It is said that when you are in the waking state (jāgrat), you are identified with the world; in the dream state (svapna), you are identified with the dream; and in deep sleep (suṣupti) you are still identified with some kind of primitive darkness. But, it is not as if that you have gone beyond identification. Turīya is the state that is present behind the drama of waking, sleeping and dreaming. Turīya, the witness state, is not ‘yours;’ it witnesses you, it is outside of you. So, your birth and death do not touch it.
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Question: Sir, there is one statement here, ‘Sushupti does exists in your waking state’. Normally, in deep sleep, we don’t know we are there.
Acharya Prashant: When Maharishi is saying that Sushupti exists in your waking state also, he is using Sushupti to refer to Turiya. Classically, Sushupti is just another state of consciousness, so you have Jagrati (waking state), Swapna (dreaming state) and Sushupti (deep sleep). Maharishi is defining Sushupti as the state in which the ego identification is totally lost, that state really is not Sushupti, that is Turiya. In Sushupti, as is the word commonly and classically used, in Sushupti, there does remain a seed like remnant identification with the person, the body.
