Swami Turiyananda: “Man’s mind generally works in the three lowest planes: it travels up and down amongst those three only-food, sleep and sexual pleasure. It does not generally like to rise above these planes. The mind of some rises up to the plane of the heart. Then one gets the vision of light. The next is the ‘throat plane’. If the mind goes there, the world seems to be unreal. Even from these two planes the mind comes down; such is the force of the downward pull. But when the mind rises from the throat to the ‘plane of the eye-brow’, it does not come down again below the heart. The mind next goes to the ‘plane of the brain’.”
Swami J.: “They say one gets the vision of light, when the mind rises to the ‘throat-plane’. What kind of light is that ? Is it very luminous ?”
Swami Turiyananda: “Yes, one sees light. But, then, it is not any gross light – it is the light of knowledge.
“The sun does not shine there, nor the moon nor the stars nor these lightnings. How can this fire be there? He shining, all shines after Him. By His light all this shines.’ Here, to think that Brahman is a big light, which bedims the light of the sun and the moon, will be a mistake. The passage means that He existing, the whole universe is manifested.
“Man is entirely absorbed in sense-enjoyments. Eating, sleeping, and sexual pleasure -in these he spends his whole life. Shri Ramakrishna used to say, ‘Big rice-merchants put parched rice etc. at the very door, lest the rats enter the store-rooms. As soon as the rats come, they set themselves to eating those things; inside there are the bags of rice; of them the rats get no scent. In the same way, the Divine Mother has kept men deluded with tempting things, gold and lust. Men cannot go beyond them and get at the rice-bags, i.e. God. This world is like a labyrinth. Once one enters it one finds no way out. With human birth there comes an opportunity to get out. But of what avail it is? Man forgets all, busy with things pertaining to the senses.'” (Source: Spiritual Talks by the First Disciples of Sri Ramakrishna)