The journey inward holds a distinguishable path to directly experience the pure awareness that is available inside every person. Different teachings propose paths and individuals interpret their experience of it through their own unique nervous system. By experiencing pure awareness available through the Transcendental Meditation technique, we unlock a reservoir of healing that is available in higher states of consciousness and benefit from the associated physiological improvements. This essay will explain higher states of consciousness as described by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and define the development, characteristics, and examples of seven distinct states.
Maharishi was a scholar and teacher devoted to learning the wisdom of integrated life that was advanced by the Vedic Rishis of ancient India. He later introduced the Transcendental Meditation technique to the world and described seven stages of consciousness. The first three are experienced routinely and automatically: waking, dreaming, and sleeping. The subsequent stages are Transcendental Consciousness, Cosmic Consciousness, God Consciousness, and Unity Consciousness.
The Transcendental Meditation technique offers clarity and processes to experience “pure consciousness”, or Being. Maharishi (2011) describes Being as, “Underneath the subtlest layer of all that exists in the relative field is the abstract, absolute field of pure Being, which is unmanifested and transcendental. It is neither matter nor energy. It is pure Being, the state of pure existence”, (Being, The Essential Constituent of Creation). Being may be directly experienced as the silent state of pure awareness that is available inside every person. “During this technique, the individual's awareness settles down and experiences a unique state of restful alertness; as the body becomes deeply relaxed, the mind transcends all mental activity to experience the simplest form of awareness—Transcendental Consciousness—where consciousness is open to itself.” (Maharishi, 1993, pp. 280-81). Transcendental Consciousness is the experience of silence while fully awake where the mind is alone in pure consciousness. Maharishi frequently compares the experience of this pure consciousness to the colorless sap found in a rose. On the outside, we observe the varying characteristics of the rose that have all been created by the same colorless sap. Like the sap, pure consciousness itself doesn’t display any qualities, yet contains all the qualities within it.
Researchers Fred Travis and Keith Wallace (1997) defined physiological markers of Transcendental Consciousness to include slow inhalation, heightened alpha 1 brain frontal coherence, elevated frontal blood flow, and skin conductance responses at the onset of breath changes are consistent physiological markers of the transcendental consciousness state (Travis & Wallace, 1997). During Transcendental Consciousness, the physiology is saturated with pure consciousness allowing the body to naturally heal by releasing stress from the nervous system. Directly experiencing Transcendental Consciousness and returning back to daily life repeatedly saturates the physiology with pure consciousness, allowing accumulated stress to release from the nervous system.
As Transcendental Consciousness is developed, it remains hidden in the silent field of awareness because the physiological functions are limited. As physiology becomes more purified, the expansive state of Transcendental Consciousness is felt during activity, outside of meditation bringing rise to the next state, Cosmic Consciousness. In Supreme Awakening, Pearson (2016) explains the rise of inner potential is acknowledged and achieved, because the silent field is no longer hidden (p. 183). Maharishi (2015) explains in the following excerpt:
“This is brought about by the mind gaining alternatively transcendental consciousness and the waking state of consciousness passing from one to the other. This gradual and systematic culture of the physical nervous system creates a physiological situation in which the two states of consciousness exist together simultaneously” (p. 314).
Maharishi (1967) explains that this is an experience of duality that includes two perspectives, one perspective is the silence of Transcendental Consciousness and the other perspective is the relative level of consciousness (p. 145). With regular meditation, the witness perspective that develops begins to experience life through these two states of awareness simultaneously yet is aware of each. Additionally, during Cosmic Consciousness, there is a decrease in attachment to objects without feeling detached or uninterested in life (p. 153). A sense of greater delight and deeper contentment exists that is pervasive even in the midst of diversity. There is less reliance on objects for satisfaction, while still being able to enjoy them without the limitations of attachment.
