Obstacles

[Guest guest]

A visitor asked Bhagavan, "When I try to be without

all thoughts, I pass into sleep. What should I do

about it?

 

Bhagavan: Once you go to sleep, you can do nothing in

that state. But while you are awake, try to keep away

all thoughts. Why think about sleep? Even that is a

thought, is it not? If you are able to be without any

thought while you are awake, that is enough. When you

pass into sleep, that state, in which you were before

falling asleep, will continue and again, when you wake

up, you will continue from where you left off when you

fell into slumber. So long as there are thoughts of

activity, so long would there be sleep also. Thought

and sleep are counter-parts of one and the same thing.

 

 

Bhagavan quoted the Gita and said, "We should not

sleep very much or go without it altogether, but sleep

only moderately. To prevent too much sleep, we must

try to have no thoughts or chalana (movement of the

mind), we must eat only satvic food and that only in

moderate measure, and not indulge in too much physical

activity. The more we control thought, activity and

food the more shall we be able to control sleep. But

moderation ought to be a rule, as explained in the

Gita, for the sadhak on the path. Sleep is the first

obstacle, as explained in the books, for all sadhakas.

The second obstacle is said to be vikshepa or the

sense objects of the world which divert one's

attention. The third is said to be kashaya or thoughts

in the mind about previous experiences with sense

objects. The fourth, ananda, is also called an

obstacle, because in that state a feeling of

separation from the source of ananda, enabling the

enjoyer to say 'I am enjoying ananda' is present. Even

this has to be surmounted and the final stage of

samadhana or samadhi has to be reached, where one

becomes ananda or one with the reality and the duality

of enjoyer and enjoyment ceases in the ocean of

sat-chit-ananda or the Self.

 

>From Day by Day with Bhagavan

 

 

 

 

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