The Light Of Awareness

The unconscious can be transformed only through awareness. It is difficult, but there is no other way. There are many methods for being aware, but awareness is necessary. You can use methods to be aware, but you will have to be aware. 

Buddha has said, "Even in sleep try to be aware of breathing." It will be difficult in the beginning, but if you can be aware in the day, then by and by this will penetrate into your sleep.

Anything penetrates into sleep if it has gone deep in the mind in the day. If you have been worried about a certain thing in the day, it gets into the sleep. If you were thinking continuously about sex, it gets into the sleep. If you were angry the whole day, anger gets into the sleep. So Buddha says there is no difficulty. If a person is continuously concerned with breathing and awareness of the breathing, ultimately it penetrates into the sleep. You cannot dream then. If your awareness is there of incoming breath and outgoing breath, then in sleep you cannot dream.

The moment you dream, this awareness will not be there. If awareness is there, dreams are impossible. So a Buddhist monk asleep is not just like you. His sleep has a different quality. It has a different depth and a certain awareness in it is there.

Ananda said to Buddha, "I have observed you for years and years together. It seems like a miracle: you sleep as if you are awake. You are in the same posture the whole night." The hand would not move from the place where it had been put; the leg would remain in the same posture. Buddha would sleep in the same posture the whole night. Not a single movement! For nights together Ananda would sit and watch and wonder, "What type of sleep is this!" Buddha would not move. He would be as if a dead body, and he would wake up in the same posture in which he went to sleep.

Ananda asked, "What are you doing? Were you asleep or not? You never move!" Buddha said, "A day will come, Ananda, when you will know. This shows that you are not practicing Anapanasati yoga rightly; it shows only this. Otherwise this question would not have arisen. You are not practicing Anapanasati yoga - if you are continuously aware of your breath in the day, it is impossible not to be conscious of it in the night. And if the mind is concerned with awareness, dreams cannot penetrate. And if there are no dreams, mind is clear, transparent. Your body is asleep, but you are not. Your body is relaxing, you are aware - the flame is there inside. So, Ananda," Buddha is reported to have said, "I am not asleep - only the body is sleep. I am aware and not only in sleep. Ananda - when I die, you will see: I will be aware, only the body will die." practice awareness with breathing; then you will be capable of penetrating. Or practice awareness with body movements. Buddha has a word for it: he calls it 'mindfulness'. He says, "Walk mindfully." We walk without any mind in it.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/HEcesFueMp8


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