"You are fast asleep with no disturbance, not a single ripple. These are the three stages of the mind, and parallel stages to these the seeker has to pass through on the spiritual path also.

"The seventh is like the fourth. The Upanishads have not given it any name, because no name can be given to it. The first is waking, the second dreaming, the third sleep – but the fourth has been left simply as the fourth, without giving it any name. It is symbolic. The Upanishads call it turiya. The word turiya means simply the fourth, it doesn't say anything more. It is nameless because it cannot be defined. Words cannot express it, it can only be indicated. Even that indication has to be negative. It can be experienced but not formulated in concepts, hence it is called the fourth. The seventh stage of the seeker's consciousness is like the fourth stage of the mind.

"Before we enter into the seventh stage and try to penetrate its mysteries, a few things will help to create the base for the understanding of something which is the most difficult to understand. First, the six are stages, but the seventh is really not a stage. It is called a stage because there is no other way to call it, but the seventh is not a stage. The six are stages, the seventh you are. The seventh is not a stage, it is your very nature; it is you, your being.

"For example, you were a child once; childhood was a stage. You were not childhood, you passed through childhood. It was a station, a stage, a phase, but you were not identified with it. If you were the childhood itself then there would have been no possibility of becoming a youth. Who would have become a youth? The child could not have become a youth, the child would have remained the child. But you were not the child. You passed through childhood, you became a youth. Then youth is again a stage, you are not one with it. If you are one with it you could not have been a child and you cannot grow old."