TM Founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi elucidated a systematic, scientific understanding of higher stages of human development and enlightenment. He described seven states of consciousness, each with a corresponding state of physiology. He shared the theoretical and practical knowledge making it possible for everyone to unfold their ultimate human potential—enlightenment—through technologies of consciousness, including the Transcendental Meditation technique.

This system of understanding is grounded in the Vedic tradition as brought to light by Maharishi, the timeless tradition of knowledge from which the TM program comes. Each state of consciousness is a progressive stage of awakening that opens a new world of experience and knowledge. And each state has a unique style of physiological functioning, a mind-body signature.

The first three states of consciousness

As we know from our own daily experience, the common states of consciousness are waking, sleep, and dreaming.

Waking state is the familiar, ever-changing world of people, places, things, and events. From outer sensory perception to inner thoughts and feelings, our waking state experience is in constant flux, while physiological functioning is active. We are fully conscious, but our perception may vary, depending on whether we are rested or tired, calm or anxious, happy or blue, healthy or sick.

Sleep is a physical and mental state of rest in which we become inactive and unaware of our surroundings. Most physiological functions slow down, and body temperature, blood pressure, and breathing rate all drop. Sensory and motor activity become suspended, voluntary muscles become inactive, and in deep sleep, we have no conscious awareness.

Dreaming state, which happens during sleep, is an illusory experience of time, place, people, and events. Most dreaming takes place in REM sleep, about 25 percent of our sleep time. Brainwave activity during REM sleep resembles that of waking state, but the brain inhibits signals to the muscles so we cannot act out our dreams.

All three of the common states of consciousness are essential to human life and development. Imbalance in our experience of these three states can throw off our health and well-being.

Transcendental Consciousness: The fourth state

Throughout history, great seers and writers have described experiences beyond the common states of waking, sleep, and dreaming—moments of extraordinary wakefulness, refined perception, happiness, and self-realization.¹

The key to developing higher states of consciousness is the regular experience of Transcendental Consciousness. This is the fourth state of consciousness, which we effortlessly experience during our TM practice. It is a state of restful alertness or quiet inner wakefulness.

In the 1970s, groundbreaking research on the TM technique was published in Science,² the American Journal of Physiology,³ and Scientific American.⁴ These studies demonstrated that Transcendental Consciousness is a fourth major state distinct from waking, sleep, and dreaming states.

This state has its own style of physiological functioning and brainwave pattern in 10 parameters: EEG (electroencephalography, measuring brain activity), eye movements, muscle tension, body motility, oxygen consumption, body temperature, cardiac output, blood gases, heart rate, and blood pressure. During TM practice, the body becomes deeply restful, while brain functioning becomes more coherent and integrated, indicating that the whole brain is awake.

In the Vedic tradition, this experience is referred to as pure consciousness or samadhi—the state of unified awareness. Maharishi often described the experience as “coming back home,” and a state of “unboundedness” in which the mind gains freedom from boundaries or limitations, restfully alert to its deeper inner nature.

Maharishi explained that subjective experiences during TM practice vary from day to day, depending on the condition of the nervous system, such as whether we are fresh or fatigued. When we first learn to meditate, we may experience Transcendental Consciousness only for brief moments. The experience is so natural that we may hardly be aware of it. In time, with regular TM practice, the experience of inner silence and wakefulness lasts for longer periods, first during meditation, then outside of meditation as well.

With regular experience of the fourth state during the TM technique, the next three higher states naturally develop.

Cosmic Consciousness: The fifth state

The greatest benefit of regular, twice-daily TM practice is the growth of consciousness. The deep rest and brainwave coherence gained during TM allows our body to release deep-rooted stresses and repair itself. The process of alternating the profound restful alertness experienced during TM practice with daily activity gradually cultures our nervous system to spontaneously maintain more of that silent inner wakefulness, even outside of meditation.

This is the development of the fifth state of consciousness, Cosmic Consciousness. This state results when the fourth state, Transcendental Consciousness, is fully experienced and established not only during TM practice but throughout the day. In Cosmic Consciousness, a continuum of unbounded inner awareness stays with us at all times, along with waking, sleep, and dreaming states. The full range of the mind, from active to silent, is now always open to our awareness.

This higher state is also known as Self-realization, because we are fully awakened to the true nature of the Self—unboundedness. In Cosmic Consciousness, that silent, unbounded awareness is present even during the most dynamic or challenging activities. Stressful circumstances are no longer binding or overwhelming. We remain calm and collected.

Athletes, artists, and others describe glimpses of this state as being “in the zone” or “in the flow.” But in Cosmic Consciousness this is experienced as a continuous and more heightened state than during ordinary waking consciousness.

Cosmic Consciousness is the first stage of enlightenment. This natural, highly evolved state brings great joy and fulfillment even to life’s smallest tasks. The full power of the human mind—the infinite potential of creative intelligence that resides deep within everyone—is present to support every undertaking.

In Cosmic Consciousness, life is lived in a continuum of inner happiness and well-being. All our thoughts, words, and actions are spontaneously life-supporting and in harmony with our surroundings, because we are thinking and acting from that silent field of unbounded creative intelligence, peace, and bliss.

Cosmic Consciousness is the birthright of every human being, because the potential to live this enlightened state is intrinsic to the human nervous system.

Glorified Cosmic Consciousness: The sixth state

With continued regular practice of the TM technique and the Advanced Techniques of the TM program, we grow increasingly familiar with subtler levels of the mind. The more refined states of thought that we experience as the mind settles down are more charming and profound than the active, surface levels of experience.

