Turiya — The Ultimate Reality
So, Happy Monday begins. As I write this I do realise that the term “Happy Monday” probably isn’t a happy one for all and sundry, as we all use terms like “Monday Blues” that do the rounds quite often.
Believe me, just before my morning workout today, I thought that I’d be writing on topics that’ll pave the way towards a jovial start of the week — like “Get rid of Monday Blues” or something like “Mondays are just another day”, and the like.
Yet, all of that changed when I started listening to today’s lecture on the Mandukya Upanishad, the Mandukya Karika by Swami Sarvapriyananda of the Vedanta Society of New York and when I did listen to it intently, I found that nothing is worth writing today, other than this immaculate lesson that Swamiji taught us about.
So, today was the second day of the Mandukya Upanishad where we were acquainted with Mantras 2 and 3 where we were taught and given an introduction to our real selves. Swamiji gave us an introduction to five tenets that he said will help us reconnect to our real selves.
Firstly, he talked about the concepts of the known. In Sanskrit, it’s called “Prameya” which means the object about which we are gaining knowledge. Secondly, Swamiji mentioned the second aspect — the “Pramata”, which is the person gaining that knowledge. Thirdly, he talked about the consciousness which appears before the person gaining that knowledge.
Next, there was this mention of the fact that anything that is dependent on something cannot be a reality, which means that since it cannot exist independently, it cannot be real. Lastly, there was this mention of the fourth state which is believed to exceed all of the three states of waking (gross), dreaming (subtle) and deep sleep state (causal) state. The Vedantins believe that it is this fourth state that is the most crucial state and that the others are just mere appearances in and out of the fourth state.
During his speech, Swamiji even quoted Adi Shankaracharya and referred to a place where Shankaracharya said that all these states like waking, dreaming and deep sleep are just appearances and that it’s the Turiya or the fourth state which is the actual reality.
To be honest and truth to be told, when I did hear it, I had several goosebumps in my body and I thought about how fortunate I am to be hearing such verses of wisdom from the noble souls. I bow down to everyone and pray to the universe with folded hands that all of us do get the wisdom in our very lives and we may we get to make the best out of this life here itself.
It’s here that I must also mention that today’s session ended with a light meditation that showed us our real nature and ended with a hope that we must be able to realise and recognise our true nature within ourselves and understand our true potential.
He concluded by saying that it’s our mistake and the greatest ignorance of our lives to think that we are mere mortals bound within the thresholds of time and space, instead we gotta think that we are eternal beings, where the whole concept of time and space appear within us.
