What remains to be developed? In Cosmic Consciousness, although consciousness is unbounded, our senses still experience the outer world superficially, much as in the ordinary waking state. The world remains a collection of things, separate from each other and separate from one’s Self. If there is to be further growth, Maharishi points out, it will have to be in our relationship with the world around us.

In the sixth state of consciousness, the senses perceive the subtlest levels of natureCosmic Consciousness provides the platform from where our perceptual machinery becomes profoundly refined. With unbounded awareness now established on the level of the conscious mind, and with the physiology now virtually free of stress, the organs of perception now embark upon a remarkable and spontaneous process of refinement. We gain the ability to perceive finer and finer levels of nature, increasingly subtle strata of creation.In time, perception becomes so exquisitely refined that we can discern nature’s subtlest material structure. In everything around us, we perceive what Maharishi terms the finest relative domain of nature—the most delicate, most refined value of matter, or “relative” existence.

This represents an altogether new state of consciousness, distinctly different from Cosmic Consciousness. Now, unbounded awareness is coupled with perception of the finest relative. Perception now embraces the entire range of relative life, from surface values to the subtlest material level—the full majesty of God’s creation. Maharishi calls this state Refined Cosmic Consciousness or God Consciousness.

What is the nature of this finest relative level of life? Maharishi describes it as vibrant infinity, vibrant Absolute. The essential nature of this finest relative field is light, which Maharishi has described as “the self-illuminant effulgence of life.”