Turiya Or The Fourth State

Anecdotes

oi-Staff

By Staff

Friday, January 30, 2009, 2:42

A hunter was pursuing a deer to claim it with his arrows. The frightened deer took refuge in a bush in front of which a sage sat still in silence. However his eyes were open which prompted the hunter to enquire about the deer's hideout. The ascetic when questioned remarked that he had not seen it.

The hunter found it strange as to how the sage could miss out the deer when his eyes were opened. He thus voiced out his doubt. The sage answered that he was in a forest where prevailed universal equality. He said people like him were free of 'ahankara' or the ego. The 'ahankara' is the mind that clings to the name and form and thereby recoganises the other forms.

It is that which instigates the sense organs to work. The mind has disappeared long before in the cases of the sages. They have transcended the three states of 'waking,' 'dream,' and 'deep sleep' and they dwell in the fourth state of pure consciousness or 'Turiya'. He explained further that in the state of 'Turiya', nothing can be seen or sensed as they are beyond the orbit of name and form.

The hunter who belonged to the gross level of name and form could not comprehend the wisdom of the sage. He thus left the place thinking the words of the ascetic to be of a mad man's.

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