Into the land of Nod
Every night when you go to bed and your head touches the pillow does your consciousness melt in the dark embrace of sleep? Or do you have to read for a while, or listen to your favourite music to calm the mind? A natural and simple phenomenon like sleep has become so difficult for the modern man.
These days urban people can’t get into harmony with the natural cycles of their own brain and body. It puts a big question mark over our lifestyle which consists of heavy medications, tobacco and alcohol, late nights, irregular sleep schedule, uncomfortable sleep environment etc. Lack of quality sleep in the night leads to excessive daytime sleepiness, dullness, the brain not working efficiently.
Neuro-psychiatrists and doctors keep researching the unknown terrains of human brain to find out what is this state called sleep. But sleep remains one of the great mysteries of life like gravity or the quantum field. It is so fundamental that scientists still don’t know exactly what it is and why we sleep.
Surprisingly, spiritual seekers have fathomed this mysterious realm of human mind. Meditation penetrates where the medical instruments cannot. The mystics say that sleep is an altered state of consciousness, one can understand it if one learns to witness the inner world.
However, the basic question remains: why can’t people sleep easily? Osho’s take is that people are too excited to fall asleep. You cannot get to sleep unless you are bored. A slow pace of life, less entertainment and environmental disturbance is needed for the mind to be unruffled.
The world was never like this before. Now everything goes on becoming new, things are changing fast, and life has become unpredictable. When you go to bed, you take this world with you, the excitement is there, as a result the mind wants to be awake; it seems a waste of time to fall asleep. This is not a good backdrop for sleep to descend.
Sleep needs boredom to some extent. The lullaby a mother sings for her child is creating a kind of boredom, the brain produces slow waves which induce sleep. If you repeat a particular sound, it generates an energy circle within the body/mind, it creates boredom which in turn invites sleep. Meditating before sleep will be very helpful in relaxing the body and mind. Simply lie down on your bed and start giving autosuggestions to the body, lovingly: “you are relaxing... you are relaxed...” and the body will follow. Then give the same suggestions to the mind and it will fall in tune like an obedient child. Soon you will fall asleep as if you are in the mother’s lap.
Amrit Sadhana is in the management team of Osho International Meditation Resort, Pune
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