Question 9

HOW TO BE ALERT IN SLEEP AND DREAM?

The person who has asked says that whenever he tries to be aware, he cannot sleep. Or, if sleep is coming and suddenly he remembers that he has to be alert, the sleep is broken, and then he cannot sleep -- it is difficult.

Awareness with sleep cannot be worked out directly. First you have to work with the waking. Don't try that, otherwise your sleep will be disturbed and your whole day will be disturbed and you will feel depressed, lazy, sleepy. Don't do that.

Remember always there is a chain and one has to move from step to step. The first step is to be aware while waking. Don't think about the sleep at all. First you be awake while waking in the day. And when you will gather enough energy of awareness, then only the second step can be taken. Then there will be no effort really. The very energy that you have gathered through the day will remain alert inside. There will be no effort needed. If effort is needed, then sleep will be disturbed because effort is against sleep.

This happens all over the world: millions of people suffer from insomnia. And out of one hundred, ninety-nine cases are such that they are suffering because they make some effort to go to sleep. Effort is against sleep. They try many ways how to go into sleep and the very effort is against sleep. The effort makes you alert, and the effort makes you tense, and sleep is a no-effort phenomenon. You simply go into sleep. You need not do anything. If you do, sleep will not be possible. You simply put your head on the pillow and just don't do anything, not even wait for the sleep, because if you are waiting for the sleep you are doing something -- the waiting. You simply lie down on the bed, put the light off, close your eyes and sleep comes. You cannot bring it, it happens; it is not an action.

And to understand the nature of sleep is to understand many things. Samadhi also is just like that. That's why Patanjali will say later on that sleep and samadhi have something common. This is their commonness: sleep comes, satori also; samadhi also comes, you cannot do anything to bring it. If you try, you will miss. If you don't want to miss, you simply be and it comes.

So don't make any effort to be aware while going into sleep. You will disturb the sleep and you will not gain awareness. You just work out in the day. When in the day you are more and more alert, the very current of alertness passes into sleep by its own energy. You fall asleep and still you feel a center within you, watching. A light -- a small light in the beginning -- burning inside, and you can watch. But don't start it. You do while waking, and it will happen while you go into sleep.