Four states of cognition (Upanishads...)

In the previous post, we were talking about how we can ascertain the truths enunciated by the Upanishads. As we said, the only way is either to accept whatever the Upanishads say or ‘realize’ it ourselves. How do we do the latter?

Before we delve into that, let us see how we cognize things.

1. We normally perceive things in our wakeful state through our sense perception – sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. This sense perception is called ‘Pratyaksa’

Sometimes we cannot perceive everything directly through the senses. In such cases we deduce or infer things based on what we perceived through senses. This is called Anumäna. 

There are many things that we take for granted based on the testimony of others whom we can trust. This is called Äptaväkya. 

 All this cognitive activity is possible only when we are awake or ‘Jägrta’ as the Upanishads call it.

2. Cognition also takes place almost in the same way as in our wakeful state, when we are asleep and when we dream. except that the inputs are from within or those created by our mind. The dream world is almost identical to the wakeful world as long as we are asleep. Upanishads call this state of cognition as ‘Svapna’ meaning - dream state.

3. There is a third state - the state of deep sleep. In that state we neither perceive external things nor internally generated dream objects. There is almost no cognition except that we experience a state of bliss that we realize when we wake up from deep sleep. Upanishads call this state as ‘Sushupti’.

One of the Upanishads namely the Mändükya Upanishad talks about all these three states of cognition, It adds a fourth state that we are not generally aware of. 

4.That state is called the ‘Turïya’ state. It is the Turïya state that is attained by anyone who gets into deep meditation. 

It is that state in which one ‘cognizes’ the Ätma or the God of Upanishads that we discussed earlier.

In the next post, let us look at this Turïya state in a bit more detail.

Start (Upanishads) 

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