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You cannot dream without causes. Even a dream has a causality. It is relevant, it shows something about you. Rather, it shows more about you than anything you are doing and showing when you are awake, because one can deceive oneself and others when one is awake, but one cannot deceive in dreams. Dreams are more innocent because we have not yet found any technology to polish dreaming, to use masks in dreaming. Dreams are still naked real, authentic; they show the real face more sincerely than any face you use when you are awake.
So this paradoxical thing happens: a dream becomes more real than all that you think is real, because you cannot maneuver it, you cannot manage -- you are just helpless. A dream happens; you cannot do anything in it. You are not the doer, you can just be an observer. In a subtle way, you are totally helpless. Because of that helplessness, a dream becomes more real, more authentic, and shows many things about your mind. Dreaming is worth knowing, worth enquiring about.
So the UPANISHAD asks, "What is this awake state of the mind? What is dreaming? What is non-dreaming sleep? And what is TURIYA?"
This word "turiya" only means "the fourth." So what are these three states -- being awake, dreaming, being deeply asleep -- and what is the fourth which transcends all these three? The fourth has not been given any name; it has only been known as "the fourth," the turiya, because really that is not a state of the mind but one's being, one's nature.
These three are states.... When you are awake, this is a state, a mode, a form, a shape of your being. This is not your being. This is a state -- it can change. In the night you will be dreaming. Dreaming is still a state, because it can change. Then you will be deep in sleep, dreamless sleep -- that too is a state. By "state" is meant something which you can take and change. The fourth, the turiya, is not a state, it is your being. You cannot change it, you are IT. So the fourth goes on in all the three states, and transcends them. But the fourth is not a state, it is your being. So what are these four?
All sociological interpretations of religion are just nonsense, sheer
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