Sleep And The Body-Consciousness

Question: I Feel That I Am Losing...

Question: I feel that I am losing a battle with my vital in the morning when I want to get up and meditate and I can’t get up.

Sri Chinmoy: It is not your vital that does not allow you to get up, it is your gross physical, although the vital also helps the physical to enjoy more sleep. What happens is that the combined lethargy of the physical and the undivine vital is stronger than your heart’s aspiration. With tremendous heart’s aspiration you can conquer the vital and the body which create this extreme physical inertia. Then you will be able to get up.

What you should do before you go to bed is try for five minutes to concentrate on the particular hour at which you wish to rise. If you want to get up at a quarter to six, with your mental eye try to visualise the hands of the clock fixed at a quarter to six right in front of your face. You will see that the following morning it will be easier to get up. It may take two or three days, or it may take a week, but I assure you that you will be able to get up, because you are applying the soul’s conscious will before going to bed at night. This conscious will becomes one with the earthly time, which the clock represents. It will enter into earthly time and command it. Then, early in the morning, the soul will again enter into earthly time and compel the earthly time to stand in front of you. Then it will easily be possible for you to get up and meditate at that particular hour.

Those who are meditating at six o’clock or six-thirty in the morning must not go back to bed. There are some who meditate at three-thirty on rare occasions, or at four-thirty, or a quarter to five. Those who meditate before five can go to bed again for a few minutes or half an hour if they feel it is necessary. But those who meditate at around six o’clock should not go to sleep again. It is harmful, because the day has already dawned and the capacity of the day has already entered into them. The capacity of the night must be separated from the capacity of the day. Night has already played its role in their aspiration by giving them rest. Now day has to play its role with dynamic activity, which is a form of aspiration in the physical and material world.

Question: If We Don’t Drink Coffee Or...

Question: If we don’t drink coffee or tea, what can we do if we start feeling drowsy while driving late at night, or if we get little sleep and find it difficult to get up in the morning?

Sri Chinmoy: You say that sometimes you feel drowsy while driving. Now, why should coffee or tea have to come to your rescue? There are spiritual methods, which have infinitely more power than coffee or tea, that can help you at that time. If you are tired while driving, stop your car and breathe in deeply a few times. Do the alternate nostril breathing (described in the section of this book on Pranayama ). This will give you immediate energy. Then, with the power of your concentration, try consciously to breathe in divine energy. When you breathe in, try to feel that you are breathing in not only through your nose, but also through your eyes, ears, forehead, head, shoulders. Feel that energy is coming from all quarters and entering into you from various doors. If you are conscious of this stream of energy entering into you, naturally you will not be sleepy. When you begin meditating well, you are drawing in energy consciously or unconsciously. Naturally, the more energy you can draw into you, the higher your meditation will be. And where does this energy come from? It comes from the Universal Consciousness.

Another thing you can do when you are tired is repeat the name of the Supreme or your Guru very rapidly. If you do so, immediately their names will enter into your own inner consciousness, and you will get boundless energy.

The number of hours that you sleep is not the important thing, but rather how well you sleep. If you find that it is difficult to get up in the morning, you have to know that during eight hours of sleep perhaps you have not had even one hour of good sleep. There is a kind of sleep called yogic sleep. In one second of yogic sleep we can get the equivalent of fifteen minutes or a half hour of ordinary rest. Now, how can you get that kind of rest? Early in the morning when you find it difficult to get up, try to feel that your entire body, from head to foot, represents a sea of peace. Feel that you have become peace itself, that you embody peace within and without. Try to feel your physical frame consciously, but at the same time feel that you are an infinite expanse of peace. When you can consciously feel this expanse of peace, you will see that your physical body, flesh, blood and bones, has totally merged and disappeared into that sea of peace.

Peace can act like dynamic strength. You feel that when the body is active and moving to and fro, you have strength; but real strength exists in inner peace, not in outer action. When you possess peace in infinite measure, you possess the source of ordinary dynamic energy. If you call upon dynamic energy, which is inside you in the form of peace, then you can get up easily.