Maharishi (2011) explains that Cosmic Consciousness is the foundation for continued expansion and fulfillment in God Consciousness, “It is as if gaining cosmic consciousness is not actually attaining the ultimate fulfillment of life, but it is merely gaining the ability for acquiring real and ultimate fulfillment” (Fulfillment in Life). Preparing for the true fulfillment in life that naturally occurs by support in nature and feeling the natural increase in love and devotion for God, where “Being finds expression in the man's thought, speech and action” (Fulfillment in Life). In God Consciousness, the complete fulfillment of Cosmic Consciousness expresses in the outward expression of love growing, the five senses become more refined and one begins to appreciate the subtler values of the world. In Maharishi’s Yoga, Sands (2013) states that Maharishi refers to a celestial value in this state because objects of perception are “suffused with a kind of golden light” (p. 90). The continual spontaneous release of stress from the nervous system and increasing capacity for appreciation rise, the dual perception becomes less divided, and senses of perception and mental activity become more refined. Pearson (2016) describes one person’s experience, “On this subtler level, objects are perceived as almost transparent structures of soft, satiny light (unlike harsher, normal daylight) through which the very essence of life appears to flow” (p. 287). There is harmony in every object of perception, joy in every experience.
As God Consciousness stabilizes, fulfillment deepens and qualities of the heart such as love and devotion increase, moving one toward Unity Consciousness. In his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, Maharishi (2015) explains “This direct relationship of man with God is first established on the level of Being and then comes to be on the level of feeling; from there it enters the field of thinking and then finds its way on to the sensory level of experience” (p. 443). As the physiology of the body continues to purify, the nervous system begins to function at the highest level while being nourished by the digestive system that is functioning at its highest ability. Sands (2013) describes Unity Consciousness as Maharishi’s “state of total knowledge...because the entire field of relative life is nothing other than pure consciousness, our own self” (p. 92). The purification supports the highest state of consciousness, Unity Consciousness, where one experiences everything as pure consciousness that are expressions of one’s own self. An example from Pearson’s (2016), The Supreme Awakening, describes the pervasive sense of peace and connectedness in Self awareness:
“I feel an underlying continuum of quiet bliss and fullness, of infinite and universal love. Often the deep silence of my Self seems all-pervading, everywhere the same. Objects seem transparent, and I perceive unboundedness, the unmanifest, in everything I see. Nothing seems foreign to me; I feel at home with everything, everyone, and with any situation” (p. 357).
In this state, the perception of awareness is primary and the individual experiences secondary, until only one experience of awareness persists and duality ends.
When practicing Transcendental Meditation, movement through the states of consciousness is a natural and spontaneous process. Uncovering the state of pure awareness in Transcendental Consciousness allows one to perceive a state of duality with the rise of Cosmic Consciousness. In God Consciousness and Unity Consciousness, finer values of perception are available as the body continues to naturally release stress. When the mind can be free from the heaviness of everyday life experiences, and the body free from physical residuals of stress manifesting as disease, one can truly begin to live a more integrated life within higher states of consciousness. By accessing and then cultivating unity with the quiet awareness that is inside all of us, we are tapping into a reservoir of healing.
References
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. (1993). Maharishi’s Absolute Theory of Government: Automation in
administration. (Holland: Maharishi Vedic University Press), pp. 280–281.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. (2011). Science of Being and art of living: Transcendental Meditation. [Kindle Version] Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/Science-Being-Art-Living-Transcendental/dp/0452282667
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. (2015). Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the Bhagavad-Gītā: A new
translation and commentary with Sanskrit text, chapters 1 to 6. Maharishi University of Management Press. (Original work published in 1967.)
Pearson, C. (2016). The supreme awakening: Experiences of enlightenment throughout
time--and how you can cultivate them (2nd ed.). Craig Pearson.
Sands, W. F., & Yogi, M. M. (2013). Maharishi's Yoga: The royal path to enlightenment.
Fairfield, IA: Maharishi University of Management Press.
Travis, F. & Wallace, R.K. (1997). Autonomic patterns during respiratory suspensions: Possible
markers of Transcendental Consciousness. Psychophysiology, 34(1), 39-46.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.1997.tb02414.x
