There are seven stages after which there is nothing. The first three categories are for students on the spiritual path. Various techniques are implemented in the first three categories to purify and make the mind one-pointed. After the third stage, there is no more cycle of birth-death. The fourth category is for who-has-already-achieved-absolute-knowledge. The last three are for realized-souls-but-still-alive.
Longing for the Truth (Subhechha)
This is the beginning of wisdom and is called good desire (subhechha), where one craves to know "What is good." e.g., "We do not want to be bad; we want to be good. Something is very wrong with me right from the beginning. I do not know my past, I do not know my future, and even today, just at this moment, I cannot understand what circumstances I am passing through.”
Though the nature of the good is not known, there is at least a desire to know it. In this category, one has to keep away from bad things (desire, anger, greed, attachment, and ego), keep senses under control, and adopt the good virtues so that it helps to purify and make the mind one-pointed.
Proper Inquiry (Vicharana)
It is the subsequent effort to find out what is good. It is not enough if we merely want the good; we must know where the good lies and strive for it. This is self-analysis. Keeping the company of Saints, studying spiritual information, attending discourses of Saints, and meditation are all helpful in this category.
Thinned Mind (Tanumanasana)
It is a thread-like condition of the mind that is transparent and reflects the true nature of everything. In this category, one learns that the bondages are created because of the attachments. The mind, which was once opaque due to the desire for enjoyment of the objects of the world, due to which the light of the Self within could not be reflected, becomes thinned in this category. Just as sunlight cannot pass through a brick and can pass only through a glass, in the earlier categories, due to the thickened form of the mental process, the very idea of there being something called the Atma within cannot be possible. Still, after laborious practice in this manner, the mind becomes thin.
Attainment of Purity (Sattvapatti)
In this category, one gets absolute knowledge (Gyan) in which the world is a form of Soul/God, and in this category, there is no cycle of birth-death.
True Non-Attachment (Asamshakti)
In this category, one wakes up from Nirvikalpa Samad (a higher state of awareness where the ego and samskaras have been dissolved and only Consciousness remains). Here total detachment takes place. Because of the bliss, we enjoy the experience of this light of Self emanating from within one’s self through the mind that is so transparent we do not desire anything outside; we think that we are sufficient in ourselves. Our very being is a joy to us, and we do not want anything from anything else. Detachment takes place spontaneously in this category. It is not the non-attachment inflicted by deliberate austerity but a spontaneous event that is taking place on account of the knowledge abiding in the student.
Analysis of Objects (Padarthbhawna)
In this category, one wakes up from Nirvikalpa Samad (a higher state of awareness where the ego and samskaras have been dissolved and only Consciousness remains) when someone wakes them up; they cannot wake from this stage by themselves. In this category, we do not recognize that the world is really material. It is no more an object. All the things in the world appear as a congealed form of universal power. It is as if the motion of universal force gets concentrated into these knots appearing as space and time, to which we give an appellation of objects, persons, things, etc. There are no persons, no items, and no objects, ultimately. They are concentrated pressure points of universal force. We will never see anything material afterward. It is all one inundating force permeating all things, looking like objects, persons, and things.
Final Category (Turiya)
In this category, one does not wake up from Nirvikalpa Samad. All processes stop, and as the body is because of food, and in this category, one leaves the body after some time without food, e.g., the Lamp goes off when there is no oil left in it.
It is the final category, and it is salvation. This is the reason for our birth: i.e., to get into this category. When such a state of universal recognition of a pervading force is attained, the only thing that remains for a person – who is not a person but is a center of energy – is to identify one’s localized point of existence with this universal force so that what exists is not a perceived student of universal power, because this student has gone into the very bosom of the sea of energy. Instead, it is cosmic prana, cosmic mind, cosmic intellect, cosmic consciousness, or whatever we may call it. This state of immersion of one’s individuality into the pervading presence of universal force is true liberation.