The Fourth State

[Note: This is a translation from the Hindi series Shiva Sutra, which is in the process of being edited. It is for research only.]

Through all three states - wakefulness, dreaming and deep sleep - turiya, the fourth state, runs like a thread through the beads of a mala. Even while you sleep there is someone awake within. When you dream there is someone witnessing the dream. When you are awake during the day there is a witness within as you go about your daily routine. This is bound to be, for that which is your nature you cannot lose no matter how deep you are in sleep. That which you are is bound to be present. It can be suppressed, hidden, forgotten, but never destroyed.

Whether you are asleep or dreaming or awake, turiya is ever-present. Deep within you are always Buddha. However much you may wander, all wandering is only superficial and belongs to the waves on the surface. Deep within you have never wandered, for deep within there is no way to wander.

Therefore, the fourth state is not to be attained but revealed. It has not to be achieved but uncovered.

It lies hidden within like a buried treasure. You dig through a few layers of soil and become rich as a king. You need not seek anywhere, the treasure lies within. You keep getting glimpses of it, but you pay them no heed.

In the morning you get up and say you slept long and deep, that the sleep was very refreshing.

When you say this, have you ever wondered who it is who knows that the sleep was enjoyable? If all of your being was asleep, who was there to give remembrance? Who is it who says that the sleep was deep and refreshing? Surely someone saw into the depth of the slumber. Some dim light shone all through your sleep. The darkness was never total; it could be seen.

You dream at night. In the morning you remember some fragments of your dream. You say you had a nightmare. So the observer was separate from your sleep, he was not lost in the sleep. A part of you stood aside and did not become one with the dream. You were the observer, the spectator, when the dream was being played on the stage of the soul within. But you were outside the play, otherwise you would not have remembered.

When anger gets hold of you during the day, it is not that you are totally asleep; there are glimpses within. You are aware of anger when it comes, you feel it coming. As the skies fill with clouds before the rain falls, you feel the smoke rising before the fire of anger erupts.

When you are filled with attachments, when you are tranquil, when you are restless - there is someone within who keeps a constant watch; but you take no notice of this observer. Your attention flows toward what is seen in the world, and you are one with what you see; it doesn't occur to you to turn and see the observer within who watches. This is all you have to do: turn within and see the observer. Your unconsciousness will break and you will attain the fourth state. He who attains the fourth state attains all. He who does not attain the fourth state, finds at the time of death that whatever he has earned, whatever he has gathered, is not worth a penny. It is all useless.

I have heard:

Once Nasruddin ran to the river to catch a boat. He was going on a journey and he was in a great hurry for fear of missing the boat. When he reached the river he saw the boat just a little ways from the shore. He took a jump and landed on the deck, but in the process he slipped and fell. His elbows were bruised, his clothes torn, but he was happy; he had caught the boat. He looked at his fellow travelers and beamed, "Well, I made it."

One of them replied, "I don't understand, Mulla. Why such a hurry? This boat isn't going anywhere, it's just coming in to shore."

In the hour of death you will also realize that all your hurrying and scurrying ultimately turns out to be useless. The boat that you thought would take you is actually coming in to shore. But then it will be too late and nothing can be done about it. Now you still have time. Something can be done.

For him who awakens before death claims him, there is no death; but for him who sleeps until the time of death, there is no life. His life is one long dream finally broken by death. He who awakens during his lifetime sees and experiences his inner nature and knows that it is immortal.

Life continues while you remain unconscious. You go about as if you are drunk, you do not know where you are going. Why you are going is also unclear.

Two beggars at the roadside were having a conversation. I happened to be passing by and overheard them. One said, "I wonder what is the purpose of life."

"Life is only to live. What else can you do?" replied the other.

You are of the second beggar's opinion: you feel what else is there to do in life apart from living?

And even that is out of your control; it depends on an infinite number of factors. Everything is in your unconscious mind. Why sex desire arose in you, why you raised a family, how greed and anger entered you, why you were dishonest, why you accumulated wealth, why you made enemies - you have no idea! You are just like a puppet, whose strings are being pulled by someone else. You imagine you are dancing, but in fact it is someone else who is making you dance.

Look closely at your life and you will find that you are nothing more than a puppet. How can anything real happen in the life of a man who is not his own master, but merely a puppet?

One evening Mulla Nasruddin hurried to the station with two of his friends to catch a train. All three were dead drunk. The Mulla tripped and fell and missed the train, but the other two managed to get aboard. The station master helped the Mulla to his feet and sympathized with him for missing the train. The Mulla said, "Don't feel sorry for me. I can always catch the next train. I'm worried about what will happen to those other two. They only came to see me off."

In the world to board the train is success, to miss it is failure; but in reality the one who succeeds and the one who fails, the victor and the vanquished, all are the same, for they are all equally unconscious. Rich and poor, winner and loser, each has his slate wiped clean by death.

