The Night-School of Sadhana. 'Sadhana can go on in the dream or sleep state as well as in the waking.' - Sri Aurobindo
Integral Yoga
The Night-School of Sadhana. Selections from the Works of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. 'Sadhana can go on in the dream or sleep state as well as in the waking.' - Sri Aurobindo 'Once one is in full sadhana, sleep becomes as much a part of it as waking.' - Sri Aurobindo
THEME/S
"A sleep that imitates death is his repose",1 writes Sri Aurobindo in describing our ordinary sleep which is characterised by a fall into a state of semi-consciousness and a discontinuity of conscious existence. In contrast to ordinary sleep is the sleep of the yogi in which there is full and unbroken consciousness while the outer being - physical, virtual and mental - is in a state of complete repose. The Mother gave a description of such a state in a letter to her son commenting on a newspaper article which stated that the Mother had not slept for several months. She wrote:
It is true that for a long time I have not slept in the usual sense of the word. That is to say, at no time do I fall into the inconscience which is the sign of ordinary sleep. But I do give my body the rest it needs, that is, two or three hours of lying down in a condition of absolute immobility in which the whole being, mental, psychic, vital and physical, enters into a complete state of rest made of perfect peace, absolute silence and total immobility, while the consciousness remains perfectly awake; or else I enter into an internal activity of one or more states of being, an activity which constitutes the occult work and which, needless to say, is also
1 SRI AUROBINDO, Savitri, SRI AUROBINDO Birth Centenary Library (SABCL), Vol. 28, p. 164.
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perfectly conscious. So I can say, in all truth, that I never lose consciousness throughout the twenty-four hours, which thus form an unbroken sequence, and that I no longer experience ordinary sleep, while still giving my body the rest that it needs.2
Even before one has attained such a consummate yogic state in which one does not lose consciousness throughout the twenty-four hours one can, through sadhana, become progressively conscious during sleep, thereby replacing more and more the ordinary subconscious slumber with a sleep of inner experiences, and thus continue sadhana in sleep as well as during the waking hours.
Yogic psychology explains the nature of sleep and sleep experiences in terms of the nature and operations of consciousness. In the ordinary consciousness, we are aware of only the physical world through that part of the mind which is concerned only with physical things and is limited by the physical view and experience of things. We are not aware of the greater realms of our inner being because they are put behind by our waking consciousness, "much as the veil of the sunlight hides from us the vast worlds of the stars that are behind it" (pp. 8-9). Regarding this inner or subliminal
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being of which we are not conscious in our waking state , Sri Aurobindo states:
Our waking state is unaware of it, connection with the subliminal being, although it receive from it, - but without any knowledge of the place of origin, - the inspiration, intuitions, ideas, will-suggestion, sense-suggestion, urge to action that rise from below or from behind our limited surface existence. Sleep like trance opens the gate of the subliminal to us; for in sleep, as in trance, we retire behind the veil of the limited waking personality and it is behind this veil that the subliminal has its existence.3
In ordinary sleep, one does not become aware of the realms of the inner being because in ordinary sleep our being is submerged in the subconscient, that part of us which is intermediate between waking consciousness and pure inconscience. The subconscient, which in the waking state is overpowered by the conscious mind, comes on the surface during sleep and consciousness is submerged in it. Thus, in ordinary sleep it is the subconscient that is the consciousness in the body.
However, the inner being- subtle physical, vital, mental and psychic - is not concentrated upon the body during sleep; it becomes more or less independent and goes to dwell in its own realm . Thus for the sadhak sleep provides an opportunity for waking up in the inner being and experiencing
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life in the subliminal realm of our being. The need for sleep from the viewpoint of spiritual life is stated by Sri Aurobindo thus :
This drawing inside [of consciousness during sleep] is necessary because the active mind of the human being [during the waking state ] is at first too much turned to outward things ; it has to go inside altogether in order to live in the inner being (inner mind, inner vital, inner physical, psychic)."4
The Mother states the same fact in different words.
[If prior to falling asleep one can put oneself in a state of total repose - physical, vital and mental] the inner being which is rarely in relation with the outer life, because the outer life is too noisy and too unconscious for it to be able to manifest itself, can become aware of itself and awaken, become active and act upon the lower parts, establish a conscious contact. This is the real reason for sleep, apart from the necessity that, in the present conditions of life, activity and rest, rest and activity must alternate.5
As stated above, consciousness normally sinks into the
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subconscient which comes on the surface during sleep. The subconscient is a storehouse of past or persistent habits and experiences, all of which leave a mark on it and have a power of recurrence, especially during sleep.
