States of Consciousness

Note: the article is adapted from my books, The Organic Masculine and Primal Drives.

Today we’re taking a tour the states of consciousness. These states describes the present-moment contents of my experience. States range from waking consciousness all the way up to nondual suchness. States of consciousness are temporary: We each transition between waking, dreaming, and deep dreamless sleep every day.

Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all their completeness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application and adaptation. No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded.

—William James¹

Expanded states of consciousness can be accessed through spiritual practices like meditation and breathwork, they can be induced with psychedelics, and they can happen spontaneously, for example, hiking through the forest or listening to a symphony orchestra. Remarkably, each major mystical tradition describes roughly the same four or five experiential states of consciousness.² This gives us reason to believe that states of consciousness are independent of culture, lineage, type of spiritual practice, or historical period in humanity. Inborn in each human is the capacity to access these experiential realms.

The five major states of consciousness are: gross (waking), subtle (dreaming), causal (dreamless sleep), witness (pure awareness, emptiness), and nonduality.

Figure 1. Expanding states of consciousness

The ordinary waking consciousness is a very useful and, on most occasions, an indispensable state of mind; but it is by no means the only form of consciousness, nor in all circumstances the best. Insofar as he transcends his ordinary self and his ordinary mode of awareness, the mystic is able to enlarge his vision, to look more deeply into the unfathomable miracle of existence.

—Aldous Huxley

The Gross State

The Gross State represents my conventional, waking consciousness, anchored in the physical, three-dimensional world. This state occupies the domain of sensory experiences, material objects, and the linear progression of time with a past, present, and future. The gross state forms the foundation of everyday reality and is commonly known as waking consciousness.

The experience of waking consciousness actually has quite a wide range of possibilities. At the contracted end, obsession will completely focus me on a single object, while distraction and overwhelm leave me without any focus. The expansive end of the spectrum includes flow states and creative brainstorming.³ This state includes the physical sensations arising in my body, called enteroception, and my direct sensory perceptions of my environment (i.e., touch, taste, sound, sight, and smell).

Some folks refer to this as ordinary consciousness or normal consciousness, which is contrasted to non-ordinary states of consciousness or altered states of consciousness. I prefer not to use these terms. In my view, dreaming consciousness is just as ordinary and normal as waking consciousness.

The Subtle State

The subtle state is my experience of subtle energy, life force, and vitality. In this state, I experience phenomena that are beyond the capacity of science to measure, hence the term subtle. As with the gross state, the subtle state contains quite a few layers of experience.

The aliveness of living organisms is variously called prana, chi, sambhogakaya, and élan vital. Whereas the gross realm contains the physical breath—the air being breathed—the subtle realm contains the energy of the breath. This life-force energy pervades every living cell. It flows through the body via meridians or nadis. It collects in centers called chakras. This energy is experienced as emotions: grief, fear, anger, joy, and so on. It is also the energy of eroticism, desire, kundalini, and orgasm. The four alchemical elements, fire, water, air, and earth, exist here as qualities of experience, in contrast to the chemical elements of the gross realm. All of these qualities comprise what is sometimes called the low-subtle realm or the pranamaya kosha in yoga.

At the more refined end of the spectrum, or high-subtle realm, are the mental activities and thoughtforms. The content of my thoughts cannot be measured, and yet my thoughts are an experiential reality. Thoughts carry an energy to them that we include in the subtle realm. Vivid memories, dream imagery, imagination, and visualization all fall within this category. In yoga, this is known as the manomaya kosha.

What we call waking consciousness is actually a nuanced amalgam of the gross state and the subtle state. At any given moment, I am experiencing physical sensations, emotions, and mental energies. Sometimes I may be fully engrossed in the physical realm—for example, during strenuous exercise. Other times, I may be totally absorbed in the mental realm—lost in thought. In this sense, the subtle state is almost always with me, and there is no need to go somewhere else or transcend somewhere to access it.

As a state of consciousness, the subtle realm is fluid and unbounded. Energy flowing through my body is not constrained by anatomical structures. Subtle energy is fickle, volatile, whimsical, and ephemeral. When I am fully immersed in the subtle realm, for example, during dreaming or orgasm, I experience time and space differently. They lose their cartesian orientation—their absolute ordinal nature—and become ever-present now and here.