Only one sort of person escapes this treatment: he who has realized the fourth state that is hidden with the first three. For him there is no death. He alone wins. Everyone else, be he Alexander or Napoleon, is a total failure. Once in a while a Buddha comes out victorious.

Here the meaning of success is only one: that you have come to know that him for whom there is no death. What perishes with death you should consider as defeat. Make this a definition of failure.

Have you anything that death cannot snatch away? Ponder constantly over this: "Have I a single thing that death cannot take from me?" If you find that you don't, then hurry. You cannot afford to waste any more time. Time time has come to awake!

Your days and your nights, the time you spend awake, the time you spend asleep and the time you dream, death will snatch them all away from you. You have no connection with these three states; they are clouds that hide your sun from you. If your life is spent entirely within these three states you will find yourself a miserable beggar when the hour of death arrives, but if you have been able to discern through the mists even a single beam of light then you can know that the sun itself is not far off. Then you will be facing the sun and the clouds will be behind you.

The first sutra is:

THE FOURTH STATE SHOULD SERVE AS OIL AND PERMEATE THE OTHER THREE STATES.

In all three states - whether you are awake, dreaming or in deep sleep - keep the remembrance of the fourth state alive. Whatever happens on the outside, just let it be. After all, it is only the periphery. Keep your attention on the center. Be aware each moment, whether you sit or stand, eat or sleep, whether you are going home or going to your place of work. Always remember that you are the observer and not the doer. Do not take life to be anything more than acting. Don't identify yourself too much with the action.

Whether you are a wife or husband, a businessman or client, don't get too involved. Don't lose yourself in it, for you are simply playing a role in the play. Keep outside of it, and within yourself.

These are all necessary parts of life. You must go to work, it is necessary. The play is delightful if you see it as play, but it is fatal if you take it to be life. There is no reason so disrupt your life. You have to play the part that life has given you. You have to fulfill your duties and not be an escapist.

There is absolutely no need to run away.

Escapists are always weaklings. Those whom you regard as sadhus and sannyasins are escapists.

They are weak; they could not face life as it is; they could not take care of the observer within them.

You cannot become a sannyasin by running away. It only shows that the world was too overwhelming and too strong, and you were too weak. You could not cultivate your awareness when at work. You could not take care of the observer within you while you were at home, therefore you had to run away.

If you could not become aware in your working world how will you become aware in the mountains?

There is only one process of awakening and it has nothing to do with where you are or what you are doing. Geography is irrelevant. The process of cultivating awareness is one, and it has nothing to do with the location. It makes no difference whether you are sitting in a temple or sitting in your shop doing business. It matters not whether you sit on a velvet cushion or sit on the bare ground; the method is the same. The method is to be aware each moment of the fact that you are separate from the action you are involved in, whatever action it is - minding the shop or praying in the temple, business or worship, it makes no difference. "My actions are separate from me. They are part of the world. I am only the observer." This should be the attitude. Do not be so engrossed that only the act remains and the witness is lost. Right now this is what is happening to you.

This sutra says: Over the other three states let the fourth state pour continually. By continuous water the tree of the fourth state will begin to grow. Start with the waking state, for that is closer to the fourth, it contains a slight ray of awakening. Make use of this. How could you immediately awaken in your deep sleep, or in your dreams for that matter? So start with the waking state, which is one percent consciousness and ninety-nine percent unconsciousness. Make use of this one percent, and sprinkle it with turiya. Whenever the opportunity arises, shake yourself and wake up. Time and time again your remembrance will slip. Give yourself a push, a jolt into wakefulness again and again. As a person ties knots in his handkerchief to help him remember something, tie knows in your consciousness that will remind you again and again. Whatever you are doing, whenever, shake yourself into consciousness of the truth - that "I am not the doer, I am only the observer."

When this thought takes root within you, you will notice all your tensions disappearing. All tensions belong to the doer, the ego As soon as you begin to contact the observer in you, all tensions vanish.

If this happens even for a moment you will catch a brief glimpse. The waves of the ocean will start dancing within. Again and again you will lose it. This is only natural, for you have cultivated unconsciousness over many births. It will take time to overcome this unconsciousness. You have to be persistent and courageous. You have to keep on pouring the oil of the fourth state into your wakeful state - say about twenty times during the day.

While walking along the road, stop! Become the observer: realize that it is the body walking and you are merely an observer. While eating, stop! Become the observer. The body eats. You are merely observing. While attending to the customers in your shop, stop! Become the observer. Do not get so engrossed as to forget the observer. Take hold of yourself time and again. It will require a continuous effort. You will find, by and by, that the effort becomes easier day by day; now and again you will get flashes of turiya.