All that we do, feel or experience in life leaves an impression, a sort of essential memory of itself in the subconscient and this can come up in dreams even long after those feelings, movements or experiences have ceased in the conscious being, - still more when they have been recent and are only now or lately thrown away from the mind or vital.6
The subconscient, which comes on the surface during sleep, is the source of ordinary dreams. As Sri Aurobindo explained:
Normally it is a subconscient part in us, intermediate between consciousness and pure inconscience, that sends up through this surface layer its formations in the shape of dreams, constructions marked by an ap parent inconsequence and incoherence. Many of these are fugitive structures built upon circumstances of our present life selected apparently at random and surrounded with a phantasy of variation; others call back the past, or rather selected circumstances and persons of the past, as a starting-point for similar fleeting edifices. There are other dreams of the subconscious which
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seems to be pure phantasy without any such initiation or basis.. (p. 8)
But in sleep a large part of our consciousness does not sink into the subconscient;
... it passes beyond the veil into other planes of being which are connected with our own inner plane , planes of supraphysical existence, world of a larger life, mind or psyche which are there behind and whose influence some to us without our knowledge. (p. 9)
In each we see scenes, meet beings, share in happenings, come across formations, influences, suggestions which belong to these planes. Even when we are awake, part of us moves in these planes, but their activity goes on behind the veil; our waking minds are not aware of it. (pp. 10-11)
Dream-experiences as distinguished from ordinary dreams are records - often mixed and distorted - or transcripts of experiences in these inner worlds. These dream-experiences of the subliminal planes are altogether different from the ordinary dreams constructed by the subconscient, though most people are not aware of the distinction between the two. As the Mother remarks,
... since we usually give the name "dream" to a considerable number of activities that differ completely from one another, the first point is to learn to distinguish
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between these various activities - that is, to recognise what part of the being it is that "dreams", what domain it is that one "dreams" in, and what the nature of that activity is.7
In passage 48 (page 27) the Mother explains how one can distinguish a dream from a dream-experience.To reiterate in Sri Aurobindo’s words the distinction between ordinary dreams and dream-experiences:
It is the subconscient that is active in the ordinary dreams. But in the dreams in which one goes out into other planes of consciousness, mental, vital, subtle physical, it is part of the inner being, inner mental or vital or physical that is usually active.8
When one does sadhana, the subconscient dreams diminish and the subliminal dream-experiences become more common.
Dreams from the subconscient, "which are the bulk of those remembered by people who live in the external mind mostly"9, have no meaning, for the transcriptions of the subconscient
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... are fantastic and often mixed, combining a jumble of different elements: some play with impressions from the past, some translate outward touches pressing on the sleep-mind; most are fragments from successive dream experiences that are not really part of one connected experience - as if a gramophone record were to be made up of snatches of different songs all jumbled together. (p. 24)
However, one can learn a good deal from them. As the Mother states:
Very few dreams have a meaning, an instructive value, but all dreams can show you what your present state of consciousness is and how things are combined in the subconscious, what the terrestrial influences are, what traces they leave and how they are combined.10
Dreams from the mental and vital planes are either experiences, that is, actual happenings that have taken place in those planes during sleep, or are formations, that is, things that are created by one's thoughts and feelings during the waking state and come back in sleep in the form of dreams. Explaining to a disciple the difference between a happening or experience and a formation, Sri Aurobindo writes:
...this dream was an actual happening on the vital plane, not a formation. If somebody attacks you in the street,
The Mother, Words of the Mother, CWM, Vol. 15, p. 349.
