Be Thought-Free In Waking State

Sri Ramana Maharshi

25-4-1946 Morning

A visitor asked Bhagavan, "When I try to be without all thoughts, I pass into sleep. What should I do about it?"

B: 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 had 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 counterparts 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 preven too much sleep, we must try and have no thoughts or chalana (movement of the mind), we must eat only sattvic 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 the rule, as explained in the Gita, for the sadhak on the path. Sleep is the first obstacle, as explained in the books, for all sadhaks. The second obstacle is said to be vikshpa or the sense objects of the world which divert one's attention. The third is said to be kshayaya 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.