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BRAHMANISM
ferior to the motionless, changeless serenity of the Self abiding with Itself-the deep-sca calin that is not to be stirred by any breeze of thought or feeling.
“Where is dream (stapna), where dreamless sleep (suşupti), or where the waking state (jāgaraņa), and where is the “Fourth" (turiya); where even is fear for me who abide in my own glorious greatness?" 201
The analysis and experience of the "four states of consciousness"-waking, dream, dreamless sleep, and the “Fourth”formed the main line, the backbone, of the experimental psychology and self-analysis of the period of the Upanişads. Outlining the way of introspective yoga-practice, "the path of knowlcdge” (jñāna-mārga), which had superseded the carlier Vedic way of magic ritualism (karma-marga), the doctrine of the Four States served as a kind of stairway by which the phenomenal ego and its horizon of deluding illusionary experiences was to be transcended, and the personality dissolved, But the moment the goal is attained, the stairway, the instrument, the vehicle, becomes meaningless and is dispensable, nay it is actually nonexistent.206 There is no fear that these states, or any one of them, should ever again lay a spell over the one who knows.
"Where is far, where near, where outside, where inside, and where is there anything gross (sthula), where is there anything subtle (sūkṣma)—for me who abide in my own glorious greatness?" 206
The horizon of sensual experience (sthūla) and the domain of inner spiritual event (sūkṣma) have both been surpassed. The perfected saint feels himself possessed of an illimited, far-reaching, all-pervading insight, which amounts actually to a faculty of
204 1b. 19. 5.
208 Compare the Buddhist experience of the unreality of the "raft" or "boat" of the doctrine for the Enlightened One who has disembarked on the "Other Shore of Transcendental Wisdom" (infra, pp. 477-478).
206 Astāvakra Samhita 19. 6.
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