Mandukya_Upanishad

Consciousness. A study of consciousness is the subject ofthe Māndūkya Upanishad – the four states of consciousness– the states in which the consciousness appears to beconnected to certain temporary, accidental circumstancesin waking, dreaming and sleep, and its pristine, purifiedstate of Absoluteness. So, we have to take, one by one, thestages of waking, dream, sleep and the pure Spirit, or theAbsolute, for the sake of attaining this self-transcendence.In this progress of transcendence of the lower by the higher,the higher does not negate the lower, reject the lower orabandon the lower, but includes the lower within itself bysublimation, just as the eighth standard is included in thematriculation standard, the matriculation standard in thegraduate standard, the graduate standard in the master ofarts, and so on. When you advance in the educationalcareer, you do not reject the lower standards, but sublimatethem into a higher condition. So is this process of selftranscendence.When you go to a higher state, you do notreject or abandon the lower, but the lower is contained inthe higher in a transfigured form. The lower is there in itsreal value. When you wake up from dream, you do notnegate the value or the substantiality of dream, but yousublimate it into a higher value in what you call the wakingconsciousness, so much that you are happier when youwake up from dream. You do not feel grieved that somedream objects are lost, just because you have woken up. ‘O,why did I wake up! I have lost my treasure of the dreamworld’; you do not feel grieved like that. You only feelhappy that the phantasmal worry has gone. You feel better,then. So is the grand process of self-transcendence and47