Intensity and the four states of consciousness🔗

There are four states of consciousness.

When you have 'I' Consciousness and thoughts, you are in the waking state, the state in which you are right now. In this state, 'I' has more frequency than your thoughts. So you can control your thoughts.

When you are without 'I' consciousness but having thoughts, you are in the dream state. In the dream state, your thoughts are at a higher frequency than your 'I' consciousness. That is why you have thoughts in your dreams but you are not able to control them.

When you are without 'I' Consciousness and not having any thoughts, you are in the deep sleep state. Normally, we are aware of only these three states – waking, dream and deep sleep. The fourth state is where you have I consciousness but no thoughts – turiya.

Intensity means being intense every moment in whatever you do. So first you need to be aware of yourself in all the states. Then only you can be intense throughout.

Now you experience who you are with awareness only during the waking state. You feel, 'I am a doctor', 'I am a lawyer', 'I am an engineer' and so on. Only if we are aware of the identities that we carry and enjoy in all the three states, we have caught the thread, the center line of all the three states of waking, dream and deep sleep. When we catch the thread of all these three states, suddenly we realize our identity in all the three states.

Somebody asked me, 'I don't think that in the deep sleep state I am aware.' Then who is the person who comes back and says it was deep peace during my deep sleep? Who is the person who is reminiscing about it saying, 'It was filled with darkness. It was as if I was not there at all'? Who is coming back and remembering even this idea, 'I was not there at all'?

If the person is not there in that state, then who is coming back to connect all these three states? No, we cannot say we were not there in the deep sleep state. We were there, but we were not aware of the identity that we had in that state.

Understand, a person who is aware of all these three states is conscious. If we are aware of the identity in all these three states, then we are conscious enough, our seeking is intense enough to be answered, we are intense enough to be initiated and blessed.

If we are not already aware of all these three states, if we have not experienced all these three states with the same identity, then naturally we need to now intensify our seeking.

An intense seeker will carry the identity about himself throughout all these three states. If even once or twice you have experienced your waking identity in the dream state then you are intense.

In the dream state suddenly sometimes you remember that you are beyond the identity which you think as you in the dream state. I have seen seekers going through this experience in the dream state. They will be dreaming and suddenly they will identify themselves with their identity of the waking state. Then they will think about the dream state, 'Hey, this is too small. This is nothing.'

If you have had the experience of your waking state identity in the dream state, understand, then you have the intensity. Your seeking is intense.

Understand: Question is a word. Quest is a feeling.

Man is born as a quest. The rest of Existence cannot reflect the Divine like man can. Man is like a mirror. He has the choice to face and reflect the Divine or to turn away. Man can make a conscious choice, which is why he can grow. Man can choose to realize the Divine through his human form. No other being in Existence has this choice.

If these words, 'How do I get enlightenment? I want to … real bad and urgently,' have come out, if this question has come out as a deep quest, then you don't need anything.

Just boil, let the whole being burn with this quest. That is enough. Nothing else needs to be done. Let this boiling be intense.

Allow this boiling. Allow this burning. Allow this intensity. Allow this urgency.

Let the urge become urgent. Let the question become your quest. Let it just eat your ego, eat your inner space.

People ask me, 'Have you been enlightened by the divine grace or by your effort or by your quest?'

I tell them, your having the quest is the first sign that you are having the divine grace. Unless you have the divine grace, you will not have the quest.

Understand, this quest or seeking is like a seed. It is like a seed feeling suffocated inside the shell. See, the life that is inside the seed, unless it feels suffocated inside the shell, it won't open up and become a tree.

The moment the seed starts feeling that it should open up, the moment it starts feeling the seeking, the urgency and the quest to open up to become a tree, it means that already the tree inside the seed has started expressing itself.

If you have the feeling that you should get enlightened, the Buddha in you has opened his eyes. The Buddha in you has started waking up. All you need to do is open your eyes!

Allow this seeking. From morning till night let it boil, let it create a deep dissatisfaction in you. Let every pore in your skin, every nerve in your body, every cell in you vibrate with that intensity. Let it swallow all your depressions you may have in life. In life you may have so many other depressions and sufferings of not having so many things. Let all those sufferings be swallowed by this one suffering.

A beautiful Zen story:

A Zen student was intensely studying under her master but she was not able to experience true meditation for a very long time.

One full moon night, she was carrying a bucket of water suspended on a bamboo stick. She saw the reflection of the moon in the bucket. Suddenly, the bamboo broke.

The water fell out of the bucket. The reflection of the moon disappeared and so did her ego.

When the seeking is intense, it will remove the juice from your ego. The green grass becomes like a haystack. Just a match is enough to burn the whole haystack down. The Ultimate can happen in a split second through a simple happening.

So understand, let this seeking, let this quest, your saying, 'How to get enlightened? I want to … real bad and urgently', let this seeking burn all your other sufferings, all your other depressions, all your other desires, all your other concerns about life.

Let it happen and suddenly you will see that the seeking suddenly disappears, it is not there. When the seeking disappears, you are enlightened. You have achieved what you are seeking.

Intensity prepares you for the ultimate

The Upanishads, the ancient vedic texts by the sages and mystics that happened as revelations, say that for the person who is initiated the whole world is heaven. Understand the word 'initiation'. It does not mean doing some ceremony or ritual.