The Causal State

The causal state is where the archetypes live. This realm holds the most primal and fundamental structures in the kosmos. Following big bang theory, there was a moment when all of the matter in the universe blasted into existence. For this moment of creation to take place, the causal archetypes crystalized into the substructure of the universe.⁴ These include the dimensionality of space-time, geometric and mathematical principles, the Logos (the creative function of the kosmos), Eros (the drive for parts to develop into wholes), Agape (the drive for wholes to embrace and integrate parts), colors and qualities, forms,⁵ eternal objects,⁶ and so on. These first principles created the container and set the wheels in motion for the contents to populate the universe.

In addition to the causal archetypes, this realm contains the evolutionary archetypes that have been developing along the way.⁷ For example, the archetype of The Great Mother was laid down as a groove in consciousness as soon as life-forms evolved to the point where mothers were gestating and birthing offspring. Prior to that time, there is no reason to believe this archetype existed. As such, we call it an evolutionary archetype—it evolved together with the kosmos and continues to evolve. Deities and myths also live in this realm, as they codevelop psychologically and culturally together with humanity.

In the Yogacharya school of Buddhism, there is a layer of consciousness called the alaya-vijnana, also known as the collective unconscious or “storehouse” consciousness, that contains a memory of every event in the history of the universe.⁸ The storehouse consciousness exists in the causal realm.

Another category of evolutionary structures are the morphic fields. When an electron first met a proton and stabilized into orbit, the morphic field for the hydrogen atom was created. It is a habit or pattern for the behavior of matter that is duplicated and repeated to create a kosmic groove in consciousness. Subatomic structures, atoms, molecules and crystals, physical and astronomical processes, chemical and biological processes, and behavioral instincts are all examples of morphic fields. These may look like the laws of nature, but more properly could be understood as emergent habits of nature. The layer of consciousness where those habits are inscribed is this causal state.

Again, in my “waking consciousness,” I am continually being influenced by one or more archetypes and one or more habits. The causal realm is seamlessly interwoven into reality across all scales. It underlies and pervades my experience even though I’m generally not aware of it.

As a state of consciousness, the causal realm is immense, all-pervading, and transpersonal. When I experience beauty, I connect with an experience that is somehow larger or transcending me as witness and the object inspiring the beauty. When the mystic encounters the deity, experience moves beyond description or definition. This vast, transcendent space is the causal state of consciousness.

When I access these higher states, I have what William James termed, a primary religious experience. Two of the qualities he gave to it are as follows: (1) Ineffable. It is beyond description. I am incapable of relaying the fullness of the experience back in waking consciousness; and (2) Noetic. The illumination, revelation, or beatific vision is an order of knowledge beyond factual information. It supersedes and is more authoritative than knowledge gained in the gross realm.⁹

The Witness State

The witness state is what I experience in deep dreamless sleep. It is awareness without any object—simply pure witnessing. At this level, all distinction falls away into qualityless awareness. The Buddhist concept of emptiness means awareness that is empty of all content.

This is also known as rigpa,¹⁰ buddha-mind, and the dharmakaya in Buddhist tradition. In yoga, this is variously known as turiya,¹¹ anandamayakosha, and is also described by some states of samadhi.¹² In Kabbalah, it is Ayin.¹³ This is a dimension beyond time and space, beyond subject and object, beyond inside and outside. It is pure I Am-ness. Total being. The Absolute. Consciousness itself.¹⁴

I have sometimes said that there is a power in the soul which alone is free.… So now I shall name it in nobler fashion than I ever did before, and yet it disowns the nobler name and mode, for it transcends them. It is free of all names and void of all forms, entirely exempt and free, as God is exempt and free in Himself. It is as completely one and simple as God is one and simple, so that no man can in any way glimpse it.

—Meister Eckhart¹⁵

This pure witnessing state was famously articulated by the Indian Buddhist sage Nāgārjuna, circa 200 CE. In order to point to the ineffable nature of this state, he offers us four categories that cannot be affirmed as true:

1. It exists

2. It is nonexistent

3. It is both existent and

4. It is neither existent nor nonexistent.

None of these four categories apply to the witness state of reality.¹⁶ Nothing whatsoever can be said to define this realm—it transcends any description. Even calling the state undefinable is inaccurate because that is itself a definitive label. Understanding this limitation, various mystical traditions have described this state as timeless, infinite, ungraspable, and groundless.

All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible. It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance. It does not belong to the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old. It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measures, names, traces and comparisons. It is that which you see before you—begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error. It is like the boundless void which cannot be fathomed or measured. The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient things.

–Huang Po¹⁷

The total consciousness of I Am, pure being, is at the core of all experience. More accurately, it is the pervasive layer underlying all experience.¹⁸ It is the container within which all experience arises. It is the fundamental nature of the mind and the great space of being.

