Leo

Beyond the Threshold of Sleep

In ordinary human experience, sleep is the voiding of consciousness and a sort of apparent death, barely illuminated by the mirage of dreams. The deeper the sleep and the more consciousness is submerged, the more one is satisfied, as if the ideal condition had been achieved.

But when a greater introversion is achieved; when the inner life, after being strengthened, becomes most important; and when the external world ceases to be experienced as the only center of interest—at that point one vaguely perceives that life during sleep is a continuation of the waking state, rather than a pause in it, an integration of the waking state rather than a sudden, periodic, and unintelligible interruption.

It is useless to look for an explanation of the mystery of sleep when one is not capable of a change in the orientation of individual consciousness. Scientific theories that have tried to explain this enigma have failed because they tried to explain it with the means that are commonly employed in research into external phenomena. No explanation has ever been found in the physical body as such, since nothing really happens when one falls asleep: the body undergoes sleep, and the real change is obviously not in the physical and bodily order. Something invisible wanders away from the body and takes consciousness along with it. The ordinary vital phenomena continue, but the connection of the psychic life with the brain is interrupted.

In regard to what has been said so far about the “subtle body,” we may note a kind of splitting occurring in it. A group of forces in it, aimed at giving life and form, remains in the physical body when it is asleep, thus differentiating it from a cadaver. The group of forces that presides over thought, feeling, and the various impulses to action appears to depart and to lead its own life. Thus the solution of this enigma cannot come from a materialistic research nor from mere theoretical notions, but rather from a conquest of one’s own consciousness, which is an amplification, a transformation, and the opening of one’s eyes to a new, inner horizon.

As was mentioned before, the first step consists in a change of attitude toward the night and sleep. It is necessary to react against the tendency to let oneself go, and against the notion that the night is the kingdom of darkness. The night, on the contrary, is a cosmic awakening, the emergence, palpitation, and echo of spiritual forces overwhelmed by the force of physical solar light. During the night a spiritual sun rises, and our subtle body seeks it and tries to orient itself toward it. It is necessary to cultivate a sense of expectation for a form of life that is incommensurably freer and wider than ordinary life during wakefulness.

Here it is necessary to anticipate an objection and to answer it right away. One might say that such an attitude, which tries to turn sleep into some sort of superwakefulness, must interfere with what sleep is supposed to accomplish, namely rest and the restoration of the physical energies. But this is not the case. On the contrary, following this phase of the experience, the organic restoration emerges faster and more complete, since one enters into contact with the restoring forces and begins to cooperate with them. In this way, the need to “collapse” for eight or ten hours, after which one wakes up feeling drugged and “heavy,” is done away with. After a few hours one will wake up spontaneously in a lively state, feeling refreshed, energized, and experiencing a sense of courage and active superiority when facing one’s daily tasks.

After cultivating this attitude for a period of time, we need to take it one step further. In the process of falling asleep, when shifting from one state of consciousness to another, there is a moment of darkness and discontinuity that needs to be overcome. It is necessary to throw a bridge across to the other side of our Self, in its fullness of distinct being, as to another external world that lies beyond the world of physical senses. It is necessary to learn again the art of falling asleep.⁵⁹ In a previous essay entitled “Summary,” we already mentioned something of this sort.

One should lie on the bed with the head somewhat elevated. Today’s tendency to sleep with the head at the same level of the body, if not lower, is a very poor habit based on the mistaken assumption that “the more blood flows to the head, the better for the nervous system.” In reality, a greater flow of blood causes a significant compression of the nervous substance. Moreover, from an initiatic perspective we know that blood is something more than the vehicle for repairing substances of the tissues: it is a fluid that carries with itself much of the external world in the form of obscure images, and it communicates them to the brain during the state of sleep, thus imparting a disorderly and irrational activity to it. It may even carry what is characteristic and pathological in the organs that it goes through, thus negatively affecting dreams.

On the contrary, if the flow of blood is not too strong, a properly trained brain is able to retain the necessary calm and receptivity needed in the morning to remember the experiences realized inside the subtle body.

Likewise, by now the stomach needs to be empty, since the pressure on the diaphragm and the solar plexus could disturb the organs corresponding to the centers of the subtle body, thus altering or inhibiting from the very start their receptivity to the rhythms.

I have already said that a body of forces remains in the body during sleep; if these forces were to leave the body too, sleep would be replaced by the cataleptic state. At first one should not try to detach this group of forces, but rather endow it with a certain mobility that makes it independent and more oriented toward the subtle than the physical body. What will follow is the establishment of a rhythmicization and a slowing down of breath and blood circulation, which constitutes a very favorable state for experiences during the life of sleep. The group of vital and formative forces will then function as an intermediary between the physical body and what the Self experiences in an immaterial way.

Under certain conditions this group of forces assumes the autonomy of a true vital body, which, as already stated, should enjoy a certain degree of mobility inside the physical body. The best moment to attempt to determine this mobility is as soon as sleep begins to set in. One must imagine to be able to spin around a hypothetical axis in the body (from left to right), and at the same time retain an image or symbol that refers to our spiritual nature and is attuned to a sense of the divine and to a sense of elevation. If it is possible to have a clear concept in the mind and to practice the exercise for mobility in full consciousness when the detachment has already begun, one will first detect it in the hands and in the arms.

It is possible to conduct a lesser experiment to verify this. Hold an object in one hand and lean it outside the bed: at some point, you will feel that the object has fallen and realize that you have lost the sense of the position of the hand itself. If you fall asleep with the above-mentioned concept in mind for a sufficiently long time, in the morning you will wake up with that same concept + x. What I mean is that something will join this concept and become more distinct, remaining as a sense of our nocturnal cosmic life.

It is necessary not to be in a hurry to interpret things and to explain (clarity must come by itself, not through the physical brain), since every anticipation is bound to be a distortion. One’s mind must be totally free, since it is possible that revelations will contrast with one’s judgments and our desires during the wakeful state, concerning both oneself and other things. Criticism can come later. In the meantime we must slow down instinctive reactions and the inclination to understand according to the preordained patterns of our mind and feelings.

Naturally, this is not all there is to it. In reality all of our diurnal activities should also be properly oriented. I have set out some suggestions in chapters I and II, as well as in relation to the sense of the subtle body in chapter III. In those who have attained the necessary maturity, the rest will come of its own accord. They will spontaneously discover other attitudes and possible applications in daily life. The sense of an inner light will always remain in us, as a calm and constant feeling alongside our ordinary activities.

Also keep in mind that for every spiritual achievement, our sense of “bodily,” or “animal ego”—which is very different from the true sense of Self—is fatal: in other words, the sense of self that is typical of one who aims to grab everything for himself in order to satisfy his nature as a limited and greedy being. Sic nos non nobis (thus we are not for ourselves) is the best attitude to assume. Those who turn back to contemplate what they have obtained and to enjoy it become paralyzed and are turned to stone, just like Lot’s wife in the Bible; it becomes their downfall, like Narcissus, whose being died due to his love for his own image.