Also, when you go to bed, just try to feel that you are going to sleep for twenty-four hours. Then, even though the clock will say that you have slept only three or four hours, your very first thought as soon as you wake up should be that you have slept for twenty-four hours. The mind can convince the outer consciousness, and immediately you will believe it. This is not self-deception; it is proper use of the conscious mind. The figure twenty-four has enormous strength. It immediately gives us a sense of comfort, relief, pleasure, fulfilment.

Question: How Can We Stay Conscious When...

Question: How can we stay conscious when we're sleeping?

Sri Chinmoy: In your case, since you only meditate a half hour or an hour a day, it is not possible. If one wants to be fully alert during sleep and not disturbed by vital, emotional forces or wrong movements, then one has to meditate at least six and a half hours daily. And in that meditation one cannot all the time be looking at the clock to see how many hours have gone by. One may not watch the time, but he must know that he is meditating at least six hours daily. If one can meditate consciously for six or seven hours—and not only for a day or two, but for a few months, perhaps even a few years—then only can one be fully conscious during sleep. At that time he will be able to know which plane his soul is moving in during sleep. Like a bird, the soul flies from this plane to that plane during sleep, and one can be fully conscious of this movement if he meditates.

But I do not advise one who has plenty of work to do in his office or at school to meditate six or seven hours a day. First of all, if the vital is not pure, it will immediately create problems greater than the achievement in meditation. The person will lose his mental balance and will have to go to a mental asylum. Gradually one can work up to six hours a day. It is like exercising the body; every day you take exercise and gradually you develop your muscles. Then you feel strong and others feel you are strong. Similarly, you have to start with fifteen minutes or half an hour of meditation and gradually increase it. In the spiritual world, you cannot push or pull or do things by force. Slowly and steadily you run towards the Goal. At each step you have to be confident of what you are doing. If you have been meditating for half an hour, you can try to meditate for forty-five minutes or an hour, but from half an hour please do not jump to six and a half hours.

If you cannot meditate for six hours, which you cannot and must not try right now, before you go to bed I wish you to breathe purity into your system consciously for five minutes. During the day, many wrong things have taken place. Impurity, ugliness and many other undivine forces have entered into your physical body. But if you establish purity in your system at night, you will get a little conscious sleep, although not the kind that you will have when you have meditated for six or eight hours a day. Without some purity, what most of us call sleep is not sleep at all. It is death. During sleep we live in the world of the dead, the world of inertia and inconscience.

Question: Could You Speak A Little More...

Question: Could you speak a little more about how the soul flies to different planes during sleep?

Sri Chinmoy: There are three states of consciousness. Susupti , which you can call the dreamless state, is the purest, deepest, highest sleep. Then there is Swapan , the dream state, and finally Jagriti , wakefulness. In deep sleep, the soul gets the opportunity to fly from one plane of consciousness to another. We have many layers of consciousness inside our being, but when we are working, talking and mixing with others in the hustle and bustle of the world, the inner being is crushed and the soul does not get the opportunity to fly. We are in the outer world, and all kinds of silly things come into our outer mind; all is restlessness. But in deep sleep, the entire being is silenced and the soul can fly like a bird from one plane of consciousness to another. When the soul makes this flight without any obstruction, all the doors and windows in our inner being are automatically opened up. When the inner doors are all open and the soul is flying, at that time the outer being becomes one with the Divine and experiences the consciousness of Delight.

Now, how can an aspirant consciously have that feeling of oneness during sleep? It is through constant meditation. There is no other way. Otherwise when you become one with your Highest in your sound sleep, you will not be aware of it. You may be aware for a few seconds, or when you come back from that state of consciousness in the morning, but this does not necessarily happen. You are usually not aware of being totally united with the Highest when you are having the experience, so how can you expect to feel it hours later? The only way to be aware of that feeling, or to have the experience of oneness, is through constant aspiration, constant meditation.

Question: Is There Some Way That We...

Question: Is there some way that we can use the time when we are sleeping to further our progress, so that we can carry our day’s consciousness through the night with us?

Sri Chinmoy: When you sleep, you sometimes get all kinds of vital dreams from the vital world, just rubbish. Why do you get these? Because your sleep is not sound, because you have not entered into the sleep world fully. When you go to bed, you actually sleep perhaps only three hours a night. The rest of the time you remain asleep just because it is not time for you to get up. What makes you sleep that long? It is your inertia, your body-consciousness. Your body-consciousness may say that if you sleep for ten hours, then the next day you will be able to work very hard and solve all your problems. But sleep cannot overcome your problems and difficulties. It is only conscious aspiration that will clear your life of problems. If you sleep for eight, nine, ten hours, you may only forget your problems. But then the following morning you will see that they are coming back much more vehemently.

