Sleepless Sleep

Sri Ramana Maharshi

21-11-1945 Afternoon

Dr. Srinivasa Rao asked Bhagavan (B), "What is the meaning of being in sleepless sleep?"

B: "It is the jnani's state. In sleep our ego is submerged and the sense organs are not active. The jnani's ego has been killed and he does not indulge in any sense activities of his own accord or with the notion that he is the doer. So he is in sleep. At the same time he is not unconscious as in sleep, but fully awake in the Self: so his state is sleepless. This sleepless sleep, wakeful sleep, or whatever it may be called, is the turiya state of the Self, on which as the screen, all the three avasthas, the waking, dream and sleep, pass, leaving the screen unaffected." B said that instead of holding on to that which exists, we are looking for that which does not. We bother about the past and the future, not realizing the truth of the present. We do not know the beginning or the end. But we know the middle. If we find out the truth of this, we shall know the beginning and the end. B quoted from Bhagavad Gita: "I am in the heart of all beings and am their beginning, middle and end." B also said the reality is only mauna (silence) and quoted Thayumanavar:

"If we scrutinize all the religions which look so different, we find nothing discrepant at all in them, but they are only your (Lord's) sport. They all end in quiescence or mauna, as rivers merge in the sea."

In this connection B also said, when one talks of brahmakara vritti for the mind, it is something like saying samudrakara nadi, about the river which has merged in the ocean.