3 States of Experience (Waking, Dream, Deep Sleep)
“Vedanta says I need to know who I truly am in order to gain Moksha (lasting satisfaction). So who am I?” The student asks the Guru in the text ‘Tattvabodha’.
“You are Atma. Atma is the witness (sakshi) of the 3 states of experience” The Guru replies.
“What are the 3 states of experience?” The student asks.
“Waking, Dream and Deep Sleep States” The Guru replies. Your entire life can be divided into only 3 different states of experience. The Guru explains these 3 states of experience (Avastha-Traya) further:
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‘Waking’ State of Experience (Jagrat Avastha)
You are awake right now, reading this (I hope!). This is called the ‘waking state’. This is very accurately defined in Vedanta Shastra – what do you experience in ‘waking state’? Only 5 things (objects/visaya): sound, touch, colour, taste, smell. How do you experience these 5? Via your 5 instruments of knowledge (jnana indriyah) = ears, skin, eyes, tongue, nose. In other words…Ears will experience sound, skin will experience touch sensations, eyes will experience colours, etc. And the state in which you use your ears/skin/eyes/etc. to perceive sounds/touch/colour/etc…is called? Waking state!
Imagine a telescope lying on the floor, will it see the stars on its own? No. Why? Because it needs you (a conscious being) to ‘use’ it and look through it. Therefore, any instrument (telescope, etc) needs a conscious being to use it for it to produce an experience (seeing the stars). Extending this logic, your eyes, skin, ears, nose and tongue are just instruments. Therefore, they will only work (and produce experience) if a conscious being ‘uses’ them. Who is that conscious being? You! Atma. How do I (Atma) as though ‘use’ these instruments? By identifying with them. By identifying with the entire physical body (Gross/Sthula Sharira). So waking state experience is that state in which you are fully identified with your gross body. Atma is called the ‘waker’ (Vishva) in waking state.
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‘Dream’ State of Experience (Svapna Avastha)
So what is the difference between waking state and a dream? Well, they are actually both the same in that you perceive sound, touch, colour, taste and smells. Even in your dream you see the beautiful green hills, you feel the cool breeze and taste the sweetness of a freshly made laddu! So the perception of objects is common to both waking and dream states. So, again, what is the difference? It’s all about what instrument (indriya) you use to perceive the object. In waking state you use your physical instruments (ears, eyes, tongue, etc). But in a dream, you do not use these same instruments to perceive objects. You are able to see a red flower in your dream, in spite of physical eyes being closed! You can hear the sound of the waves crashing onto the beach, but your physical ears are lying in a room with complete silence! So clearly, we do not use Jnana Indriyas (instruments of knowledge) to experience a dream.
Then how do we experience an entire world in a dream? Where does it come from? Where does it exist? It exists in your mind (antahkarana – part of your subtle body). The dream world is created from memories (vasana/samskara) of experiences you had when you were awake. In waking state, your mind has a tape recorder function continuously recording all experiences you have. These are then stored in your memory (chitta) within the mind (antahkarana). This process mostly happens automatically, subconsciously so you won’t even realise it. So when does this recording playback? In your dream. So a dream is just the mental playback of experiences in the past you had whilst you were in waking state. When does this playback occur? Only when you have withdrawn from your identification with the Gross Body (i.e. you have fallen asleep), and now only identify with the subtle body (i.e. your mind/memories).
But sometimes I feel I had dreams which I never experienced whilst awake? Yes. There are number explanations: you may have had the experiences in previous lifetimes, you can combine elements of different waking experiences to produce a seemingly new dream, premonitions of future events (by definition) are not considered as dreams – rather freak yogic experiences.
Hence, dream state is that state in which you identify with your subtle body (mind) and experience a mental world born of your memories (vasanas) from previous waking state experiences. Atma is called the ‘dreamer’ (taijasa) in dream state.
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‘Deep Sleep’ State of Experience (Sushupti Avastha)
So what is the difference between a dream and deep sleep? In ‘deep sleep’, you are asleep without having any dreams, your mind is temporarily inactive or dormant. In a dream your mind is very much active. So deep sleep means dreamless sleep.
Therefore, deep sleep state is characterised by an absence of any particular experience! Unlike waking and dream states where particular objects (sounds, colours, etc.) are very much experienced. It’s like when you say: “The room is empty”. You are experiencing an absence of things in the room. And this is an experience you have, else you could never say “the room is empty”. So you can validly experience an absence of something. Hence deep sleep is that state in which: (a) I do not know anything (i.e. because there is an absence of any particular experience); (b) I sleep happily (everyone enjoys a deep, restful, worry free sleep! My identity with all my everyday problems is temporarily dormant in deep sleep).
In deep sleep, it is evident I do not identify with my gross or subtle bodies as nothing is experienced, hence I identify with my causal (karana) body during deep sleep. All differences are resolved in the causal body, the mind is in an unmanifest state, hence there can be no experience in deep sleep. Atma is called the ‘Sleeper’ (prajna) in deep sleep.
In conclusion, there are only 3 states which we all experience on a daily basis: waking, dream, deep sleep states. So who am I (Atma) in all these 3? I am the unchanging witness (sakshi) of the waking, dream and deep sleep states. I am the experiencer of all 3.
Om
Aditya