When turiya comes easily in the daytime you can gradually utilize it in your dreams. Then when you are about to fall asleep let the last thought in your mind be: "I am the observer". As sleep overcomes you let this thought reverberate in your mind: "I am the witness, I am the witness..." And thus you fall asleep. You will not be able to catch the moment when sleep comes and the repetition stops.

If you cultivate the feeling till you fall asleep the feeling will continue into sleep, for it is only the body that sleeps. As you cultivate this feeling more and more, one night you will suddenly become conscious of the observer in your sleep. And as soon as you become aware of the observer a rare thing happens - dreams vanish. Dreams occur only because of your unconsciousness.

When this even takes place in your dreams, the third happening becomes possible. Continue the repetition: "I am the witness... I am the witness...": into your sleep. The day this stream of awareness enters your sleep the key to the supreme treasure falls into your hands. Now nothing and nobody can make you unaware, unconscious. He who awakens even for a moment in his sleep, his unawareness is gone forever.

The day you awaken in your sleep you become a yogi. You cannot become a yogi by performing asanas. These are merely exercises. They are good and useful to keep the body healthy, but if you take them to be the true yoga then you are deluded. Yoga means: the art of awakening in sleep.

Thus he who awakens is a yogi.

This sutra tells you to bring the fourth state to the first three states, and then this occurrence is bound to take place one day. When you awaken even in sleep you will become fixed in the fourth state.

When a person is established in the fourth state he becomes like a flame that burns unflickering, as if there is no breeze. Such will be your wisdom, such your knowledge; such will be your soul, non-flickering, filled with light. Then everything in you will be transformed.

The first thing is: for the one who becomes awakened in his sleep, dreams end forever. He who reaches Buddhahood never dreams. In the beginning when you awaken in your dream that dream will break, but other dreams will continue; but if you awaken in a deep sleep where there are no dreams then you will never dream again. This happens because all dreams occur in a desire-ridden mind.

What is a dream? If you have a desire which remains unfulfilled during the day, you fulfill it during the night. Everybody cannot be a king: there is a lot of struggle and competition, so the beggar gratifies his desires by dreaming of becoming a king. The balance is maintained: the one who is king in the day is not conscious of his kingdom in his sleep; the beggar begs all day and dreams he is a king when he sleeps.

It happened once: Aurangzeb was very angry with a fakir. He sent for him one morning with the idea of punishing him. People had told Aurangzeb that it was impossible to displease this man. He said, "We shall see." It was a cold night, a cold Delhi night. He had the fakir stand naked all night in the river Jamuna, while all night there warmth and merriment in the palace.

The fakir spent the night standing in the cold river. In the morning Aurangzeb sent for him and asked, "How as it with you last night?

The fakir replied, "It was the same for me as it was for you, and at times it was better."

"I don't follow you," said Aurangzeb.

"I kept dreaming," said the fakir, "that I was king. I sat in a brilliantly lit palace and there was merrymaking all around. I took as much pleasure from my palace and my revelry as you did from yours, so my night was sometimes like yours. And when I was filled with awareness then my dream broke. You still do not know what awareness is like."

You complete at night what is half-finished during the day. You cannot fulfill all your desires in the daytime; there are difficulties. Besides, it is not easy to gratify desires for they are really unfulfillable.

There is no way to fulfill desires; in fact, it is the very nature of desire that it can never be fulfilled.

Even if you attain all the wealth in the world your desires will not be satisfied.

It is said: Diogenes told Alexander the Great, "The day you conquer the whole world you will really find yourself in great trouble. Forget about this whole business. As it stands you are facing great trouble. After you have conquered the world you will find yourself in even greater difficulty."

It is said that Alexander became sad and replied, "Please, don't talk like this, for the very thought of having conquered the whole world makes me sad. Once the world is conquered what shall I do?

There is no other world to conquer. My mind will torment me no end, for it is never satisfied."

Kings dream and so do beggars; each completes what was left undone during the day. Dreams are kind to you; that is one of their qualities. If you are misled into observing austerities and fasts by some sadhu or sannyasin, and if you have almost died of hunger during the day, in the night when you dream you will find yourself a guest at a banquet. You will eat food that is tasty beyond description. Dreams are infinitely kinder than your sadhus and sannyasins. And there is no difference between the taste of the actual food and the dream food; possibly dream food is tastier! If you have been unsuccessful in your running after women then in your dreams you will find yourself attracting women as beautiful as your mind can possible imagine.

Dreams open the door to the fulfillment of all your desires. If a man lives for sixty years he spends twenty years in sleep, twenty at work and another twenty awake in other pursuits. Now if a man remains a king for twenty years in his actual life and another is a king for twenty years in his dreams, what is the difference? The sum total is the same. Besides, he who is emperor during the day has a thousand-and-one worries on his mind, but the dream king has all the leisure to enjoy his status.

Dreams are lost only when a man awakens in sleep. Then dreams become meaningless, for he who awakens in sleep has no desire left in him. All desires are part of unconsciousness.

