UNITIVE EXPERIENCE

Philosopher Alan Watts said that when he looked up at the stars he didn't relate to any of it, all the billions of galaxies out there.  They weren't him. But, for that matter, neither did he relate to all the “wiggly stuff,” all the biological things that were the inner workings of his body, that were, in personal terms, him.

He said that he did not achieve a unitive sense until it dawned on him that "Alan Watts" shared a boundary with the outside world, that the outline of his body was the border he shared with everything else that existed.  It was this border that was the unifying factor for him, to where he now felt that he belonged.

This was an intellectual determination, of course, which in as much as Watts was a trained philosopher, and scholar, should be expected.  But the unitive experience can be realized free of the analytical mind. For instance the Mandukya Upanishad describes three states of consciousness: waking, sleeping, and dreamless sleep.  But there is a fourth state called turiya, the transcendental state.  It is there that the unitive experience, free of the intellect, can be known.

Turiya is not in one's immediate control, however.  Rather is it a sudden flash of insight where you realize in an instant, out of the blue, by direct intuition, that you are the whole works.  This happens to a person who is not aware that he is aware, so to speak. 

There is spotlight consciousness where an individual's attention is on the task at hand, and there is floodlight consciousness where his focus, whether he knows it immediately or not, is on the big picture, on all of existence.  It is when floodlight consciousness breaks through suddenly into spotlight consciousness that there is the abrupt insight.