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that is not a formation. But if somebody hypnotizes you and suggests that you are ill - that suggestion is a formation put in by the hypnotiser. (p. 26)
Regarding the nature of a formation dream, the Mother states:
On the mental plane all the formation made by the mind - the actual "forms" that it gives to the thoughts >- return and appear to you as if they were coming from outside and give you dreams. Most dreams are like that. Some people have a very conscious mental life and are able to enter the mental plane and move about in it with the same independence they have in physical life; these people have mentally objective nights. But most people are incapable of doing this: it is their mental activity going on during sleep and assming forms, and these forms give them what they call dreams.There is a very common example - it is amusing because it is rather vivid. If you have quarrelled with someone during the day, you may wish to hit him, to say very unpleasant things to him. You control yourself, you don't do it, but your thought, your mind is at work and in your sleep you suddenly have a terrible dream. Someone approaches you with a stick and you hit each other and have a real fight. And when you wake up, if you don't know, if you don't understand what has happened, you say to yourself, 'What an unpleasant dream I had!' But in fact it is your own thought
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which came back to you, like that. (p. 29)
Sri Aurobindo throws further light on formation dreams:
Sometimes they are the formations of your own mind or vital; sometimes they are the formations of other minds with an exact or modified transcription in yours; sometimes formations come that are made by the non human forces or beings of these other planes.11
As stated previously, subliminal dreams are records or transcripts of experiences in the inner planes - inner or subtle physical, inner vital, inner mental and the psychic. When these experiences are transcribed through the subconscient in the brain in the form of images, impressions, words, thoughts and feelings, and translated by the mind perfectly or imperfectly, we remember them as dreams. What we remember are not the actual experiences but only a transcription and interpretation of the experiences. The Mother gives the following example of a transcription:
... a writer was preoccupied with a half-written chapter which he was unable to finish.His mind, particularly interested in this work of composition, continued the chapter during the night, and the more it phrased and rephrased the ideas making up the various paragraphs, it became aware that these ideas were not expressed in the most rational order and that
SRI AUROBINDO. Letters on Yoga. SABCL. Vol. 24. p. 1488.
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the paragraph had to be rearranged.
All this work was transcribed in the consciousness of our writer in the following dream: he was in his study with several armchairs which he had just brought there and was arranging and rearranging them in the room, until he found the most suitable place for each one.12
Subliminal dreams, unlike subconscient dreams, are coherent, but since they are usually disguised and symbolic transcriptions rather than true records of subliminal experiences, the interpretation of subliminal dreams call for much study of one' sleep experiences. If one can learn to understand one's dreams, all sleep experiences , including subconscient dreams , dream from the vital and mental planes. and subliminal dreams , "can have a great value in them and convey truths that are not so easy to get in the waking state." (pp. 42-43)
The spiritual value of sleep, however, does not depend solely on one's ability to understand one's dreams. As previously stated, sleep is a going inward and entering inner realms of our being which we are not aware of in our waking state because the physical consciousness which dominates our waking state is too much turned to things of the outer world.
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Thus "sleep gives us a right of secret entry" (p. 20) to deeper parts of our being which are normally sealed to our waking consciousness. In ordinary sleep, in which the being is submerged in the subconscient, we do not become aware of these deeper parts of our being. But if one can learn to make sleep more and more conscious,
... sleep changes into an inner mode of consciousness in which the sadhana can continue as much as in the waking state, and at the same time one is able to enter into other planes of consciousness than the physical and command an immense range of informative and utilisable experience.13
Sleep is a valuable opportunity to become conscious within because it is easier to do so in sleep than in the waking consciousness. The immobility and semi-consciousness of the outer being during sleep enables the inner being to become "independent of the physical form, conscious in itself and master of its own life.'' 14 As Sri Aurobindo writes to a sadhak:
You are more conscious in your sleep than in your waking condition. This is because of the physical consciousness which is not yet sufficiently open; it is only just beginning to open. In your sleep the inner being
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is active and the psychic there can influence more actively the mind and vital.15
It is because the inner being can be active more easily in sleep than in the waking state that spiritual experiences in yoga usually begin in sleep (and in indrawn meditation) rather than in the outer waking consciousness which does not give the inner being much chance to project itself into the waking state.16
The state of Sarnadhi or yogic trance, regarded in the traditional yogas as the culminating attainment of sadhana, is also more easily experienced in sleep in the form of svapna-samadhi or dream-trance. It is a state
