There are nights when one lies in stillness, eyes closed, yet the mind wanders restlessly. Thoughts appear like ripples on water: desires unfulfilled, memories uninvited, fears unnamed. The senses may rest, but manas remains awake, weaving stories and stirring sensations.
Though the world has changed, the inner world remains as ancient as ever. This restlessness of the inner being was observed and explored by the ṛris of Bhārata long before the mind became a subject of scientific study. For them, understanding the antaḥkaraṇa, the inner instrument comprising manas (mind), buddhi (intellect), chitta (memory), and ahaṁkāra (ego), was not a matter of curiosity. It was a sacred path toward mokṣa.
The inquiry into the nature of the mind was never separated from the inquiry into the Self. To ask “What is manas?” was to ask “Who am I?” At the heart of the Vedic journey stood the timeless declaration: Ātmanam viddhi, know thy Self. Not the shifting personality shaped by circumstances, but the unchanging Ātman, the substratum of all experience, untouched by thought or time.
The sages of the Upaniṣads perceived consciousness as not limited to the waking mind. Human experience, they said, flows through catuṣpāda, or four quarters of being. These are jāgrat (waking), svapna (dream), suṣupti (deep sleep), and turīya, the fourth, the eternal witness.
In jāgrat avasthā, the individual engages with the external world. The indriyas, or senses, are active and manas moves outward. This is the state of karma and interaction, where the jīvātman identifies most with the body and the world of names and forms.
When the senses withdraw and the mind turns inward, one enters svapna avasthā. Here, the external world fades, but the impressions, the saṁskāras stored in chitta, arise. The dream world is not meaningless; it is the subtle body in movement, unbound by the laws of physical space, yet shaped by deep desires and latent tendencies.
Then comes suṣupti, a state of profound stillness. There are no dreams, no dualities, and no subject-object divide. The individual is not conscious in the ordinary sense, yet there is an experience of blissful rest. The Upaniṣads describe this as a state where even the king and the pauper are equal. In suṣupti, the ego has temporarily dissolved and the jīvātman rests near its true source.
Beyond all these lies turīya. It is not a state in the same sense as the others but the ever-present reality beneath them all. Turīya is śuddha caitanya, pure consciousness. It does not come and go; it is not something to be attained but something to be realised. It illumines waking, dreaming, and sleep, yet remains untouched by any of them. The Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad calls turīya the Self which is śāntaḥ, śivaḥ, and advaitaḥ, peace, auspiciousness, and non-dual.
The sages were not content with mere philosophical insight. They were seekers of direct experience. They observed how the mind, chitta, is constantly stirred by vṛttis, or modifications, of desire, fear, memory, and imagination. These fluctuations keep the jīvātman bound in saṁsāra, the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.
To quiet the vṛttis, they turned to abhyāsa, which is steadfast practice, and vairāgya, or dispassion. As the Bhagavad Gītā reveals, when Arjuna speaks of the mind as unstable like the wind, Srikrishna does not deny its nature. He affirms its restlessness and yet points to abhyāsa and vairāgya as the path to mastery.
In the Yoga Sūras of Patañjali, the aim is clear: yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ. Yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of chitta. When the mind becomes steady, like a lamp in a windless place, the seer abides in their own svarūpa, their essential nature.
This was never about suppression or escape. The ancient seers did not seek to conquer the mind through force. They sought to understand it with subtlety and care. The goal was svātantrya, inner freedom. Not freedom from thought, but freedom from identification with thought. The capacity to witness every arising, whether pleasure, pain, memory, or imagination, without being bound by it.
In such a state, the mind becomes a mirror, clear, calm, and reflective of truth. This state is not separate from daily life. One who abides in it sees the world with clarity, acts with compassion, and rests in equanimity. Success and failure, praise and blame, gain and loss, all pass like clouds in the sky. The Self remains as the sky itself, vast, silent, and unchanging.
This journey, from the agitated manas to the stillness of turīya, from bondage to liberation, is not theoretical. It is to be lived, step by step, moment by moment. It is not a renunciation of life but a reorientation, a turning inward, not to withdraw but to remember.
Even today, amidst distraction and urgency, the teachings remain. The human mind has not changed in essence. It still longs for peace, still chases shadows, and still fears silence. Yet the ṛris remind us that peace is not something to be found. It is something to be uncovered.
When the vṛttis are calmed, when the senses rest, when manas returns to its source, there shines the light of the Self. It is self-luminous, ever-free, and untouched by sorrow.
When the mind is known, the Self is known. In the knowledge of the Self, there is nothing more to seek.
