Osho – Through all three states – wakefulness, dreaming and deep sleep – turiya, the fourth state, runs like a thread through the beads of a mala. Even while you sleep there is someone awake within. When you dream there is someone witnessing the dream. When you are awake during the day there is a witness within as you go about your daily routine. This is bound to be, for that which is your nature you cannot lose no matter how deep you are in sleep. That which you are is bound to be present. It can be suppressed, hidden, forgotten, but never destroyed.
Whether you are asleep or dreaming or awake, turiya is ever-present. Deep within you are always Buddha. However much you may wander, all wandering is only superficial and belongs to the waves on the surface. Deep within you have never wandered, for deep within there is no way to wander.
Therefore, the fourth state is not to be attained but revealed. It has not to be achieved but uncovered. It lies hidden within like a buried treasure. You dig through a few layers of soil and become rich as a king. You need not seek anywhere, the treasure lies within. You keep getting glimpses of it, but you pay them no heed.
In the morning you get up and say you slept long and deep, that the sleep was very refreshing. When you say this, have you ever wondered who it is who knows that the sleep was enjoyable? If all of your being was asleep, who was there to give remembrance? Who is it who says that the sleep was deep and refreshing? Surely someone saw into the depth of the slumber. Some dim light shone all through your sleep. The darkness was never total; it could be seen.
You dream at night. In the morning you remember some fragments of your dream. You say you had a nightmare. So the observer was separate from your sleep, he was not lost in the sleep. A part of you stood aside and did not become one with the dream. You were the observer, the spectator, when the dream was being played on the stage of the soul within. But you were outside the play, otherwise you would not have remembered.
When anger gets hold of you during the day, it is not that you are totally asleep; there are glimpses within. You are aware of anger when it comes, you feel it coming. As the skies fill with clouds before the rain falls, you feel the smoke rising before the fire of anger erupts.
When you are filled with attachments, when you are tranquil, when you are restless – there is someone within who keeps a constant watch; but you take no notice of this observer. Your attention flows toward what is seen in the world, and you are one with what you see; it doesn’t occur to you to turn and see the observer within who watches. This is all you have to do: turn within and see the observer. Your unconsciousness will break and you will attain the fourth state. He who attains the fourth state attains all. He who does not attain the fourth state, finds at the time of death that whatever he has earned, whatever he has gathered, is not worth a penny. It is all useless.
source – osho book “the great path”