that “the Atman of deep sleep is not more or less related to the world of waking or dream than the turIya.”
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This is the only Upanishad in which a distinction is made between the Atman of deep sleep and the Atman of the state of Truth-realization. The former is called prAjna and the latter turIya.
turIya is defined by the seventh mantra [of the Mandukya Upanishad]. But the question is: Is there a single term in this definition of turIya, which is not applicable to the Self in deep sleep? We find there is not. Therefore, the so-called turIya is none other than samprasAda.
There is a key significant sentence in Sankara’s commentary on the GaudapAda kArikA, I.2, where the Self of deep sleep is sought to be identified with the turIya which is defined later.
tAm abIjAvasthAm tasyai ‘ va prAjna sabdavAcyasya turIyatvena dehAdisambhandarahitAm pRthag vakshyati.
That designated as prAjna (when it is viewed as the cause of the phenomenal world) will be described as turIya separately when it is not viewed as the cause and when it is free from all phenomenal relationship such as that of the body etc. in its absolutely real aspect.
But that [prAjna] it is a mass of sentiency in the sense of the experience of jAgrat and svapna all dumped together is not borne out by experience. Therefore, Sankara is very careful to say, ata eva svapna jAgramanaspandanAni prajnAnAni ghanIbhUtAni ‘va.
The word ‘iva’ (as if) is very significant as showing that it is wrongly viewed as prajnAnaghana. And the reason for calling it prajnAnaghana is given as want of discrimination in that state, se’ yam avasthA avivekarUpatvAt prajnAnaghanam ucyate.
The description of prAjna as a mass of sentiency (prajnAnaghana) is not a description of the experience of sushupti as such, but our view of it before sufficient analysis.
The true explanation for thrusting the experience of Isvara into the metaphysics of avasthAtraya is that it is only a theological device to give a philosophical appearance to the concept of the personal God. But experience flatly refuses to certify the identification of the Self of deep sleep with a personal God.
With regard to the concept of prAjna as the state of bIja, or as the potential state of future creation, it significant to remember that the concept of causality applied to it is only in the sense that there is no realization of Truth in that state. prAjnas tu bIjabhAvenai ‘ va badhah tattvabodham eva hi bIjaprAjnatve nimittam.
No other Upanishad we have gone through makes a reference to turIya. Their concept of samprasAda is the same as the turIya of the MAndUkyopanishad.
