Shiva Sutras 1.7-1.11

Achieving the Bhairava state of consciousness in an instantaneous “flashing forth” is experienced only by those heroic souls who apply great intensity to their return Home.

There is an old tale about a seeker who wanted to become enlightened and thus approached a spiritual master. The master was standing by a river, and smiling told the man to get into the water. Then the master pushed the man’s head down under the water and with great strength held him there until it seemed he would drown. Released at last, the man emerged gasping for breath. The master said to him: “When you want enlightenment as badly as you wanted to breathe, then come back to me and I will teach you.”

This story exemplifies the kind of dedicated focus we need to overwhelm the innumerable obstacles that conceal our real nature. As the One, we have created many illusory Veils, layers of coverings intentionally designed to make us forget our inherent fullness of being. The Sanskrit word brahman means to expand, fullness, broad.

Illusory imagined empty and incomplete feelings compel us to search for what we wrongly believe we lack, and thrust us off on our journey in Space/Time. It is all our own “play” [SLJ].

Swami Lakshmanjoo makes the adamantine point that to reach this flashing forth, the aspirant must “possess active, not passive, power of meditation. …Passive meditation…is only a waste of time.” Enlightenment is for active spiritual warriors. You must want this more than anything.

The hero yogi who experiences Universal Consciousness finds that there is “an ever present reality” [Jaideva Singh] behind the three normal states of consciousness, which are waking, sleeping, and deep sleep. This fourth state is called TURYA and it is always in the background as the pervading witness to the other three — although most of us are never aware of this turya state.

Turya is the “all pervading oneness of God consciousness” [SLJ]. For the enlightened yogi such awareness remains regardless of whether they are awake, in dreaming state, or deep sleep. Turya is our real Self as witness.

The hero who achieves turya state becomes a purifying light shining in the world. He “wanders about in this world, with the rays of his knowledge, he purifies and fills it with supreme bliss right from hell to Shiva.” [from Candrajnana text]

Awareness of the all-pervading fourth turya state brings complete mastery of all three waking, dreaming, and deep sleep states. Being in turya permits you to observe the mechanics of the five senses operating in the hologram. Your individualized sense organs are the accumulative aggregate of many lifetimes, and yet are not you. You are not the body and its operative faculties. You are the One.

Bhagavad Gita 2.58 & 59: When he entirely withdraws his senses from their objects, as a tortoise withdraws its limbs into its shell, his wisdom insight stands firm. …The taste (rasa, flavor) for sense objects turns away from the man who has seen the supreme highest.

This fourth state places you in the awareness of these mechanistic automatic operations that make up the unconscious compulsions of most human beings. When you become the Witness to the dance of your data-collecting vehicle, non-attachment to this temporal illusory world becomes natural. You are no longer bound by your acts. You become the independent master, the player of the vehicle and not the “played” [SLJ].