Sleep is the school one must pass
through if one knows how to learn one’s lesson there, so that the inner being
may become independent of the physical form, conscious in its own right and
master of its own life. There are entire parts of the being that need this
immobility and semi-consciousness of the outer being, of the body, in order to
be able to lead their own life independently.
It is another school for another
result, but it is still a school. If one wants to achieve the maximum possible
progress, one must know how to make use of one’s nights just as one makes use
of one’s days. Only, people usually have no idea how to go about it; they try
to stay awake and all they achieve is a physical and vital imbalance, and
sometimes a mental one too.
Sleep is indispensable in the
present state of the body. It is by a progressive control over the subconscient that the sleep can become more and more
conscious.
25 January 1938
Page - 141, Words of The Mother,
volume -15 , CWMCE
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Why does one wake up tired in the
morning, and what should one do to have a better sleep?
*If
you wake up tired in the morning, it is because of tamas, nothing
else, a formidable mass of tamas; I myself noticed it when I began to
do the yoga of the body. It is inevitable so long as the body is not
transformed. *
You must lie flat on
your back and relax all the muscles and all the nerves − it is an
easy thing to learn − to be like what I call a rag on a bed:
nothing else remains. And if you can do that with the mind also, you
get rid of all those stupid dreams that make you more tired when you
get up than when you went to bed*. It is the cellular activity of the
brain that continues without control, and that tires one much. So, a
total relaxation, a sort of complete calm, without tension, in which
everything is stopped. But this is only the beginning. *
Afterwards, you make a self-giving as total as possible, of
everything, from top to bottom, from outside to inside, and an
eradication, as total as possible, of all the resistance of the ego.
*And you begin repeating your mantra − your mantra, if you have
one,* or any word which has a power for you, a word leaping forth
from the heart spontaneously, like a prayer, a word which sums up
your aspiration. After repeating it a certain number of times, if you
are accustomed to do so, you enter into trance. And from that trance
you pass into sleep. The trance lasts as long as it should and quite
naturally, spontaneously, you pass into sleep. But when you come back
from this sleep, you remember everything; the sleep was like a
continuation of the trance.
Fundamentally, the sole purpose of sleep is to enable the body to
assimilate the effect of the trance so that the effect may be
received everywhere, and to enable the body to do its natural
nocturnal function of eliminating toxins. And when you wake up, there
is not that trace of heaviness which comes from sleep: the effect of
the trance continues.
*Even for
those who have never been in trance, it is good to repeat a mantra, a
word, a prayer before going into sleep. But there must be a life in
the words; I do not mean an intellectual significance, nothing of
that kind, but a vibration.* And its effect on the body is
extraordinary: it begins to vibrate, vibrate, vibrate… and quietly
you let yourself go, as though you wanted to go to sleep. The body
vibrates more and more, more and more, more and more, and away you
go. That is the cure for tamas.
It
is tamas which causes bad sleep. *There are two kinds of bad sleep:
*the sleep that makes you heavy, dull, as if you lost all the effect
of the effort you put in during the preceding day; and the sleep that
exhausts you as if you had passed your time in fighting. I* have
noticed that if you cut your sleep into slices (it is a habit one can
form), the nights become better.* That is to say, you must be able to
come back to your normal consciousness and normal aspiration at fixed
intervals come back at the call of the consciousness. But for that
you must not use an alarm-clock! *When you are in trance, it is not
good to be shaken out of it.*
When
you are about to go to sleep, you can make a formation; say: “I
shall wake up at such an hour” (you do that very well when you are
a child). *For the first stretch of sleep you must count at least
three hours; for the last, one hour is sufficient.* But the first one
must be three hours at the minimum. On the whole, you have to remain
in bed at least seven hours; in six hours you do not have time enough
to do much (naturally I am looking at it from the point of view of
sadhana) to make the nights useful.
To make use of the nights is an excellent thing. It has a double
effect: a negative effect, it prevents you from falling backward,
losing what you have gained - that is indeed painful − and a
positive effect, you make some progress, you continue your progress.
You make use of the night, so there is no trace of fatigue any more.
Two things you must eliminate:
falling into the stupor of the inconscience, with all the things of
the subconscient and inconscient that rise up, invade you, enter you;
and a vital and mental superactivity where you pass your time in
fighting, literally, terrible battles. People come out of that state
bruised, as if they had received blows. *And they did receive them −
it is not “as if”! And I see only one way out: to change the
nature of sleep. *
Page - 401, Words of The Mother,
vol -15 , CWMCE
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