Self-Realization and Other Awakenings

the knowledge of the body and the mind, leaving one
empty and sensitive to more subtle layers.
Next is what he called the Supracausal body, which
Ramana and he both also called Turiya, or the fourth
state. This is the ‘I Am’, the deepest level of
embodied consciousness.
All three, Ramana, Siddharameshwar, and
Nisargadatta said this part of one’s Self is found in
meditative introspection on the sense of ‘I’, or ‘I
Amness’, or of just ‘Amness’. Through meditation the
successive bodies or layers are revealed as one gets
progressively more discriminatively subtle. Ramana
and Siddharameshwar placed far more emphasis on
introspection and abiding in the ‘I’, or the ‘I Am’
sensation, while Maharaj placed more emphasis later
in his life on the presence of the guru, and listening to
his words. Earlier, he was far more devotional.
Now, Siddharameshwar said that with the guidance
of the guru, the student finally penetrates through to
the ‘I Am’ level and needs to abide there. The ‘I Am’
level is all about love. The ‘I Am’ level, Turiya, in a
sense is love itself.
This too is my discovery. You can best find the ‘I
Am’ level inside yourself through love, first by loving
that sense of ‘I Am’ you find through introspection,
and then also by borrowing the love you feel for