Trans-mind states are extensively described in ancient India, and are regarded as a characteristic aspect of the spiritually developed condition.
Mahabharata
In one of India’s most ancient texts, the Mahabhrata,(13.294.16) meditation is described as follows:
He does not hear…smell…taste…see…or experience touch…his mind ceases to imagine…He desires nothing, and like a log he does not think… quoted in Feuerstein, 2006. (p97).
Upanishads
The Upanishads are some thousands of years younger than the Mahabharata. Mascaro, an eminent translator of Indian spiritual texts, summarizes the Upanishadic ideas on meditation and consciousness as follows:
In the infinite struggle of man to know this world and the universe around him, and also to know the mind that allows him to think, he comes before the simple fact that life is above thought: when he sees a fruit he can think about the fruit but in the end he must eat it if he wants to know its taste: the pleasure and nourishment he may get from eating the fruit is not an act of thought (Mascaro, 1965, pp1–47).
Mascaro’s authoritative translations of the Upanishads further illustrate these points. In the Kena Upanishad it is stated:
He (God) comes to the thought of those who know him beyond thought, not to those who imagine he can be attained by thought: he is unknown to the learned and known to the simple (p51).
Further, in the Kaushitaki Upanishad it is stated “It is not thought which we should know: we should know the thinker” (p105).
And in the Katha Upanishad:
When the five senses and the mind are still, and reason itself rests in silence, then begins the path supreme. This calm steadiness of the senses is called yoga. Then one should become watchful, because yoga comes and goes (p55).
Patanjali
One of the most well known yogic treatise is Patanjali’s Yoga Aphorisms. Patanjali was a physician who attempted to synthesise the many disparate texts on yogic discipline (such as the Hathayogapradipika, cited above) into single coherent practical guide for those aspiring to experience higher consciousness and self realisation, it is stated:
By being aware of the silent void moments pervading the emptiness between thoughts, one can glimpse and expand the skill of thought subjugation which leads to transformation (Messenger, C).