Free of karma, I am the fire that burns all karmas. Free of sorrow, I am the fire that removes all sorrow. Free of form, I am the fire that releases all forms. I am the liberating nectar of Self-Knowledge; I am all-pervading like the sky.

Free of sin, I am the fire that burns all sins. Free of prescribed duty, I am the fire that purifies all duties. Unbound, I am the fire that breaks all bondage. I am the liberating nectar of Self-Knowledge; I am all-pervading like the sky.

I am beyond both existence and non-existence; neither pertain to me. I am beyond both union and separation; neither pertain to me. I am beyond both thought and the absence of thought; neither pertain to me. I am the liberating nectar of Self-Knowledge; I am all-pervading like the sky.

—Avadhuta Gita¹⁹

Nonduality

Nonduality is the union of the witness state with the totality of all phenomena.²⁰ From the Heart Sutra, “emptiness is form, form is emptiness. Emptiness is none other than form. Form is none other than emptiness.”²¹ Nonduality means “not two.” When awareness and the objects of awareness are experienced as a seamless whole, that is nondual consciousness. There is no subject and object, no me and other, no light and dark.

This state is variously referred to as enlightenment, liberation, awakening, and realization. This state can be understood as the true nature of reality. It is called suchness or thusness—the totality of existence exactly as it is. This state is. There was never a time when it was not.

In fact, there is no such thing as a path to enlightenment, simply because enlightenment is ever present in all places and at all times. What you can do is to remove any and all illusions, especially the ones you value most and find the most security in, that cloud your perception of Reality. Let go of clinging to your illusions and resisting what is, and Reality will suddenly come into view.

—Adyashanti²²

In this state, the interior of awareness becomes continuous with the exteriors of phenomena. More accurately, one perceives the true unified nature of reality without the dualistic filter. Inside perception and cognition are not separate or distinct from outside environment and phenomena.

Summary

Mystical and spiritual traditions throughout the ages have been primarily concerned with states. Each tradition has its own classification scheme, but they tend to share the same deep features. In Figure 2, I list the states of consciousness as described by hatha yoga,²³ Tibetan Buddhism,²⁴ and Christianity.²⁵

Figure 2. States of consciousness across spiritual traditions

Spiritual practices like meditation are primarily designed to open the practitioner’s consciousness to higher states. The map, of course, is not the terrain. But I can use to the map to orient myself on the journey through the vast and sometimes disorienting states of consciousness. Understanding what is possible has given me inspiration and motivation to put in my practice on the meditation cushion. The full range of states is available to each and every one of us, and it is a precious gift to be exposed to these teachings. While realization in this lifetime is by no means guaranteed, we can make the journey. It is our birthright to open our consciousness to the unity of being and the vastness of the kosmos.

1. The Varieties of Religious Experience, James.

2. “Every major meditation tradition recognizes these 4 or 5 major states of consciousness, and likewise has maps of the 4 or 5 major correlative state-stages, or meditative stages, for moving through them, transcending and including them as they go. Significant research has demonstrated that although the surface features of each of these traditions and their state-stages differ considerably from culture to culture, their deep features are in many ways significantly similar. In fact, virtually all of them follow variations on the 4 or 5 major natural states of consciousness given cross-culturally and universally to all human beings.” The Religion of Tomorrow, Wilber.

3. “The mystique of rock climbing is climbing; you get to the top of a rock glad it’s over but really wish it would go on forever. The justification of climbing is climbing, like the justification of poetry is writing; you don’t conquer anything except things in yourself.… The act of writing justifies poetry. Climbing is the same: recognizing that you are a flow. The purpose of the flow is to keep on flowing, not looking for a peak or utopia but staying in the flow. It is not a moving up but a continuous flowing; you move up to keep the flow going. There is no possible reason for climbing except the climbing itself; it is a self-communication.” Flow, Csikszentmihalyi.

4. “These I refer to as ‘involutionary givens’—that is, those items that were truly given or created by involution, and therefore showed up with the material universe, when it first showed up (that is, with the Big Bang), with a few elements and forms awaiting emergence down the line. On this view, most phenomena are produced by evolutionary forces obeying, or following, the relatively few original involutionary givens.” The Religion of Tomorrow, Wilber.

5. “In like manner there is a universal nature out of which all things are made, and which is like none of them; but they enter into and pass out of her, and are made after patterns of the true in a wonderful and inexplicable manner.” Timaeus, Plato.

