Stages of Awareness (prajnya-stara)

    There are different layers of Consciousness although Consciousness is ONE only! The thick layers are at the top and the thinner and thinner lower. The highest is the 'Krishna prajnya' and the lowest is the 'Bhishma Prajnya'. Now we, the humans, are endowed with only a small and limited consciousness. We have to struggle hard toraise in our level taking recourse to yoga.

 The jiva runs through three stages such as jagrata, sapna, and sushupti. These are stages are separated by narrow intervals of short period that goes without notice. The person, purusha, awake through all these three stages is the Agni deva. He is vaishvanara during jagrata, taijasa during svapna and prajnya during sushupti. He is also present and mahat or vishva during the fourth stage called turiya. He is called daiva and brahmn in the higher stages beyond.

   When the self remains in the dream state, these are its achievements (results of past action): It then becomes a great king, as it were; or a noble brahmin, as it were; or attains, as it were, high or low states. Even as a great king, taking with him his retinue of citizens, moves about, according to his pleasure, within his own domain, so does the self, taking with it the organs, move about according to its pleasure, in the body..

    Next, when the self goes into deep sleep-when it does not know anything-it returns along the seventy-two thousand nerves called hita, which extend from the heart throughout the whole body and remains in the body. As a baby or an emperor or a noble brahmin lives, having reached the summit of happiness, so does the self rest.

     As the spider moves along the thread it produces, or as from a fire tiny sparks fly in all directions, even so from this Atman come forth all organs, all worlds, all gods, all beings. Its secret name (Upanishad) is the Truth of truth. The vital breaths are the truth and their truth is Atman. [Yajurveda, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad II, I-Relative Aspects of Brahman, 18-20]

    These seven gods that prevent decay worship it (the calf): through these pink lines in the eye, Rudra attends on it; through the water in the eye, Parjanya attends on it; through the pupil of the eye, the sun attends on it; through the black of the eye,fire attends on it; through the white portion, Indra; through the lower eyelid, the earth; and through the upper eyelid, heaven attends on it. He who knows this-his food does not diminish. [Yajurveda, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad II, II-Description of the Prana, 2]

     May whatever appeasements there are in the world, known by the Seven Sages, may they all be gracious to me! May peace be with me! May fearlessness be with me. [Atharva Veda XIX, 9, 13]