Initiation means that 'click' happening in you. When a master expresses the truth, if the click, the realization, happens in you and if you suddenly feel, 'O god! What he says is right. I was always thinking exactly this. He put it in the right way,' that is what initiation is. If you feel whatever I am speaking is what you always thought about but I am verbalizing it and properly putting it in words, the initiation has happened.

Please understand, only after all the preparation is done and only when you are in the state of high intensity, the truth uttered by the master just clicks.

When the master says there is no need for any seeking any more and just liberate yourself right now, you will be able to do so only if you have done enough of seeking and created the intensity. That is the paradox!

The technique is to get the right attitude of intensity. Actually, if you have high intense energy, you will automatically have the right listening. You will be just waiting to catch one glimpse. You will be just waiting to listen. You will be just waiting to imbibe.

That is why masters speak again and again and again for years over years. I started speaking only a few years ago. Buddha spoke for over forty years. But, the message was the same. His first sermon and the last sermon are almost the same.

You may then think why thousands of disciples sat everyday and heard the same sermon again and again. Because, the click happens only when you are in intense energy. Only with intensity it clicks. You just catch the flame and the awakening happens.

The deep spiritual experience

For the spiritual experience to happen, two conditions need to be fulfilled. One is that you must be completely open and available to the surroundings. The other is the intense energy field.

Sometimes even if you are open, if you are not in the intense energy field, the first cracking of the coconut of your ego does not happen. The first spiritual experience is just like breaking open a coconut. Once the first opening happens, it is not difficult to break the rest of the coconut. The first opening needs an intense spiritual energy field.

These two factors are what resulted in my first spiritual experience. I was open and available to the surroundings, and I was in the intense energy field of Arunachala. Fortunately, I was attracted to the beauty of that hill. Normally, if you see a hill or a river or an ocean every day, you will take it for granted. Somehow I never took that hill for granted. I never thought I know about it. I was continuously open, available.

Understand, being open and available every time, seeing it every morning with the eyes of freshness or with the mind of openness is what I am calling 'being open and available'. Many times, we completely close ourselves to the society.

We just come to some conclusion, some understanding and after that we never update our understanding or our effort with the result.

Every day, the Arunachala hill was living for me. Every day it was never the same old hill that I saw yesterday. I had a very funny routine. In the morning when I got up I would not open my eyes. I would slowly walk from my room to outside the house holding the parapet wall. I would come out and stand in a place from where I knew the hill could be seen. Only then I would open my eyes so that the first thing that I saw in the morning would be that hill.

Somehow my brothers knew that the first thing that I wanted to see was the hill. They would want to have fun teasing me. When they knew that I was out from my bed and slowly walking, they would come and stand in front of me.

If I opened my eyes and did not see the hill and instead saw their faces, I would go back and lie down again. I would lie down again, sleep for half an hour, then again get up and slowly walk back to see the hill and open my eyes. Only if I saw the hill the first thing in the morning, I would carry on with my routine.

It may look funny and superstitious but I always felt I took birth, I took this body, because of that attraction and pull that hill has got for enlightened beings.

There is a very beautiful verse in Tamil that describes the hill as 'the hill that attracts enlightened beings around it'. The hill is especially respected for attracting enlightened beings not only from this planet earth, but also from other planets and spaces, towards planet earth. I never took the hill for granted. It was an ever-living presence.

One day I was trying to sit and meditate. It was a full moon day (Poornima) and the moon was rising as the sun was setting. I was just sitting on a rock on Arunachala hill, trying the meditation technique that the disciple of Ramana Maharishi and enlightened master, Annamalai Swamigal, had initiated me into.

I was sitting on the rock trying to find the source from where the feeling of 'I' was rising. On that day I was sitting for a particularly long time trying to find the source in a deep way.

Suddenly something happened and I felt like I was being sucked inside, pulled inside. I was sitting with closed eyes but I saw very clearly that something opened inside. The moment that opened inside, I was able to see whole 360 degrees around me. My eyes were closed but I was able to see complete 360 degrees, whatever was happening in all the directions – front, side, back, up, and down.

Not only was I able to see, but I was also able to feel very clearly with the same intensity how we all feel alive inside our skin, that I was alive in everything I was able to see.

I was able to see whatever was around me – the plants, rocks, trees and everything. I was able to feel that I am alive in everything. In the same way you all feel you are alive inside your body I felt alive with the whole cosmos, with the whole Existence.

Till then I was just a mere body. After that, I realized I am body also. Understand, 'I am body also'.

It was a very deep experience. If it was just a word or imagination, it won't have that much impact on the inner space. It was an intense conscious experience.

You see, now you know you are inside your skin. Now you will listen to anything as long as it does not disturb you. Naturally you know how to protect yourself because you are alive inside your body and that is your conscious experience.

No matter however many people teach you that you are not just your body you will only listen but you will not allow them to work on you! Because your conscious experience is your body.

My experience that 'I am this whole Existence' became my truth. That is why I started living according to that.

People are surprised that I lived such a strong intense life in such a young age. They feel that it is very difficult and unimaginable. It is unimaginable for you because it is not your conscious experience. It is easy for me because feeling the whole cosmos is me became a very solid experience.