6. “An eternal object can be described only in terms of its potentiality for ‘ingression’ into the becoming of actual entities; and that its analysis only discloses other eternal objects. It is a pure potential. The term ‘ingression’ refers to the particular mode in which the potentiality of an eternal object is realized in a particular actual entity, contributing to the definiteness of that actual entity.” Process and Reality, Whitehead.

7. “[The evolutionary archetypes] are rather some of the first forms in human evolution—the King, the Queen, the Warrior, Death, and various central psychological functions/forms as well, including the ego, the shadow, the anima and animus, the Self.” The Religion of Tomorrow, Wilber.

8. “The Buddha distinguishes eight forms of consciousness: the basic five (visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile), along with conceptual consciousness (mano-vijnana), selfconsciousness or will (manas), and repository or storehouse consciousness (alaya-vijnana), which is sometimes referred to in this sutra simply as ‘mind.’” Lankavatara Sutra, Pine.

9. C.f. The Varieties of Religious Experience.

10. “The perspective of dzokchen, then, emphasizes primordial enlightenment of the ‘mind.’ It speaks of ultimate awakening as the recognition of ‘mind itself,’ by which is meant the untrammeled awareness of the natural state, the ‘buddha-mind.’ This ‘mind,’ obviously, is not the ordinary mind of dualistic awareness, the consciousness or ‘subject’ pole of the subject-object dichotomy. In dzokchen, this ultimate ‘mind’ translates the Tibetan term rikpa, ‘intelligence’ or ‘naked awareness.’ This rikpa is the dharmakaya. It is the flash of awareness that precedes the split into dualistic consciousness of myself, my mind, and the other, the object. It is the first instant of each moment of perception that occurs outside of the I-other framework of the skandhas. If this moment is not ‘mind’ in the ordinary dualistic sense, then why call it mind at all? This is done in order to make clear that this moment is not nothing, not pure vacuity, but clear, brilliant, and cognizant.” Secret of the Vajra World, Ray.

11. “Turiya – literally means ‘fourth’ state of consciousness, unmanifest state of purusha and prakriti, beyond conscious, subconscious and unconscious mind; supraconsciousness.” Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Muktibodhananda.

12. “When time, space and idea (knower, known and knowing) are removed, and the essential nature of thought remains, it is nirvichara or vichara asamprajnata. At the culmination of this samadhi, the chitta is illumined and intellect ceases. Nirvichara develops into ananda or sanandan samadhi when chitta has penetrated beyond the subtle existence of the object and there is only awareness of the existence of the vritti ‘I am’ (aham asmi). It is sattwic ahamkara or ego, a state of pure existence and awareness without word or idea. Ananda becomes asmita when there is no differentiation between the object of consciousness and the consciousness. Awareness and consciousness are absolute but there is still the seed of ego. It is the highest sattwic state of consciousness.” Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Muktibodhananda.

13. “The word nothingness connotes negativing and non-being, but what the mystic means by divine nothingness is that God is greater than any thing one can imagine: it is like no thing. Since God’s being is incomprehensible and ineffable, the least offensive and most accurate description one can offer is, paradoxically, nothing. David ben Abraham ha-Lavan, a fourteenth-century kabbalist, insists that “nothingness [ayin] is more existent than all the being [yesh] of the world.’” “Ayin: The Concept of Nothingness in Jewish Mysticism,” Matt

14. “Consciousness is a singular of which the plural is unknown; that there is only one thing and that what seems to be a plurality is merely a series of different aspects of this one thing, produced by a deception.” Schrödinger.

15. Sermon 8.

16. “Previous to its own defining features space does not exist, not even slightly. If it came before its own defining features, it follows that it’s featureless. An entity devoid of features can never have existence anywhere. If there is no thing that’s without features, to what can features then apply?… If things do not exist, of what can there be nonexistence? And what is there that, being neither an existent nor a nonexistent thing, can have cognizance of existence or nonexistence? Therefore space is neither an existent nor a nonexistent thing; it’s not the basis for defining features, nor those very features.” The Root Stanzas of the Middle Way, Nāgārjuna.

17. Zen Teaching Of Huang Po.

18. “All of the great meditative traditions maintain that each and every moment your mind actually starts out that way—fully and nakedly present, focused on the timeless Now, being fully present in the Present. And then you start thinking, analyzing, judging, condemning, grasping, feeling, and separating—at once you exist on this side of your face, looking at the world ‘out there’ as it smashes into you and generally begins to make your life intolerable, full of anxiety, suffering, despair, torment, tears, and terror. Identified with this small, finite, separate self or ego, we have forgotten our true, clear, vast, open, deep, empty, and pure Self, the pure Witness, the pure infinite Observer.” The Religion of Tomorrow, Wilber.

