DISCOURSES & TALKS BY MEHER BABA

 

HOW TO ENJOY SOUND SLEEP

 

 

9 December, 1928

 

 

The topic then turned to sleep. Baba revealed to the mandali how to enjoy sound sleep and thereby maintain good health:

 

Sleep, sound sleep, is good but it must be moderate. Four to five hours is sufficient for good health but it must be undisturbed by dreams.

 

To have a sound sleep, the best way is to accustom yourselves to rise at night and not to go to sleep again after you have once been awakened out of your sleep. Suppose you went to sleep at 8:00 P.M. and awaken at 1:00 A.M. for some reason — either for calls of nature or just abruptly. After you are once fully conscious and awake, do not go back to sleep again. Keep awake. Either meditate between 4:00 to 6:00 A.M., for that is the best time for meditation; or go for a walk, or read, even if you are awake at 11:00 P.M. having slept at 8:00 P.M. and only get two or three hours of sleep.

 

Being once awake and conscious from sleep, do not go back to sleep again, for that is injurious to health. Three hours at least must pass between your awakening from sleep and your going to sleep again; although if sleep is not taken, it would be still better. This habit of not going to bed again after the first break of sleep, though a little troublesome in the beginning, will eventually give good results of enjoying a perfectly sound sleep undisturbed by dreams, a most essential and invaluable factor in preserving good health.

 

So try, all of you, to be awake and rise at the first break of sleep, and do not sleep again so you can have sound sleep and good health. Besides, the early hours of the morning are best for meditation.

 

Once you accustom yourselves to this, you will not feel sleepy even while meditating. For example, the little boys of the Prem Ashram have been rising as early as 1:00 A.M. daily for the last month and have progressed marvelously. Although they were disturbed by sleep while meditating, almost all have now overcome the difficulty. Yesterday there was only one boy who left his meditation.

 

 

Lord Meher On-line page 994-5

Lord Meher Vol.3 p.1124