Once Mulla Nasruddin got off a train looking very sick and unable to walk straight. "Are you ill?" a friend asked.

Nasruddin replied, "Whenever I travel and sit facing backward I feel sick and dizzy."

The friend said, "You should have asked the man sitting opposite you to change seats with you, Mulla."

"I wanted to do that," said the Mulla, "only there was no one in the opposite seat."

You go through life in exactly the same way, as if you are dead drunk or completely drugged. You will have to break this addiction. Where will you start? You will begin with the waking state. When you awaken in the morning make a resolution: Today I shall practice the witnessing attitude. Early in the morning when you first awaken your mind is very light and fresh, there are no dreams, no thoughts.

After a full night's rest there is a dawn within just as there is a dawn without. There are no tensions, no clouds. You are light and free. Soon the world will claim you and then the difficulties will begin.

As soon as your sleep is interrupted, don't be in a hurry to open your eyes. At that moment the mind is very sensitive. As soon as you awaken remember your resolve, "I am the witness." Lie still for five Lie still for five minutes and meditate on this. Don't open your eyes, for once the eyes are open there is the world in front of you, and you lost yourself in it. Keep your eyes closed and cultivate the feeling: "I am not the doer, I am the witness." Let this witnessing practice be with me throughout the day. Let me remember to practice it all day long."

Now get up, immersed completely in this feeling and try to maintain the feeling for a while. In the beginning you will find it easy. Get up and sit up in bed, then put your feet down. Be fully aware.

Take a bath; bathe with consciousness. Eat your breakfast; be fully aware as you eat it.

To be fully aware means to be fully conscious of the fact that all actions are happening outside. They are the needs of the body, not your needs. You have no needs, and indeed there are none, for you yourself are God. What could you need? You are complete, perfect. You are Brahma. Everything is yours. The soul has no requirements, it needs no fuel. The flame burns without wick and without oil. So you say, "I have no needs. All needs are of the body - to bathe, to eat, to work, to move."

Try to maintain this attitude. Keep this thread of the witness for as long as you can. Soon it will be lost in the hustle and bustle of the day. Your habits are so very old and deeply ingrained. Keep at it and water it each day, and the sapling will sprout and grow. At first it will not be apparent, for the growth will be slow, very slow; but soon you will find a thin ribbon of light shining perpetually within you. This ray of light will make an alchemical change in your life. Your anger will abate, for how can a witness be angry? Attachments will become less and less, for how can a witness have attachments?

Happenings will take place. There will be successes and defeats, there will be sorrows, there will be joys, but you will be less affected by them, for how can the witness be affected? Joy will come and you will witness it, sorrow will come and you will witness it, while a continuous stream flows within:

"I am the witness, not the one who is enjoying all this."

No one will be able to tell how long it will take you. Everything depends on the sincerity of your purpose, the intensity of your desire, your speed of progress - whether you crawl like an ant or run like a deer. People walk in the realm of religion a slowly as if they are walking in a marriage procession. This way you will reach nowhere. The marriage procession has nowhere to go; it just circles around the town and comes back to the same place.

There was a man called Aesop. His moral fables are still the best the world has ever known. He was a man of great wisdom. One day Aesop was sitting at the side of the road when a man came up to him and said, "Could you tell me, sir, how far away is the village, and how long it will take me to reach there?" Aesop said nothing. He got up and walked alongside the man. The man was embarrassed and also a little frightened by this strange behavior. He asked Aesop not to trouble himself, all he wanted to know was the distance, and then he would be on his way.

Aesop said nothing but continued to walk with the man. After some fifteen minutes he stopped and said, "It will take you two hours to reach the village."

"You could have told me that at the beginning!" the man exclaimed. "There was no need to walk a mile with me."

Aesop replied, "How could I estimate the time before I knew your walking speed? The distance isn't decided by the length but by the speed of the walker. Now I can tell you definitely that it will take you two hours to reach the village."

Everything depends on your speed. You can run and you will arrive sooner. You can waddle along, and then we cannot say when you will arrive. Your speed can be such that in one moment you can take the jump. You can also move in a half-hearted, lukewarm manner; then it will take you infinite births to reach. If you stake all your being without holding back any part of yourself, if you put in all your effort with the utmost intensity of your life form, you can reach here and now. For this is no external journey; it is an inner journey. You have only to turn inside from wherever you are. If you postpone for tomorrow or the day after, or the day after that... well, that is what you have been doing for infinite lives!

Remember, nature is not interested in your religious attainments. Nature leads only as far as man has already reached. If you wish to go beyond that only your own effort will take you. Nature can at best make you an animal, and no further. Humanity has to be acquired. This is why man is in peril - he lives in great danger.

