There’s an old saying that goes, “A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.” That may be. But a lot of knowledge can lead to successful actions (right action, as the Buddha put it). And successful actions can lead to all kinds of terrific achievements in life. And one achievement after another can lead to fulfillment. Looked at this way, therefore, you can see the important role that knowledge can play in developing fulfillment – the thing that you are most looking for in life. But what’s the basis of knowledge? The answer to this critical question can bring relevance to college educations, and happiness to graduates. The basis of knowledge is, in a word, consciousness.
Consciousness 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0
To understand truly what consciousness is in its pure form, you must first understand what consciousness is in its less-than-pure forms. You need to understand, in other words, the nature of the three states of consciousness that you go through every single day of your life.
Consciousness 1.0 is what you experience about a third of your life – namely, sleep. That deeply restful repose that you’re told you need about eight hours of each night is the pause that refreshes you from your day’s activities that tire you out come 10, 11… or 12, 1, or 2 for the latenighters.
Consciousness 2.0 is the sometimes surrealistic landscape you traverse in irrational ways behind your rapidly moving eyes.
The Freudian dreamscapes with their variety of psychoanalytic interpretations help clear out additional stress, and at times point us to some deep insights.
Consciousness 3.0 is what you experience after you wake up in the morning when your alarm rings, your child sings, or the rooster crows – for those who live in more rural areas. It’s what you know as the waking state. Coupled with deep sleep and dreaming, this constitutes the changing three states of consciousness.
Consciousness 4.0 Consciousness 4.0 is the beginning of awakening from the sleep that ignores or overlooks your true nature. It’s an experience of your true I – not your limited ego, but your unlimited Self. It’s a glimpse into the Self-Realization that all the great wise men and women throughout the ages have written, taught and preached about. It’s the higher Self that the Bhagavad Gita (translated as “The Song of God”) has sung about. It’s what the Upanishads of the Vedas of India have chanted about.
Consciousness 4.0 is a state of stillness, a state of silence, a state of Being. Unlike the other three states that involve some degree of physical or mental activity, this state is one of no activity – pure rest and relaxation, when the conscious mind becomes consciousness, when the thinker arrives at the source of thought. It’s analogous to when the deep-sea scuba diver stops his diving and settles in at the bottom of the ocean, and gazes in all directions at the infinite peace of the silent ocean floor.
When you find yourself in this state, you enjoy peace and bliss, the ultimate goal of all knowledge in the first place. And as you get more and more familiar with this place, the best way I know to do that – as a longtime teacher of first, Transcendental Meditation and since 2010, Higher Self Healing Meditation – is meditation. With it, you begin to expand the container of knowledge. The mind is the container in which all knowledge is stored. And as you tap into Consciousness 4.0, you expand that container. Think of juice, for example. You can pour your morning dose of vitamin C into a 4-ounce glass, or an 8-ounce glass. Or you can supersize it into a 16-ounce glass. The latter can contain more liquid. Familiarizing yourself with Consciousness 4.0 supersizes your mind, so that more knowledge can be contained in it. And knowledge, you saw, leads to action, achievement and fulfillment.
My only parting question is, “Would you like fries with that supersized mind?”
