In all the states, one factor is common, the one who goes through these states or the seer. If you look little deeper, you can see that in all these three states of waking, dream and deep sleep, we are trying to change reality as it exists. We are trying to change the scene happening every moment in our lives. It may look childish to think that you can change the scene on the movie screen by jumping in front of it.

Just look little deeper into your own lives. In your life also you are under the illusion that you are in control of your life. Life is actually a movie, moving in these three states. You, the seer, are the projector. Whether you believe it or not, accept it or not, you create your reality. When you try to change the events and world outside, you are trying to change the scene by jumping in front of the screen. To change the scene, you need to change the film being projected on the screen. When you realize the futility of all the three states and the futility of trying to change the scene in all these three states the whole attention will fall on the seer. Then the awakening will happen. If instead you think that there is some utility in all these three states, your attention will be on them. You will continue to be engaged in them. You will continue to try to alter the scene.

If this understanding clicks in us, then it does not take more than one click to wake us up from our state of sleep, whether it is dream sleep, deep sleep or waking sleep. All we would need is one click, ‘Hey, this is a dream!’ That’s all. We will be awakened.

There are some people who carry the same awareness even to the deep sleep state. For them, when the very understanding of these three states happens, suddenly they will come back to the center to awaken themselves to the fourth state, turiya. Understand, it is true and very rare that a few individuals can carry the same intensity to have the same connected, undisturbed identity in the three states of mind. If you can carry a connected, straight, undisturbed, unbroken identity throughout these three states, then you are a seeker. Then the individual consciousness is awakened. The pratyagatma chaitanya jagrat has happened. These are some of the Sanskrit technical terms.

I have always wanted to express the Sanskrit words also because I want all of you to know that there are many non-portable things in the vedic tradition. Non-portable things mean the non-expressible dimensions of the experience. Some of these Sanskrit words cannot be expressed with mere translations to another language. Some of the dimensions of the experience cannot be expressed when we attempt to translate these words into English. The Sanskrit word itself represents the understandings of the multiple dimensions of the experience.

source: Living Enlightenment