living ENLIGHTENMENT If you get a sudden shock or if you are sitting with nature in a completely relaxed state and in deep silence, it is possible that for a few moments you experience this thoughtless awareness. The identity is alive, the I consciousness is alive, but there are no thoughts. This is the fourth state of turiya* . All our physical and mental illnesses take root in the dream state. The dream state starts penetrating and overlapping the deep sleep and waking states. If our waking state is penetrated by the dream state, it is called daydreaming, we fantasize or imagine endless things that we wish to do. If our deep sleep is penetrated by dreaming, it is called disturbed sleep. Continuously during the day or night, our dream state disturbs us.

When our deep sleep state is disturbed by dreams, it results in problems like chronic fatigue and insomnia. When our waking state is disturbed by dreams, we will be daydreaming with much less awareness of the world around us. The more the dream state penetrates the waking state, the more the frequency of our consciousness decreases. We may be living in the human body, but we will not be living a truly human life. When the frequency of consciousness comes down, we will not be fully aware about the decisions we make. We will not be aware of the kind of words we are thinking. We will not be aware of what is going on inside of us. It will be as if we are living in a house, but we do not know everything that is happening inside that house.

Turiya - Fourth state of consciousness in which there are no thoughts and only awareness. You ask, Why should I meditate? Meditation is needed to infuse deep awareness into both your waking state and the deep sleep state. Instead of the dream state penetrating the waking and deep sleep states, with meditation the turiya* or blissful state will start penetrating the waking and deep sleep states! The purpose of meditation is to experience this fourth state at least once. Once we experience this fourth state, we can bring the influence of it more and more into our waking and deep sleep states. If our waking and deep sleep states are completely influenced by the fourth state, turiya, that is what we call jeevan mukti or living enlightenment.

Benefits of meditation Physical health Meditation has the power to transform you physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. See, physical health means digesting whatever you eat and having that food become part of your body. Mental health means digesting all the ideas and problems that you encounter and forming a clear solution. In other words, it is living without conflict. Spiritual health means receiving all the great teachings and energy, digesting them and living a liberated life. Having all three is total health. Meditation is also a complement to medication. Through meditation, you can regulate your blood pressure and blood sugar and you can increase your body's resistance to disease. Through meditation, it is possible to heal even chronic problems like skin allergies, asthma and arthritis. No disease can escape the power of meditation.

Mental health - awakening of intelligence and flowering of intuition On the mental level, meditation enhances clarity of thought. Meditation is also a proven way to improve concentration and memory power. Above all, meditation leads you from intellect to intelligence to intuition. With meditation, you go beyond the mind, into the being. In the being no rules exist. You become free to explore your full potential. That's why with meditation you will suddenly find yourself at ease with your surroundings, easily able to cope with new situations. You rediscover your spontaneity. Self-healing thoughts You may have a medically fit body. That does not mean you are completely healthy. Of course, I can say from my experience of having seen millions of people, ninety nine per Turiya - Fourth state of consciousness in which there are no thoughts and only awareness.

Knowledge-weapons are the weapons of Truth that can destroy the depression of your being. cent of those who do not have the self-healing clarity in their system are never able to maintain even physical health. When I say self-healing clarity, I mean the clarity and understanding to bring yourself out of depression whenever it tries to grip your consciousness. Just a year ago, I did a small research study. I selected one group of people who had been through some meditation programs and had done some spiritual study. I asked them to write whatever came into their mind without editing for just twenty minutes. Then I also asked another group of people who had never been exposed to spirituality to also write down whatever came into their minds without editing for the same twenty minutes.

The results of my study were shocking. In the case of those people who were not exposed to spirituality, if they had written one hundred thoughts, more than eighty of them were directing them more and more towards depression. Only twenty thoughts were self-healing or bringing them out of depression. But in the case of those who were exposed to spirituality and meditation, I saw that more than sixty percent of their thoughts were self-healing! Only forty percent were taking them towards depression. This is the impact of meditation! It keeps you healthy holistically. living ENLIGHTENMENT Knowledge-weapons to combat depression The knowledge of the Truth is what I call knowledge-weapons or shaastra-shastra. Shaastra means Truth, knowledge. Shastra means weapons. Knowledge-weapons are the weapons of Truth that can destroy the depression of your being.

The more knowledge-weapons you have, the more depression will be afraid of you! If you have a huge army, naturally the enemy country will be afraid of attacking you. Just by seeing your pile of weapons, the other country will think twice before attacking you. In the same way, the more you accumulate the self-healing thoughts, the knowledge-weapons, inside your being, the more depression will fear to come near you. Freedom With meditation, you can live your life in a much better way with greater clarity and greater intensity. You will be more aware, more creative. Yet internally, you will experience a deep and undisturbed silence. You will no longer be doing, you will only be watching the doer. This is the whole secret of meditation – to become the watcher, to become the witness of your own actions and emotions.

Once you become aware that the real you is not the one who acts, that the real you is not the one who feels angry or hurt or depressed, then you experience a tremendous sense of freedom. This will happen through meditation. And this is real freedom. All our life we are searching for freedom. Whether we realize it or not, every single one of us is searching for freedom. We think our freedom is dependent on others. Now you know that the other person is in no way connected to your freedom. Love and joy for no reason With meditation, for the first time, you will understand what it means to love for no reason. For the first time you will not be giving something in order to receive.

You will give love simply because you have so much to give! You will shower love upon the world in the same way that a rain cloud showers upon the earth or a flower spontaneously spreads its fragrance all around. You will love because you are so full and overflowing! Work as play Just try this: whatever you do, act with awareness. If you are eating, eat with awareness. No extra time is needed to do this. In fact, it will take less time to eat because when you eat with awareness, you will eat just the amount your body needs rather than stuffing food down your throat thoughtlessly. Awareness has tremendous knowledge. Awareness can do better miracles than all your planning. Awareness doesn't contradict, it With meditation, for the first time, complements you will the plans.