All animals are tranquil, except man. They accept what nature gives; they have no goals. You cannot get a dog stirred up by telling him that he is less of a dog than another. Whatever the breed, whatever the form, the essential feeling of being a dog is the same in all dogs. This is not so with man; there is a grat deal of difference between one man and another man. A thin scrawny man can become a great man, a strong hulking person may be very ordinary.

A new quality begins with man. What is this quality? The more conscious a person is, the more human a person is. The day a person is filled with complete awareness, he becomes divine. But there is great risk involved, for he who can reach to the heights can also fall to the depths. He who does not rise cannot fall; therefore, we find no Buddhas and Krishnas among the animals, but you will also not find a Hitler, a Genghis Khan or a Stalin. The valleys are always at the foot of the peaks.

There is a zoo in Tokyo where there are animals from all over the world. There are lions and tigers, leopards and hippopotamuses, snakes and birds, deer and elephants, etcetera. After going around the zoo, when you come to the very last cage you find a sign which says: "The Most Dangerous Animal in the World". You are very eager to see what it is. You step closer to have a good look.

There inside is only a mirror... and you are reflected in it!

Man is indeed the most dangerous of all the animals. He has the potential to become divine, so it is possible for him to fall also. If you cannot rise you will not be able to stay where you are: you will fall. There is no place to stop in this world; therefore, if you don't move toward consciousness you will gradually slip into unconsciousness.

It is a matter of wonder and also shame that small children are more conscious than adults. What makes them so? After a whole lifetime of experience an old man should become more aware, more alert; but alas, he only becomes more cunning. With all his experience he becomes more dishonest, he becomes an expert thief.

An old crow was advising his young son, "Look, son, I am telling you from experience, beware of man! You can never trust him. If you see a man bending over fly away, for he is sure to be picking up a stone."

The son asked, "What if he already has a stone hidden in his armpit?"

The old crow flew away as fast as he could. This son of his seemed even ore dangerous than man!

It is unwise to stay around him.

With experience old men become more cunning and clever without becoming more aware, but what will they gain by their cunning? There is nothing in the world that can be lost by innocence and nothing to be gained by cunning and cleverness. Whatever we build here is no more than a sand castle. If you build one it is bound to break; if you don't you lose nothing.

Children are more conscious. Look into a child's eyes. They are full of awareness, they are more alert. We have to find ways to dim their awareness . We do not allow them to laugh out loud or cry aloud; we do not allow them to run and skip as they please. We restrict their life energy in every direction. We teach them to be dishonest as quickly as possible.

I asked Mulla Nasruddin's son, "How old are you?"

"Seven years at home, five in the bus," the boy replied. The father has given him a good start on the path to dishonesty.

Once I was guest in a household. One evening the hostess was putting her child to bed in the room next to mine. As she put him to sleep I heard her telling him, "Go to sleep now. If you need anything during the night, call out to me; your father will come running."

All mothers do this, but what is it that the child is being initiated into? Lying, deceit, trickery! We feed poison along with the milk. Our effort is never directed toward the child becoming more alert and more conscious. If ever the right culture is born on this earth the first thing that will be taught to the child is to become more aware, more conscious. The fourth state is the only thing worth teaching; all else is useless. All else merely helps you carry on your day-to-day life.

The child is fresh, just as you are a little fresh in the morning. He is still in the morning of his life. If he is taught the art of the fourth state from this very moment on and he learns the art of awakening while he is still fresh, he will reach the peak by the time he becomes an old man. He will reach buddhahood.

There is only one thing that needs to be practiced, and that is: to water the first three states with the fourth state, with consciousness, with discrimination, with alertness, with wakefulness.

SO BATHED HE ENTERS INTO THE STATE OF SELF-AWARENESS.

In this state a person invariably slips into self-awareness, and once a person knows the light of the fourth state he finds there is no joy equal to it. The intoxication of wine is so short-lived, while the intoxication of the fourth state never fades. It is an eternal stream. And he who is filled with the delight of the fourth state, who dances and rejoices in it; he who is filled n every pore with the fourth state, whose very manner of being has become awareness; he in whom it is the fourth state that sits and stands and moves about; he whose every atom is bathed in the fourth state, enters into self-awareness. Otherwise, you shall remain unacquainted with your self. You may know the whole world but you will be a stranger to your self.

You can say a great deal about others - their names, addresses, vocations, their lives - but about yourself, you know nothing. Until such time as you know yourself all your knowledge is not worth a penny, for it is all based on ignorance.

If you feed the oil of the fourth state continually to the other three states, then you will find the fourth state manifesting in your life.

The way Buddha sits, stands or walks is unique. There is a wakefulness when he gets up and when he walks. Whatever comes out of him does not arise out of unconsciousness. He is fully conscious; whatever happens through him is filled with awareness.

