A Sculpture by Gualberto Rocchi

The classical and definitive description of The Fourth State comes out of the all-important Māndūkya Upaniṣad, Shruti 7: What is known as the fourth state (turīya) – neither inward- nor outward-turned consciousness, nor the two together; not an undifferentiated mass of dormant omniscience; neither knowing nor unknowing – because invisible, ineffable, intangible, devoid of characteristics, inconceivable, undefinable, its sole essence being the assurance of its own Self (Ātman); the coming to peaceful rest of all differentiated, relative existence; utterly quite peaceful-blissful; without-a-second (advaitam): — this is Ātman, the Self: It must be realized.

The sculpture shows The Fourth State, It, as a creative reality attainable by the living human mind-body synthesis.  To think, It is mind, is to miss It.  To think, It is body, is to lose It.  It is above even mind-body but it is experienced through mind-body.  In its experiencing know It only as reality: any spacetime nameable or sayable differentiation whatsoever does not get It.   Attaining It means crossing the bridge of paradox: all energy in the universe recedes from itself but at the same time it returns to itself, making the apparently “impossible,” possible.  Attaining The Fourth State grows out of the universal total paradox (within spacetime) surrounding Ātman, the Self.