49. Meditation is Conscious Repair🔗

Listen: the sleep which you experience at night is in no way going to lead you to anguish or pain.

I can say it is a power, it is an energy. You go back to the source from which you created this body.

See, this body was created when your mother was fast asleep. That is why, in India there is a tradition - if a pregnant lady is sleeping, she will not be disturbed under any circumstances. They say that Brahma is creating the baby's body while she is sleeping.

The energy which was there inside your mother's womb when she was fast asleep – in that womb, in that space, you were created.

Every night, you go back to that same energy. Your bed, your pillow, the dark room – all this is nothing but trying to create the same energy, the same space, the same mood, of the womb. Everything is trying to recreate the same ambience, the same experience, which you had in the womb. You can see that even your sleeping posture will be just like how a baby is in the womb. Just go back to that same posture; you will fall asleep within a few seconds!

When you sleep, you go back to the same energy, and recreate your body and come back to live the next day.

That sleep will in no way lead you to pain or anguish.

There are two kinds of ‘repair work’ that happen in your system. Every night, when you fall asleep, so much repair work happens inside your system. It gets rejuvenated. That is one kind of repair. The other kind of repair has to be done when you are awake. It cannot be done when you are sleeping. Physical repair can happen by making you sleep. For example, tiredness - if you are tired, you can be made to sleep and the tiredness will go away; the repair can be done.

Physical repair is like an auto-mechanic repairing a car; he will simply turn off the engine and then repair it. But the other kind of repair - the conscious repair

Conscious repair is what I call meditation.

Sleep and meditation are both almost the same, but not the same! The difference between them is like the difference between the work done by an auto-mechanic and a surgeon. A surgeon always gets paid more than an auto-mechanic, because he has to do the repair work while the machine is running. Understand, you need to repair while the inner chatter is happening, while the very thought flow is happening.

Sometimes people ask me how to repair this breaking of the thought flow. I tell you, the awareness itself will heal half of the problems. One big important thing you need to know: the moment you know you are sleeping, you will be out of sleep. This is the truth. The moment you know that your thought flow is breaking, you will start connecting it again. If you know that you are breaking it, you will start repairing it! It is an automatic process.

Sometimes people say, 'Swamiji, how much ever I try the technique of unclutching, my mind sometimes wanders here and there; I am not able to unclutch!' I tell them, 'The moment you remember, come back again, unclutch again, that's enough! Don't bother about few moments which you lost. When you come back again and again without creating guilt, the moments which are lost will be drastically reduced.'

But if you miss the awareness two or three times, you lose confidence in yourself. No need! As Patanjali says beautifully, you slip even while you are awake; you slip even in the conscious flow. It not only happens during sleep-sleep, it happens during waking-sleep also. Be aware of the different kinds of sleep, that's enough; then you can start being awake, then you can start being alive.

ACTIVITY

Today, try to catch yourself every time there is a break in your thought flow. Come back again and again.