TURIYA REVISITED

Another way to think of the Atman is as Turiya, literally “the Fourth,” as it is the fourth state of consciousness after the ordinary states of consciousness:  waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep.

Turiya is superconsciousness, the pure consciousness that illuminates the conditioned consciousness in which waking, dreaming, and dreamless sleep occur.

The Mandukya Upanishad, which analyzes all the states of consciousness, describes Turiya in terms of what it is not.  “It is neither subjective nor objective experience, neither consciousness nor unconsciousness, neither knowledge of the senses, nor relative knowledge, nor inferential knowledge.”

But then on the positive side, it says that Turiya is “pure unitary consciousness, ineffable peace, and the Atman.”