The Three Avasthaas

newsnow9November 16, 2025014 mins

This is an article series. Please read all previous articles before reading this article. The URLs for all previous articles are located at the bottom of this page.

We all exist in 3 states of consciousness or avasthaas i.e., we (all living beings) are either 1) awake or 2) dreaming or 3) asleep. But what do we understand about these 3 avasthaas? Let’s look at them one at a time.

Awake State (jaagruta avasthaa)

When we are awake, the world is visible to us through our eyes and everything is to our eye’s level. This is true to humans and animals, too. When we greet or talk to a human or animal, we look at their eyes… and they look at our eyes. In fact, the words “This” and “That” take their meanings precisely based on an object’s nearness to a person’s eyes. For example, I say “THIS fruit came from THAT tree” because the fruit is near my eyes and the tree is far from my eyes. We feel as though we live at our eyes’ level. It seems as though the “jeevaatma”, which is in the middle of the chest (please refer to article 2 below), is using a periscope to watch everything that’s happening at our eyes’ level.
Below is a pictorial representation of the Awake State (jaagruta avasthaa)

In our body, we all have 5 internal faculties. They are:

mind (manas) – processes input received from sensory organs (jnyaanEndriyas) and passes on instructions to motor organs (karmEndriyas).
Intellect (buddhi) – aids with decision-making making
awareness of the self (ahankaara) – aids in realizing “I am hungry”, “I am tired”, etc.
memory (chitta) – aids with remembering the past; has access to a rule base that has been developed with experiences from all our past lives.
super-consciousness (chEtana) – remembrance of the past janmas and extended awareness of the future (this part is only my guess because I have not elevated to this level yet)

The above internal faculties are referred to as “antah-karaNas”. Well-formed antah-karaNas functioning together is referred to by the term “prajnya” or consciousness.

When we are awake, our intellect (buddhi) is at its sharpest… our awareness of the self is at its highest… we make it a point to save what we perceive through our sensory organs, i.e., our experiences, into the memory (chitta).

Basically, our mind (manas) is doing 3 things:
1. It is constantly scanning input coming in from the sensory organs (ears, skin, eyes, tongue, and nose) and processing them.
2. It is passing instructions to the motor organs (vocal organ, hands, legs, excretory organs, and genitals) to either say or do something.
3. Amidst the above 2 functions, the mind is pausing to focus on some task.

About the Awake state of consciousness, all of the above (except the “chEtana”) are well within our personal experience.

Dream State (swapna avasthaa)

In the dream state, we feel as though we live at our throat’s level and not quite at the eye level… i.e., the “jeevaatma” is using a periscope to watch at our throat level. But this requires a good bit of observation, because we don’t remember the dream as precisely as our experiences when we are awake. From what I’ve been able to recollect, a person who is the same height as me will appear taller when I see the same person in my dream… and a person who is 3-4 inches shorter than me will appear to be of the same height as me in my dream.

To quote my own personal experience… the priest at our temple is about 3 inches shorter than me. Recently, I had a dream where I was speaking to him, wherein I was seeing him at my eye level… and I remembered about it when I woke up. It seemed as though I was shorter by about 3 inches. This can happen only if I’m looking at my throat level.

While the antah-karaNas are active during a dream, they may not be as active as when we are awake. For example, if we see a tiger in our dream… then the mind instructs the legs to run, but we can’t run… because the mind’s connection with the legs is weak while dreaming. We may be speaking some words to someone, but we don’t quite speak it out through our vocals while dreaming… again, because the mind’s connection with vocal organ is weak. Often, we may not make the best decisions while dreaming i.e., intellect (buddhi) is not as sharp… nor can we remember the dream well, i.e., memory (chitta) is not as sharp either.
We do not compose our dreams. We can only see what is projected, just like how a movie is projected on a screen in a dark theatre. Whatever is shown is what we see and whatever sound we hear is not our composition.

Again, pertaining to the dream state, all of the above are well within our own personal experience.

Sleep State (nidraa avasthaa)

The mind was fully active when we were awake. It was mostly active while dreaming, but its connection with the sensory and motor organs was very weak. But in the sleep state, the mind intellect, self-awareness and memory are all mostly inactive. We are mostly disconnected from the external world.
Even though we are still in the same world we live in, our connection with it seems paused or suspended temporarily.
The “periscope” feeling is not there anymore. The “jeevaatma” is not engrossed in watching something happening at the eye or throat level.
Whatever we experience when we are awake or dreaming will be a combination of some good and some bad experiences. But what we experience in sleep is 100% bliss. We may hear people saying “that was a horrible experience” about something they saw or heard when they were awake or dreaming… but we don’t hear people saying the same when they wake up from sleep.
Our breathing pattern is much different while sleeping. We take much longer breaths and thus, we absorb more energy. Energy expenditure through all other organs is minimal.

Again, pertaining to the sleep state, all of the above are well within our personal experience.

In short, we remember what we experience when awake… we see/hear what we see/hear while dreaming i.e., we don’t compose any of it… and we are disconnected from the external world while sleeping.

These are the three natural states of existence/consciousness. But is this all? Or is there any other state of consciousness we can be in? Our ancestors i.e., the great Rishis delved into this. They noticed that the mind has the ability to focus on one particular thing… and when it does, it seems to be able to partially disconnect itself, and not process input coming in through the sensory organs and pass instructions to the motor organs. So, what happens when this focus is further strengthened? They delved into it further and worked hard to focus the mind on precisely one specific thing. They worked harder and harder on that focus until they reached a state where the mind itself became an unnecessary external attachment… and realized that the “jeevaatma” could exist without it. This non-natural state is perhaps what is referred to as “samadhi”, which has some characteristics we see in the other three natural states of consciousness.

A person who is able to reach this state remembers what he/she sees/hears… like how it is in the awake state; did not compose what he/she saw/heard… like how it is the dream state; and was in a state of 100% bliss, disconnected from the external world… like how it is in the sleep state.

And what the Rishis heard in this 4^th state of consciousness (referred to as tureeya avasthaa or samaadhi) is what is referred to as the “Veda”.