Question : Beloved Osho, What is sleep for you? Do you leave your body while it is resting or does sleep help you to stay in your body?
Osho : Prem Shunyo, asleep or awake, my consciousness is in the same state. To me, sleep is samadhi. That’s how Patanjali explains samadhi: a sleep without dreams; a sleep which is not unconscious, which is not like a coma, but simply a light rest for the body. But deep inside, the inner being is fully alert … just like a candle burning all night in a dark room, where no wind comes in. It remains unwavering but goes on radiating light.
I don’t feel any difference in my sleep or in my awakening. The same light and the same blissfulness and the same silence continues day in, day out. My sleep is not much of a sleep, just a thin layer of rest for the body. Inside I am all awake.
You are asking, “Do you leave your body while it is resting or does sleep help you to stay in your body?” I don’t leave my body while I am asleep and neither does sleep help me to remain in the body. In fact sleep helps my body to continue functioning. My inner being, my subjectivity is awake all the time. I don’t have any dreams because I don’t have any repressions of anything. I am not an ascetic, I am against all repressions. I am the most natural man possible — almost wildly natural.
Sleep is also a beautiful experience of tremendous rest. You feel the aftereffects of rest in the morning, when you wake up. It is only inference for you that sleep must have refreshed you, must have taken away all tiredness, must have rejuvenated you; but these are your inferences. To me, these are my eyewitness experiences. While the body is resting, relaxing, regaining its strength, I am watching it. It is not in the morning that I find my body is relaxed, I find it relaxed simultaneously as it is resting. And there is no need to leave the body.
My work is of a totally different kind. I don’t want to interfere in anybody’s life; otherwise it has been done, it can be done: one can leave the body and while somebody else is asleep, can work upon the person. But it is an infringement of somebody’s freedom, and I am absolutely against any infringement, even if it is for your good, because to me freedom is the ultimate value.
I respect you as you are, and because of my respect I go on telling you that much more is possible. But that does not mean that if you don’t change, I will not respect you. That does not mean that if you change, I will respect you more. My respect will remain constant, whether you change or not, whether you are with me or against me. I respect your humanity and I respect your intelligence.
Rather than working in a way in which you will not be conscious, my work is absolutely to confront you consciously. And my experience is that this way is the best way and the right way. Coming from the back door in your sleep and changing things, in the first place is a criminal offense — although nobody can see the crime or catch the criminal, because it is absolutely invisible. You will never know, but the change that will happen to you will always remain something foreign, as if it has been imposed on you, and you will feel a certain tension.
I can make you more loving by coming to you in your sleep. And you will become more loving but your love will have a certain tension, it will not be relaxed, because you have not really changed; it has not come from your own understanding. It has to come consciously from your own understanding. So my work has a very different approach. I go on talking to you, making every effort that you listen and you understand, and if something comes out of that, it is your own. And what is your own is the only real treasure.
Hymie Goldberg was down on his luck, so he went to the local synagogue and approached the rabbi. “All I need is fifty dollars to get me out of debt,” sobbed Hymie. “I keep praying to God but he does not answer my prayers.”
“Don’t lose faith,” said the rabbi. “You must keep praying.” After Hymie left, the rabbi began to feel sorry for him. “I don’t make much money,” he thought, “but that poor man needs help. Perhaps I will give him twenty-five dollars out of my own pocket.”
The next day the rabbi went to Hymie’s house and handed him an envelope with twenty-five dollars inside and said, “Here, Hymie, God has sent this for you.”
After saying good bye to the rabbi, Hymie closed the door, looked inside the envelope and bowed his head. “But next time you send money,” he said to God, “please send it directly to me. That bastard rabbi kept half of it!”
Things should be done directly, with your understanding; otherwise there is going to be a mess, a conflict. I can give you some change, but it will not have roots in you. So it will be something polished, just on the surface. Deep inside you will be still carrying your old garbage.
A drunk walked into an open elevator shaft and fell twenty-four stories straight down. Shakily he stood up, brushed himself off, carefully adjusted his hat and shouted, “Damn, I said `Up!'”
In your unconsciousness, in your sleep, I don’t want to disturb you. My approach is purely of individual respect and respect for your consciousness, and I have immense trust in my love and in my respect towards your consciousness, that it will change you. And that change will be authentic, total, irreversible.
Okay, Maneesha?
Yes, Osho.
Source – Osho Book “The New Dawn”