If we take night as something for comfort, for peaceful rest, then night will give us lethargic comfort and not fulfilling rest. Fulfilling rest comes as a result of the day’s labour, from spiritual effort, spiritual awakening. During the day we have meditated, we have worked very hard. Now, the result of this effort can be used during the night. If we try to feel the result of day during the night, then we shall see that day has actually entered into night. Otherwise, day and night will be like two separate beings. Day has played its role by seven o’clock, and night starts. We have played with one being, and now we have to play with the other.

For spiritual people there is no night. Night, for us, means ignorance, unconsciousness, inconscience. For spiritual people all is consciousness, all is conscience. If we take to the spiritual life, we have to remain awake and alert at every moment. How? Only by lengthening the conscious part of our life, which is day. When we meditate during the day, we are energised. So let us continue this dynamic feeling even into the night. Let us take night as something energising and fulfilling, as the lengthening of day.

After we have slept for an hour or two, if we wake up and feel that just for a few seconds we are conscious but not meditating, the best thing is immediately to get up and meditate for five, ten or fifteen minutes. At that time, we have to try to feel that the day has entered into our consciousness, that our day has already begun. Now what does this mean? It means our consciousness is fully alert; it is awakened and vigilant and doesn’t want to sleep. The body may sleep, but the consciousness is already fully awakened and meditating on our behalf. If we feel that we are lethargic and heavy, that our mind is not functioning, we should pay no attention to this thought. If we feel that if we get up, then the next day we won’t be able to work, this is wrong. No, we will be able to work. We must always try to feel that night can be transformed into day through our awakened consciousness.

May I tell you a funny story? In some spiritual communities at three o’clock or three-thirty all the members have to get up to meditate together. When the Ramakrishna Math was first established, it was Vivekananda’s order that everybody had to get up at three-thirty to meditate, no matter how high his rank. If any individuals didn’t get up then, those who were awake were allowed to sprinkle unbearably cold water on them. Once the president of the Math, Rakhal (Brahmananda), was not feeling well, and he could not or did not want to get up. Somebody told Vivekananda that Rakhal didn’t want to get up. Vivekananda said, “The same rule applies to him. You go and pull him out of the bed.” Rakhal got very mad, and he wanted to leave the Math. He said, “I am president and this young boy, a disciple of mine, comes and insults me. You know I am sick; otherwise I wouldn’t violate your rule. I am leaving. I don’t want to stay here.”

But Vivekananda was very clever. He said, “Whose place is this? Ramakrishna never called me his son; he always used to call you his son. Now, the father’s property belongs to the son. This is your place, your Math. Here is your father’s mission, your father’s realisation. You have to stay; I shall go away.” Brahmananda didn’t want Vivekananda to go, so the matter was settled. This story shows how Vivekananda made it a hard and fast rule that everybody had to get up early in the morning, no matter how high the position. And it did help; it did help.

Question: Some Nights I Find I Am...

Question: Some nights I find I am not tired and I just lie in bed full of joy. Should I meditate at that time?

Sri Chinmoy: If you can’t fall asleep and undivine thoughts are not bothering you, it means God has given you an opportunity to meditate more. And if you can’t meditate, then read some spiritual books. But don’t torture yourself; if sleep knocks at your door, allow it to come. Again, if sleep is not torturing you, then you should feel fortunate that you can use these hours for your own purpose.

Question: What Is The Best Position To...

Question: What is the best position to sleep in?

Sri Chinmoy: Some people do not know how to sleep properly. They sleep flat on their chest, which is an absurd way of sleeping. At that time the Ida, Pingala and Sushumna cords cannot function at all. Always you have to face the light and allow the light to enter at the heart centre. When you are sleeping on your back or on your side, you are seeing some light, whereas when you sleep on your chest, light is immediately obstructed. So the best way to sleep is on your side or on your back. Never lie facing down, and do not cross your arms or hands on your chest when you sleep.