.. .in which one is conscious of inner experiences that are not dreams (i.e. the waking consciousness is lost for the time but it is replaced not by sleep but by an inward conscious state in which one moves in the supraphysical or the mental or vital being).17
As SRI AUROBINDO writes:
Many sadhaks here get at times or sometimes for a long period this deeper svapna-samadhi in what began as sleep - with the result that a conscious sadhana goes on in their sleeping as in their waking hours.18
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To a sadhak who had an experience of svapna-samadhi and thought it was half-sleep, Sri Aurobindo wrote:
It was not half sleep or quarter sleep or even one-sixteenth sleep that you had; it was a going inside of the consciousness, which in that state remains conscious but shut to outer things and open only to inner experience. You must distinguish clearly between these two quite different conditions, one is nidra, the other, the beginning at least of samadhi (not nirvikalpa, of course!). This drawing inside is necessary because the active mind of the human being is at first too much turned to outward things; it has to go inside altogether in order to live in the inner being (inner mind, inner vital, inner physical, psychic). (p. 4)
To another disciple Sri Aurobindo similarly wrote:
No, it was not sleep. You went inside into an inner consciousness; in this inner consciousness one is awake inside, but not outside, not conscious of external things but of inner things only. Your inner consciousness was busy doing what your outer mind had been trying to do, that is to work upon the thoughts and suggestions that bring restlessness and to put them right; it can be done much more easily by the inner consciousness than by the outer mind.19
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The highest superconscient state of Sachchidananda, too, is more easily accessible in the state of Sushupti or sleep trance than in the waking state. The Upanishadic description of the Superconscience, as the Sleep-Self, however, does not imply that everyone experiences Sachchidananda during sleep. This is made clear by the Mother's answer to a question:
The Upanishad says that when one sleeps, one reaches pure Being. Does this apply only to the Yogi or to everyone?
In theory, it applies to everyone. But the vast majority of human beings fall into unconsciousness, and if there is a contact with pure Being it is quite unconscious. Very few persons are conscious of this relation. It is usually the result of Yoga. (pp.17-18)
From the spiritual standpoint, our waking state is an unconscious slumber in which we are oblivious of the deeper sub liminal depths and of the higher superconscient reaches of our being. The aim of sadhana is to wake up from our normal unconscious state which we euphemistically call the waking state in order to become conscious of our subliminal depths and superconscient heights. Sleep opens the door to these deeper and higher parts of our being and is thus potentially an aid in sadhana. However, ordinarily, con-
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scious sadhana of the waking state is broken by the fall into the semi-consciousness of sleep. There is not only an interruption of sadhana in ordinary sleep but also a temporary loss of the good state of consciousness one has gained by sadhana in the waking state. As Sri Aurobindo observes:
The consciousness in the night almost always descends below the level of what one has gained by sadhana in the waking consciousness, unless there are special experiences of an uplifting character in the time of sleep or unless the yogic consciousness acquired is so strong in the physical itself as to counteract the pull of the subconscient inertia. (p. 63)
Hence the need to continue the sadhana in sleep and maintain the thread of progress by becoming more and more conscious in sleep. Doing so, says the Mother "has a double effect: a negative effect, it prevents you from falling backward, losing whatever you have gained...and a positive effect, you make some progress "20
The methods of sadhana by which the growth of consciousness takes place in the waking state also serve to make one more and more conscious in sleep. However, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have recommended certain specific methods for becoming more conscious in sleep. These consist in:1) Relaxing the body and putting the mind and vital to rest before falling asleep.
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2) Concentrating for a short time just before sleep, with the will or aspiration or prayer (depending on one's nature and inclination) to be conscious during sleep.
3) Passing into sleep in a state of concentration with the help of a mantra or some other means.
4) On waking up, remaining in a state of immobility for a while, without making an abrupt movement of the body, especially of the head, and concentrating to remember one's dream experiences.
5) Concentrating for a few minutes after rising in order to regain the true consciousness and get back the thread of progress.
The "night-school" of yoga for becoming conscious in sleep is an advanced school, where progress takes place only after sufficient gains have been made in sadhana during the waking state. As Sri Aurobindo states: "The sleep consciousness can be effectively dealt with only when the waking mind has made a certain amount of progress."(p. 65) and "It is usually only if there is much activity of sadhana in the day that it extends also into the sleep-state."(p. 65)
One should therefore bear in mind that becoming conscious in sleep so as to make sleep as much a part of sadhana as the waking state requires "always a settled endeavour and discipline and must take time, sometimes a long time. It will not do to refrain from effort because immediate results do not appear."(p. 63)
A. S. Dalal
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