As our nervous system and mechanics of perception become more refined, our experience both in and out of meditation also becomes more refined, and life is filled with the charm of that subtler value of perception. We see the perfect harmony of life, a profound beauty and divinity in all that we perceive. For this reason, Glorified Cosmic Consciousness is also known as God Consciousness.

The literature of all the great traditions, East and West, is filled with grand expressions of this exalted level of experience. The nineteenth-century English poet William Wordsworth wrote:

…meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light.⁵

In the words of the early-American theologian Jonathan Edwards,

The appearance of everything was altered. There seemed to be… a calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine glory, in almost everything. God’s excellency… wisdom, … purity, and love, seemed to appear in everything; in the sun, moon, and stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, trees, in the water and all nature.⁶

The English novelist and playwright Rosamond Lehmann described her perception this way:

Everything around, above, below me was shimmering and vibrating. The tree foliage, the strip of lawn, the flower-beds—all had become incandescent. I seemed to be looking through the surfaces of all things into the manifold iridescent rays which, I could now see, composed the substances of all things. … The beauty of each of them was fathomless—a world of love.⁷

Unity Consciousness: The seventh state

Unity Consciousness is the pinnacle of human development, the highest stage of enlightenment. In the state of Unity, everything that we perceive exists within an ocean of consciousness. This is not merely an intellectual concept or a belief in the ultimate oneness of life. Continued practice of the TM program—including Advanced Techniques and the TM-Sidhi program—facilitates further refinement in the machinery of perception. The dawning of this seventh state of consciousness brings the recognition that consciousness itself is the true nature of all that exists.

In the fifth state, Cosmic Consciousness, we realize the true nature of our inner Self to be pure consciousness. In Glorified Cosmic Consciousness or God Consciousness, our senses become sufficiently refined to allow us to perceive the finest and most exalted value of everything in creation. In Unity Consciousness, that same pure consciousness experienced within is seen as the true nature of everyone and everything around us. Aham Brahmasmi, says the Vedic literature: “I am the Totality.”

Dr. Tony Nader, the MIT- and Harvard-trained medical doctor, neuroscientist, and authority in the field of consciousness who is the global leader of the international TM organizations, discusses higher states of consciousness in his book One Unbounded Ocean of Consciousness: Simple Answers to the Big Questions in Life. Here he explains how Unity Consciousness is the only state in which we can truly be said to be a knower of reality:

Unity Consciousness, far from being just another way to see the Self and the objects of perception, is the way to see all things in existence. It is the only truth about existence or reality itself. All the other truths are valid in their own domains, but they are relative. They are belief systems, based on limited perception. You can have different, limited perceptions of reality, one more expanded than another and another more glorious than the first and a third so absolutely glorious that it is divine… yet each is relative, an incomplete state of consciousness from which to view the world.

The one state of consciousness that is absolutely true to how things actually are is Unity Consciousness. You never know reality as it truly is until you are in Unity Consciousness. —Tony Nader, M.D., Ph.D., M.A.R.R.⁸

The practical advantage of life in Unity Consciousness is that one is freed from any misunderstanding about the true nature of existence—we no longer experience any aspect of life as imperfect, incomplete, or without purpose. Everything is the play and display of an eternal field of pure creative intelligence. Everything is consciousness.

Maharishi described the growth of Unity Consciousness in a 1970 talk at Humboldt State College in Arcata, California:

This is a life, a practical life, a most highly evolved state of human existence in Unity. This is Vedanta [fulfillment of all knowledge]. That unmanifest pure Being is there; only at one time it is transcendental—that means it is beyond the relative. At other times, when our awareness has opened to that transcendental, then that ultimate content of life, that pure Being, zooms forth in our awareness, and then gets established with such great intimacy that the whole awareness is in terms of that. Then “I am That, and thou art That, and all this is That,” and that is the life in Unity. —Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

To watch Maharishi’s beautiful talk on the growth of Unity Consciousness or read the transcript, visit “Harmony of Differences and Waves of Bliss—the Most Highly Evolved State of Human Existence.”

To learn more about Unity Consciousness, read an excerpt from Dr. Nader’s book One Unbounded Ocean of Consciousness: “The Ultimate Stage of Personal Growth: Supreme Enlightenment in Unity Consciousness.”

We also recommend Dr. Craig Pearson’s book, The Supreme Awakening, Experiences of Enlightenment throughout Time and How You Can Cultivate Them.

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Notes

1. Pearson, Craig. The Supreme Awakening: Experiences of Enlightenment throughout Time—And How You Can Cultivate Them. MIU Press, 2014.
2. Wallace, Robert Keith. “Physiological effects of Transcendental Meditation.” Science. 1970; 167:1751–4.
3. Wallace, Robert Keith, Benson H., Wilson A.F. “A Wakeful Hypometabolic Physiologic State.” American Journal of Physiology. 1971; 221:795-9.
4. Wallace, Robert Keith. “The Physiology of Meditation.” Scientific American. 1972; 226:84-90.
5. Wordsworth, William. “ODE: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.”
6. Edwards, Jonathan. “Narrative of His Religious History,” C.D. Warner et al. (comp.), The Library of the World’s Best Literature: An Anthology in Thirty Volumes, 1917, Bartleby.com.
7. Lehmann, Rosamond. Swan in the Evening: Fragments of an Inner Life. Harper Collins, 1967.
8. Nader, Tony. One Unbounded Ocean of Consciousness: Simple Answers to the Big Questions in Life. Penguin Random House ebook, 2021.