Whatever you have done so far has been done in a state of unconsciousness. You say you did a certain thing knowingly - that is not true. Your child comes home from school with a torn shirt and broken slate. You scold him and you beat him. You say you have done it knowingly, and all for the child's own good. A little genuine introspection. Did you really act consciously? Or did something happen to you at the sight of the torn shirt and broken slate? You became angry with the child and vented your anger on him. You were angry that he disobeyed you. If you were in a state of anger all your actions followed in unconsciousness, for anger is a state of non-awareness. Everything you say serves only to justify your actions.

Mulla Nasruddin beat his son. "This is all for your own good," he told him. "A child like you has to be beaten at least twice a day to keep him straight. Now look at me. My father never beat me when I was a child!"

"Your father must have been a good man!" said the Mulla's son.

You beat the child and think you are doing him a favor. The child thinks differently, for his attention is focused on your anger and not on your beating. No amount of rationalization can prove that you are right.

Only yesterday a man came to me with his wife. The wife does not allow him to meditate; she does not think that this is the right way to meditate. She is very traditional, but this is only superficial.

Deep down in the unconscious the reason is very, very different. No wife wants her husband to meditate, no husband likes his wife to meditate; as soon as a person begins to meditate all the old relationships are in danger. As soon as a person begins to meditate his sex desire begins to get less and less. This is the unconscious reason; all other reasons are excuses. A wife would rather her husband went to a brothel than meditate, for when he goes to a brothel he is still not entirely anti-wife; he is still interested in women. But meditation means that his interest in women will soon be lost.

So if a woman has to choose between his going to a brothel and his taking sannyas she will choose a brothel for her husband. She also worries that if her husband loses himself in meditation something will happen to the family. The fact is: meditation disrupts neither family nor business. In fact, a man who meditates carries out his work more efficiently than before, for meditation breaks your connection with the world that you carry within yourself, not with the world outside. The outside play remains the same. A new light is lit. Now you know that it is a play. A new light is born within, while life outside goes on as usual.

There is definitely trouble between husband and wife, thought; however much they may claim and even believe the reason to be different, the basic cause is the sex relationship. Sex relations begin to cool when one enters meditation, and as meditation progresses, sex gradually fades.

Everyday I have husbands complaining, "My wife was never interested in sex, but since the day I began to meditate she has become aggressive sexually!" Normally wives are not eager for sex, for they are confident of their husbands. In fact, they pretend to be doing their husbands a favor.

They make a show of their virtue and piety, but once the husband becomes interested in meditation they are furious. Now it is necessary to draw the husband back into his body. It is the same with husbands when their wives become interested in meditation.

One such lady began to meditate. She is genuinely interested, and there could have been profound results if she went deeper into it, but her husband burns my books and throws them out of the house.

He says that she has no need for advice from any outside person as long as he is there! He says he can provide any answers she needs, and the wife knows very well what his answers will be! The husband's ego is hurt. The husband cannot bear to think that another man is occupying first place in his wife's heart. This is a blow that he cannot bear, but he does not speak openly of this.

Whatever you do, whatever you say, is not totally authentic; the reason is different, deep down inside.

The meditator has to ferret out the reasons deep within himself. He has to catch hold of the root cause, for the root cause can be changed. If you consider the reason to be something other than the root cause, no change can be made. As you become aware of life, you will begin to see the root cause to all your actions and reactions. Then you will realize that you are not angry with the child because he made a mistake, but because you get pleasure out of being angry. The mistake was only a excuse.

The boss fires you from the job. You would have loved to retaliate, but that was not possible. You come home and want to take out your anger on somebody - on anybody. The wife is there and you could take it out on her, but that is not a very good bargain, for she will make an issue out of it for days, so the child becomes the target. He is a child. He is bound to tear his shirts. He is bound to tear his books. After all, he is not an old man. He bound to play with the wrong types of boys, for except for your son all boys are the "wrong type".

Once I asked a small boy, "Tell me, son, are you a good boy? Everyone says that you are."

The child replied, "If I had to tell the truth, I am just the kind of child that I am not allowed to play with."

All children except yours are "bad", so this child must have played with some of those wrong children and torn his clothes as well as his books. He may even have hurt himself. You will grab hold of him.

He is not very strong. You will take out your anger on him, but you will insist that you are correcting and guiding him.

Only if and when you begin to become aware, will you begin to recognize the real reason. When once the real cause is known it is not very difficult to drop it. In fact, it is not difficult at all. When you see the kind of life that you have built around yourself you will laugh. You will see that you had become such a phony, and with this phoniness you wanted to reach truth. You wanted to reach God? Impossible!

To me sannyas means to know the web of deception you have woven within yourself and to eradicate it and live authentically and realistically. Whatever you are, if you are bad, be bad; if you are ill- tempered, know it! Don't cover your defects with a gold coating. If you try to cover your wounds with flowers they will get worse. Just say, "This is how I am" - whether good or bad. Offer no rationalization or excuse why you are like that. Do not seek good reasons for evil deeds, for then the evil cannot be eradicated.

