Maharishi's Address
on the Seven States of Consciousness

28 November 2007

Highlights

In his address to the first World Congress of Rajas of the Global Country of World Peace, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Maharishi began by describing by the innumerable values of language, which when completely unified, do not show variations. He also explained the seven states of consciousness—waking, sleeping, dreaming, Transcendental Consciousness, and then Cosmic Consciousness, God Consciousness, and Brahman or Unity Consciousness—in terms of language.

Maharishi: ‘When we have a connectedness, there is no two to come from one to two. It’s already—one is there, two is there, infinite numbers of varieties are there. That is living unity. That is living Brahm. That is living free from mistakes. And when one is free from mistakes, joy is there, bliss is there—life is bliss. . . .

‘Each consciousness has its own structure, has its own meaning, has its own language, so to say.

‘Language of the Brahman state of consciousness is the language of Totality. That is Veda. That is flow of Atma. That is Smriti [memory]. That is Shruti [that which is heard on the level of cognition in Transcendental Consciousness]. These different languages of waking, dreaming, sleeping, this, this, this, they cover the whole variety and each of the variety is an aspect of Unity.

‘So when we want to give the knowledge of total reality, then this is what we bring to the student, the basic seven states of consciousness. Then we put them to experience seven states of consciousness. Three they are already experiencing—sometime waking, dreaming, sleeping. That they don't have to practise. The fourth [Transcendental Consciousness], they have to let come without effort, just as waking to dreaming comes without effort. It's a different thing, but one doesn't take an effort for that. Just one relaxes, and it comes. And then, one relaxes, and comes the deep sleep. So by relaxing, one comes to all these four states of consciousness.

‘Relaxing more, one comes to five [Cosmic Consciousness]; relaxing more, one comes to six [God Consciousness]; relaxing more, completely no effort—Brahman Consciousness [the seventh state of consciousness—Unity].

‘In Brahman Consciousness we find all the Devatas. They are full of memory [of the Laws of Nature], and wherever there is memory, there is movement. Wherever there is movement, there is sound. So from memory, from Smriti, comes Shruti—comes the Veda.

‘This is the way of effortlessly experiencing from one to the other, seven states of consciousness. And once they have come to the seventh state of consciousness, the world of the seventh state of consciousness is the total world. Seventh state of consciousness—from there springs variety, on the basis of coming back to Smriti [memory of the Self, Totality], and Shruti. “Shruti” means that which is heard, which is the Veda, and that which is heard is a solid flowing. That we understand to be a language.

‘And then we understand waking, dreaming, sleeping in terms of language, language, language. And if we can gather our awareness together in a unity state, that is the Brahman state, then in a most relaxed manner, in the most natural way, we stand in a field of all possibilities. That is why we practise. What we are practising? Relaxing, relaxing, relaxing.*

‘Where do different languages come? But they come and go because we are practising relaxing. There is no intellectual thing that one has to understand the language and understand what it means. There is sound. What the sound is? Nothing. It is relaxing. And relaxing means state of Unity. And unity of what? Innumerable, uncountable variety. So, innumerable, uncountable variety become like the drops of water and all the drops become ocean.

‘So our effort [is] to have most natural, most relaxed, all encompassing, all unifying, all action put together—Brahman Consciousness. This is our world, and we talk in terms of language. From beginning to end, innumerable values of language. And if we say who speaks this language? The Totality. A line, one line, and what makes a line? A point. So a point is total Brahm. Either we call it a substance, call it a language, call it a state of life, whatever, but that is Totality, and that's how Yoga has become a subject of study.

‘When Yoga has become a subject of study, then what are the ingredients which have to be put together? They become the subject of study. So, variety becomes the subject of study. So the whole structure of consciousness is totally presenting itself in the Brahman state of consciousness, which is a field of all possibility. We want to have our awareness in that field of all possibilities, all possibilities, Because we want to do everything like that, like that
.
‘And then in that state we will do everything without doing anything. We are in that state where our awareness is totally competent on a level of all possibilities. That is how we are juggling around on this sensory perception. Mental level, intellectual level, ego level, cosmic level, and now we have the Totality open to us in terms of Atma, in terms of Brahm, in terms of Veda. These are the words that are very close to all possibilities.’

*Transcendental Meditation is practising relaxing, relaxing, relaxing.