19. Translated by Rory Mackay.

20. “Hence there are really two distinct acts of ‘divine union,’ two distinct kinds of illumination involved in the Mystic Way: the dual character of the spiritual consciousness brings a dual responsibility in its train. First, there is the union with Life, with the World of Becoming: and parallel with it, the illumination by which the mystic ‘gazes upon a more veritable world.’ Secondly, there is the union with Being, with the One: and that final, ineffable illumination of pure love which is called the ‘knowledge of God.’” Mysticism, Underhill.

21. “All material forms and all conscious states are to be known as absolutely selfless, without separate identity, luminously pure. The processes of personal awareness do not need to be purified. They are ontologically transparent, or perfectly pure, by their very nature. All the apparently complex forms of functional interdependence remain utterly simple, indivisible, pristine, open and free. Universal transparency is what manifests as both form and consciousness. Material forms are empty of the slightest substantial self-existence, and luminous emptiness of self-existence is precisely what is manifest as material forms. In the same way, conscious states are empty of the slightest independent self-existence, and luminous emptiness of self-existence is precisely what is manifest as conscious states.” Mother of the Buddhas, Hixon.

22. The Way of Liberation.

23. "According to yoga, human existence extends through five layers or sheaths which are called koshas. The physical body and its elements comprise the first layer, annamaya kosha. Anna is ‘food,’ maya means ‘comprised of’. The shatkarma directly influence this kosha and penetrate the next layer, pranamaya kosha, as they allow free flow of prana. The third layer, manomaya kosha, the ‘mental sheath,’ is indirectly affected through pranayama. Purification of these sheaths opens the fourth kosha, vijnanamaya or the ‘sheath of intuition.’ However, the fifth kosha, anandamaya or the ‘sheath of bliss,’ is unaffected by any physical influence because it is a transcendental realm…As you go on purifying the ego, i.e. the notion of duality, the ego awareness becomes increasingly faint and dim until there is a very improbable moment in our life that can come. It does not come in the life of every individual. That is a rare moment when the ego is completely fused and lost. At that time there is only experience and not the experiencer of the experience. Such an experience is known as homogeneous experience or absolute experience. It has various names, some say transcendental experience, or nirvikalpa samadhi, some call it nirvana, emancipation or salvation, moksha; some call it adwaita anubhuti, the non-dual experience.”” Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Mukitbodhananda.

24. “Tibetans believe that the Buddha, as a realized being, manifests himself on many different levels. Following Indian tradition, they divide these levels into three primary “bodies.” First is the nirmanakaya, emanation body, the Buddha’s physical, human form in which—as described in his early biographies—he appears as a prince, renounces the world, and follows the path to enlightenment. Second, the Buddha appears as the sambhogakaya, body of enjoyment, his brilliant, transfigured, nonphysical form of light. In this body he journeys to the heavens, teaches the gods, and reveals himself to highly attained people. Finally there is the Buddha’s dharmakaya, the body of reality itself, without specific, delimited form, wherein the Buddha is identified with the spiritually charged nature of everything that is…Svabhavikakaya is the union of the three kayas or buddha-bodies. It is the experience of reality, without an experiencer or subject.” Secret of the Vajra World, Ray.

25. “[The Self’s] attempts to eliminate by discipline and mortification all that stands in the way of its progress towards union with God constitute Purgation: a state of pain and effort…Illumination is the ‘contemplative state’ par excellence… Illumination brings a certain apprehension of the Absolute, a sense of the Divine Presence: but not true union with it. It is a state of happiness. In the development of the great and strenuous seekers after God, this is followed—or sometimes intermittently accompanied—by the most terrible of all the experiences of the Mystic Way: the final and complete purification of the Self, which is called by some contemplatives the ‘mystic pain’ or ‘mystic death,’ by others the Purification of the Spirit or Dark Night of the Soul…Union: the true goal of the mystic quest. In this state the Absolute Life is not merely perceived and enjoyed by the Self, as in Illumination: but is one with it. This is the end towards which all the previous oscillations of consciousness have tended.” Mysticism, Underhill.
“Indistinct union refers to the way in which during the experience one is still completely united to God while at the same time not recognizing oneself is a position separate from God. There is only God all around, within and without, in a kind of ‘indistinct’ nature, without at the same time this oneness being an undifferentiated mush. Rather it is a dynamic vision and opening to the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, where God is ‘all in all.’” “Indistinct Union: An Integral Introduction to Nonduality in Christianity,” Dierkes.