Spensorium

The four states: waking, dreaming, deep sleep, and turya.. are not places consciousness travels to or stages one reaches by abandoning body or form, but are degrees of contraction and recognition within consciousness. Waking, dreaming, and deep sleep are all different states in which awareness is localized and partially concealed by maya-sakti.

In waking, awareness identifies primarily with the gross body and sensations, and the world appears external/objective, sequential. Whereas, In dreaming, awareness withdraws from the gross senses and identifies with the subtle body and mind – the world becomes internal, symbolic, and fluid. In deep sleep.. subject–object division collapses entirely, but awareness remains veiled by unconsciousness; there is bliss, but no recognition, and no memory of knowing.

Turya is not a fourth state alongside these three states. It is the ever present ground of awareness in which the others arise and dissolve and It is always present but ordinarily unrecognized.

When turya is recognized, one doesn’t leave the waking state, the body, or material perception, one remains fully embodied and functional, but the axis of identification shifts. Instead of experiencing yourself as a subject located within a world of disparate objects, the world is experienced as appearing within the field of awareness itself.. this is not a conceptual inference but a direct recognition – It is at this point that consciousness begins to steer to jagadananda.

Jagadananda is not an emotional pleasure or mystical high- It is the delight of consciousness recognizing that the entire manifest cosmos is its own play, or lila.
Rather than withdrawing from form to experience bliss, awareness finds bliss precisely in manifestation from itself.
Every perception, movement, and appearance is felt as a vibration of one’s own being and this is why Trika shaivism insists that liberation does not negate the world; it reveals the world as blissful because it is recognized as siva’s own expansion. Jagadananda is the experiential notes of turya when recognition stabilizes.. its the joy of seeing the universe not as an obstacle or illusion, but as the free expression of one’s own inner nature.

Because turya loosens the contraction of awareness into time, doership, and subject-object fixation, it allows awareness to resonate with the suddha tattvas that are always already present but normally excluded from in our lived experience. The tattvas are not stacked vertically like floors one climbs; they coexist simultaneously, with our attention ordinarily locked into the contracted strata. When turya is operative, awareness can naturally align with Sadasiva and isvara tattva without any sense of ascent/ travel/departure from embodiment.

What is often described as a download of information or “spiritual download”, is not an external transmission, nor communication from a separate intelligence.
In Trika, this is understood as pratibha, luminous, spontaneous knowing that arises when consciousness recognizes its own impending self-expression. Insight appears sudden, complete, and self-validating, not because it bypasses intelligence, but because it precedes discursive thought. Awareness here is no longer a downstream of reasoning and sensory inference; it stands upstream, where intention, meaning, and form have not yet become differentiated.

At the level of Sadasiva tattva, where iccha-sakti predominates, awareness experiences the universe as its own unfolding intention/will. The formula here is “I am This.”.. the world is not yet objectified; it is felt as directional, tendency, and inevitability rather than as discrete, conflicting or functionally separate events. Knowing at this level is not predictive or divinatory in the ordinary sense, It is a certainty of movement, an intuitive recognition of what must unfold. This is why insight arising here often feels prophetic, yet lacks specific temporal detail – there is not a seeing the future as an object; one is recognizing will before it becomes time.

At the level of isvara tattva, where jnana-sakti predominates, that same intention becomes clarified and intelligible. The formula shifts to “This am I.” – The universe is still non-dual with awareness, but now it is structured, communicable, and nameable. Metaphysical systems, symbolic visions, occult schemata, and coherent esoteric knowledge crystallize here. What Sadasiva affirms through will, isvara articulates through knowing.

When awareness identifies with siva himself rather than the limited ego, everything is experienced as the expansion of the self- siva is not a being within time, but the free cause of time itself, suvas svatantrya is the absolute freedom to appear as anything whatsoever and whenever. When awareness abides in turya and resonates with the suddha(pure) tattvas, insight into the future does not come from divination or prediction, but It arises because awareness is no longer positioned after causality, but at the point where intention becomes sequence.. the future is not unknown; it is recognized as a pending self-expression of consciousness.

In jagadananda, the universe is no longer experienced as a burden, test, or illusion to escape, but is the delight of consciousness expressing itself- it is turning the cause of all form and differentiation into the experience of all forms as a contraction of self, what I call the purest form of turning lead (saturn)into gold (sun AND moon as nondual – prakasa/vimarsa married), the bliss which is not found by transcending the world, but by recognizing the world as oneself.

This same recognition can be approached through kundalini praxis.. but when kundalini rises and awareness opens to ajna or beyond, turya may flash forth naturally.. but, if strong attachments to materiality, power, identity, or desire remain, the ascent does not stabilize as recognition of siva- Instead, the energy is reabsorbed downward into the subtle and gross structures.. when kundalinī is raised to ajna and then deliberately or unconsciously brought back down under the influence of attachment, the practitioner does not abide in jagadananda or suddha tattva awareness. Instead, the energy activates extraordinary capacities within the mayiya framework.
This is where the classical yogic basis of the asta-siddhis manifest—the eight major paranormal powers..(shrinking (Anima), expanding (Mahima), becoming heavy (Garima), becoming light (Laghima), acquiring anything (Prapti), fulfilling desires (Prakamya), controlling nature (Ishitva), and controlling others (Vashitva)), these siddhis arise not from moksha, but from the concentration of sakti within a still-contracted sense of self.

They grant influence over matter, perception, and subtle forces, but they do not dissolve the sense of separateness. Power is gained, but recognition is incomplete.

In Trika Shaivism, these siddhis are considered secondary and even obstructive if clung to, because they reinforce identification with limited agency rather than dissolving it into svatantrya.. liberation is not marked by extraordinary powers, but by the effortless recognition that all power, all manifestation, and all knowing already belong to Siva and are occurring as one’s own being.

The ego is not destroyed, but expanded to cosmic scope and then worn lightly.. there is no possession, no fragmentation of memory, and no loss of ordinary functioning; one lives in the world while recognizing the world as oneself.