Theos-Talk Archives (May 1998 Message tt00219)

>
><< coma (turiya) >>
>
>Does this mean "coma" in the conventional, medical sense? If does, then
that
>stage seems rather unattractive, to say the least. I think I'll take a pass
on
>turiya and go to the next step.
>
>Lmhem111
>


Turiya is the mental state of the human mind when consciousness
is focusing on the fourth cosmic plane, the causal. It is relatively
formless. The main distinction between Turiya (below the Abyss)
and Samadhi (above the Abyss) is the bliss or ecstasy that
accompanies consciousness in samadhi. Samadhi is equivalent
to a mystical experience. Samadhi "spiritual ecstasy" (HPB, Key
to Theosophy, p 363). When HPB says, on page 324, that "the
Turya state, the highest state of samadhi" she is in error, and I
feel sure that she actually meant to say "the highest state below
samadhi."  On this page she relates turiya to the causal body,
which is on the causal plane, the 4th. Salvakalpa Samadhi is on
the 5th and Nirvakalpa Samadhi is on the 6th counting upwards
(if I spelled them correctly??).

Jerry S.

PS. A coma is only so-called because it is so subtle that
afterward we can't recall anything at all and it seems to be
a blank. It is not really a blank, but it does roughly give us
an idea of what Buddhism means by the term emptiness.