When you are angry you always justify your anger by finding some cause; then how will the anger go away? This way you feed your anger and make it look good. You have decorated your prison with flowers so that it looks like home. Now you are satisfied. You look upon illness as health, then how can you ever get rid of it?

As a man begins to awaken he begins to realize that his wakefulness is false, that his dreams are the outcome of a twisted mind, that his very sleep is filled with restlessness. In all three states there is a restlessness, an uneasiness, a feeling of being harassed. As his perception sharpens he is able to recognize the lies he has been carrying and drop them. More light penetrates and his consciousness grows in strength and intensity.

The state you are in at present is something like this.

One night there was an earthquake. There was thunder and lightning and the house shook. The wife awakened her husband who had remained fast asleep. She said, "Wake up, it's an earthquake.

I think the house is going to fall down."

"Don't worry," said the husband. "Go back to sleep. It isn't our house, we have only rented it."

You don't understand that even if the house is not yours, when it falls it is you who will die. The pseudo-truths you have built around yourself may not necessarily be your own creation, for some you have learned from the gurus, some you have picked up from the scriptures, and others you have gotten from your religion; but when they fall it is you who will be the loser. It is you who will die.

You have surrounded yourself with lies that seem useful; they help you to keep up a good front so you always appear poised and charming. Inside there is suffering and pain, but there is always a smile on your face. The suffering is authentic, the smile is false. It is better that you cry. Let the tears fall and wash the paint off your face. Let your genuine face be laid bare, for only the authentic and genuine lead to the truth.

As you wash your consciousness with wakefulness all the paint runs off; this is what is known as sannyas. As you become more and more authentic with yourself, you will find it is not so hard to be rid of your troubles. A genuine illness is curable, a pseudo-illness can never be cured.

Suppose you have a cancer but are too frightened to accept the fact. Instead you insist that you are suffering from a chronic cold and keep on treating yourself for the cold. How is this going to cure your cancer? How long will you be able to fool yourself?

Gurdjieff would always tell his disciples that it is imperative for a seeker to know at the very outset what his trouble really is. All seekers try to hid them. The one who hides the real disease cannot be diagnosed, and until that time you keep on trying to cure the pseudo-disease. You die during the cure because that was not the real disease.

People come to me and say that they are seeking God, that they are seeking their soul. Their faces give no indication of their search. Their search is misnamed; they seek something very different under the cover of God and soul.

A friend approached me - he was an old man - and said he has been seeking God for the last thirty years. "That is a long time!" I exclaimed. "You should have found him by now. It seems that God is avoiding you. If that is so, then even thirty births will not be sufficient. Or it could be that you are not seeking in the right direction, you have not taken the path to his house. Either he is avoiding you or you are avoiding him. Tell me exactly what it is that you seek."

"I told you. I am seeking God," he said. "I do my practices and my meditation regularly, but I have no results to show."

"What results are you trying to achieve?" I asked.

"I want to attain some occult powers."

Now this man is not seeking God; he is seeking power in the name of God. It is not only in the bazaar that we find one name on the label and something quite different inside the package. It happens in the temples too.

A husband was looking for salt in the kitchen. When his wife thought it was taking him too long she called out, "What has happened? Can't you find the salt?"

"No, I can't."

"It's right in front of your eyes in the tin labeled 'Tumeric'," she said.

Such is all seeking. You are not sure what you are seeking, nor why. As the water of wakefulness comes into your life, your life will gain a direction. The useless will fall away and only the useful will remain. The day that only the meaningful is left, the goal is not far off.

As your delight in the fourth state increases, as this intoxication spreads into your life... but the intoxication is something totally different. We have to use words to describe it; hence we call it intoxication, but it is not the intoxication of a drunkard - just the opposite! When a man is drunk he staggers and lurches about without direction; he loses contact with his senses, he cannot see what he is doing and he commits all kinds of excesses. In the intoxication of turiya it is just the opposite.

Here you don't stagger! Your feet are firmly placed. Here he is filled with self-remembering. He is in total command of his senses. In the intoxication of the drunkard he can commit all sort of mistakes and go astray! In the intoxication of turiya it is impossible for a person to do wrong.

Akbar set out one day on his elephant to take a ride around his capital. As he was passing through the streets, a man standing on a roof began abusing him. He was immediately caught and brought before Akbar the next morning.

Akbar asked the man, "What made you behave so badly last night, you fool?"

"Your majesty, I was drunk. I was not there. It was the wine that abused you, not me! I was so repentant when I came to my senses. I pray you to forgive me, for I was not there at all!"

Akbar understood, for he himself was in search of the fourth state. He was a wise king. He realized that it was useless punishing a man who was not in his right senses. It is true that he had behaved badly, but if he had got anything right in that state it would have been a miracle.

