The Four Quarters of the Self

The Mandukya Upanisad is the shortest of the major Upanisads - only twelve verses - yet it is considered by many the most profound. The Muktika Upanisad declares that if a person cannot study all 108 Upanisads, they should study the Mandukya alone, for it contains the essence of them all. Gaudapada, Shankara’s paramaguru, wrote an entire commentary - the Mandukya Karika - on these twelve verses, and it became one of the foundational texts of the Advaita tradition.

The Mandukya does not tell a story in the conventional sense. It is a direct teaching - a progressive revelation of the Self through the analysis of OM and the three states of consciousness. But it is a story in a deeper sense: the story of consciousness discovering its own true nature.

OM is All This

“OM - this whole world is that syllable. A clear explanation of it: all that is past, present, and future is OM. And whatever transcends the three divisions of time - that too is OM.” (MU 1)

The teaching begins with a single syllable. OM is not merely a sound; it is the name of reality itself. Everything that exists - everything that has existed, everything that will exist, and everything that lies beyond existence - all is contained in this one syllable.

By understanding OM, one understands the Self. And by understanding the Self, one understands everything.

The Self Has Four Quarters

“This Self is Brahman. This Self has four quarters.” (MU 2)

The Self (atman) is not a simple unity. It has four aspects, four dimensions, four quarters (padas). They are not four different selves but four dimensions of the one Self, ranging from the gross to the subtle to the causal to the ungraspable.

First Quarter: Vaisvanara - The Waking State

“The first quarter is Vaisvanara, whose sphere is the waking state, conscious of external objects, possessing seven limbs and nineteen mouths, enjoying gross objects.” (MU 3)

Vaisvanara is the Self in the waking state - the self that experiences the external world through the senses. It has seven limbs (the head, eyes, nostrils, mouth, trunk, heart, and feet - corresponding to the cosmic Purusa of the Rig Veda). It has nineteen mouths: five sense organs, five action organs, five vital breaths, the mind, the intellect, the ego, and the mind-stuff.

This is who we think we are most of the time: the person who wakes up in the morning, interacts with the world, works, eats, and sleeps. But the Mandukya says: this is only the first quarter. There is more.

Second Quarter: Taijasa - The Dream State

“The second quarter is Taijasa, whose sphere is the dream state, conscious of internal objects, possessing seven limbs and nineteen mouths, enjoying subtle objects.” (MU 4)

Taijasa is the Self in the dream state. When the body sleeps and the senses withdraw, the mind creates an inner world. The dreamer sees, hears, touches, and experiences - but all within the mind. The nineteen mouths are the same as in the waking state, but now they operate internally rather than externally.

The dream state reveals something crucial: the mind can create entire worlds. The dream world is experienced as real while it lasts, yet it is a projection of consciousness alone. Could the waking world be the same?

Third Quarter: Prajna - The Deep Sleep State

“The third quarter is Prajna, whose sphere is deep sleep, where one desires no desire and dreams no dream. It is a mass of consciousness, consisting of bliss, experiencing bliss, whose mouth is consciousness.” (MU 5)

“This is the lord of all, the knower of all, the inner controller, the source of all - for all beings originate from and dissolve into this.” (MU 6)

Prajna is the Self in deep sleep (susupti). In this state, the mind is resolved into its seed form. There is no desire, no dream, no object - only a mass of undifferentiated consciousness, a mass of bliss.

Prajna is not aware of anything in particular, but it is not unaware. It is a mass of knowledge (prajnanaghana). It is the causal state from which the waking and dream states emerge and into which they dissolve.

The Mandukya calls Prajna “the lord of all, the knower of all, the inner controller.” In deep sleep, we touch the source of our own being - the unmanifest state from which all experience arises.

The Fourth: Turiya - Beyond the Three

“The fourth is Turiya: not conscious of the internal world, not conscious of the external world, not conscious of both together, not a mass of consciousness, not conscious, not unconscious. It is unseen, incapable of being spoken of, ungraspable, without distinguishing marks, unthinkable, unnamable. It is the essence of the one Self-consciousness, the end of all phenomena, peaceful, auspicious, non-dual.” (MU 7)

Turiya is not a fourth state like the other three. The three states are within consciousness; Turiya is consciousness itself. It is the substratum of waking, dream, and deep sleep - that which remains when all states have come and gone.

The Mandukya describes Turiya through negation (neti neti): it is not this, not that. Not internal, not external, not both, not a mass, not conscious in the ordinary sense, not unconscious. It cannot be seen, spoken, grasped, thought, or named.

But it is not nothing. It is the “essence of one-Self-consciousness” - pure awareness aware of itself alone. It is the end of all phenomena - where the world ceases and the Self remains. It is peaceful, auspicious, and non-dual (advaita).

The Correspondence with OM

The Mandukya then reveals the correspondence between the four quarters of the Self and the three matras (measures) of OM:

A - the first matra of OM - corresponds to Vaisvanara, the waking state. The letter A is the first sound, just as waking is the first state. One who knows this attains all desires and becomes first among beings.

U - the second matra - corresponds to Taijasa, the dream state. The letter U rises from A and connects to M, just as dream rises from waking and leads to sleep. One who knows this rises in knowledge.

M - the third matra - corresponds to Prajna, the deep sleep state. The letter M closes the syllable, just as sleep closes the cycle of experience. One who knows this measures and merges all things into the Self.

The matras (A, U, M) and the matras-less (the silence after OM) - this corresponds to Turiya. The three matras are the means; the silence is the goal. The three states are experienced; Turiya is realised.

The final verse of the Upanisad declares:

“The partless OM is the Self. One who knows this merges the Self in the Supreme Self.” (MU 12)

The Teaching

The Mandukya Upanisad is the most systematic analysis of consciousness in all of Vedantic literature:

1. The Self is known through the analysis of experience. By examining waking, dream, and deep sleep, we discover that we are not any of these states but the consciousness that knows all three.

2. OM is the symbol of the Self. Its three matras correspond to the three states, and the silence beyond them corresponds to the Fourth. Meditating on OM is meditating on the structure of consciousness itself.

3. Turiya is not a state among states. It is the substratum of all states - that which remains when all states have come and gone. It is the Self, pure consciousness, non-dual awareness.

4. This Self is Brahman. The Mandukya opens with the mahavakya: “This Self is Brahman” (ayam atma brahma). The innermost Self, the witness of all experience, is identical with the ultimate reality.

Further study: The three states of consciousness are explored on the Avasthatraya page. The Self that is the substratum of all states is examined on the Atman page. Brahman as the ultimate reality that the Mandukya identifies with the Self is discussed on the Brahman page. Gaudapada’s Karika commentary on the Mandukya develops the Ajativada (doctrine of no-origination) which is the most radical expression of Advaita.

Source citations: Mandukya Upanisad, Verses 1-12. Key citations: MU 1 (OM is all), MU 2 (the Self has four quarters), MU 3 (Vaisvanara), MU 4 (Taijasa), MU 5-6 (Prajna), MU 7 (Turiya), MU 8-11 (OM correspondence), MU 12 (the partless OM). Translations consulted: Swami Gambhirananda (Eight Upanishads, Vol. 2), Swami Nikhilananda, Gaudapada Karika with Shankara’s commentary.