In the previous posts I talked about Turiya as a state – one of the four
states of cognition. That is my understanding of the Mändükya Upanishad in
which it is described. But Advaita philosophers don’t agree. What do they say?
The well known Advaita philosopher
Šankara as well as his grand Guru Gaudapäda don’t’ think Turiya as a state. They say that
Turïya is the reality over which the other three sates namely wakeful state,
dreaming state and the deep sleep state are superimposed.
According to them, what exists is only Turïya which is synonymous
with Ätma or Brahma ( Upanishadic equivalent of God). Other
states are only ‘illusions’
projected on to this Turïya. The world we experience through our senses - when
we are awake, the one that we experience in dream are all just illusions and
don’t really exist as such. It is the Turïya and only Turïya that exists.
Long back when I
had not read Upanishads and did not have any inkling about this fine
difference, I had written an article based on my own understanding of meditative
experiences where the difference between the individual identity and universal
identity just vanishes. My Vedic scholar
friend (about whom I talked about in the beginning) had disagreed with me by
saying that there is
a difference between ‘experiencing’
and ‘reality’.
It is quite a
tricky issue and lot of hair splitting. In the next post I will try to
illustrate it with the help of an interesting analogy.
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