When you do something right it is a miracle; you always do the wrong thing. That is only natural, for you are not conscious. Gurdjieff would say, "God will not punish you for your sins for they were committed in unconsciousness." Even a court of law forgives a man who is not in his right senses. If a man commits murder under the influence of drink he is let off with a lighter sentence. God will not punish you for your sins. He is at least as wise as the courts.

Your sins were committed in unconsciousness, your good deeds also! Therefore there is hardly any difference between your good deeds and your bad deeds; the quality is the same. Whether you are a householder or a sannyasin is all the same, for you are unconscious. You are unconscious in your shop; you are unconscious in your temple; you are unconscious in your office; you are unconscious in your monastery. There is no difference if you put on your clothes or discard them; you are still unconscious. The real question is of breaking this unawareness, not of changing your mode of action, for that is very easy. If you are unconscious in one form of action, you are bound to be unconscious in another form of action also.

SO BATHED, HE ENTERS INTO THE STATE OF SELF-AWARENESS.

HE WHO EXPERIENCES THE DIVINE ENERGY PERVADING ALL THINGS, VIEWS ALL THINGS AS EQUAL.

As soon as a person enters into self-awareness he experiences prana, the life force, for the first time.

Through this experience he sees how everything around him is permeated with the emanations of the divine energy; he attains dispassion and equality of vision. And as soon as a person knows his own self, he immediately comes to know that the same flame burns in every one of us.

As long as you have not seen and experienced your own self, the other will always remain alien to you. For as long as you have not recognized your own self, the other will remain the enemy. As soon as you witness your own self, you will see the light of the flame within the clay walls of everyone; you will attain equality of vision. Then there is neither friend nor foe. No one is your own, no one is a stranger. Then it is actually you who permeates everyone; then there is only one.

In this sutra Shiva says that now you receive tidings that there is one life force everywhere. All lamps carry the same flame. All drops contain the same ocean. The lamps are different. Some are fair, some dark, some brown, some yellow; the forms are different and the names are different, but the flame within has no form and no name. He who has known his own self, knows his own self in others.

In the very first occurrence of the fourth state you know your own state, but simultaneously the second even takes place - you know God. You become aware of the soul on one hand, and God, the supreme soul, stands revealed on the other.

Do not seek God directly, for then He will only be a figment of your imagination and no more. You can imagine Krishna playing the flute, but this will not reveal God to you, for this is no more than a dream. It is a pleasant dream but a dream all the same; it does not differ from any other dream.

The mind imagines. You can imagine you are having a vision of Mahavir or Buddha or Rama. Many people do. All they are doing is dreaming. They are religious dreams, but all dreams are dreams just the same.

There is no way to seek God directly, for you yourself are the gate. Unless and until you pass through this gate, his gate will remain closed to you. The soul is the door to God. Here you know your self and here God stands revealed. Then you see him and him alone everywhere - in trees and stones, in rocks and streams. It is he and he alone. Somewhere he is asleep, somewhere he is awake, somewhere he is dreaming, but it is he, and he alone!

This experience of the one, Shiva refers to as "EXPERIENCING THE DIVINE ENERGY". This is his greatest revelation. But it is only attained by him who knows his own self.

HE WHO EXPERIENCES THE DIVINE ENERGY PERVADING ALL THINGS, VIEWS ALL THINGS AS EQUAL, AND HE ATTAINS TO SHIVAHOOD.

When a person sees all things as equal he becomes like Shiva. Then he becomes God himself.

You are the "I" as long as you do not know your self. This seems very contradictory. You cry out "I...

I..I" as long as you do not know yourself. The day you know, the "I" falls, the "you" also falls, and you become like Shiva. You become God himself. That day the music of aham brahmasmi - I am God, will arise spontaneously within you. Then you will not be repeating "Aham brahmasmi"; you will know! You will not have to understand it, it will become your very existence, your very experience.

All around you the air will vibrate with this music, the music of the one. As the drop loses itself and becomes one with the ocean, so all boundaries fall and you become boundless - you reach Shivahood.

Shiva's efforts, and all those who have attained buddhahood, are directed towards you becoming just like them. What they have known, the supreme bliss, should be your treasure also, for it is your possession also. You are still a seed; they have flowered into trees. These trees keep calling, "Become trees! Do not remain seeds!" You will never attain peace until you reach Shivahood, for man cannot be contented with less; his soul will not be fulfilled. The thirst will continue no matter how much you try to quench it with the waters of the world. It will only be quenched when you drink from God's vessel. Then the thirst is quenched forever; all desires, all ambitions, all hurry and scurry, all striving and struggling end, for you will then have become that which is the highest, the supreme.

There is nothing higher.

Keep pouring the oil of the fourth state into the three states, so that you are so filled with delight that you enter into self-awareness, so that you get tidings of the life force, so that you may know that it is the one that resides in all, so that you attain the vision of equality, so that you become like Shiva himself.