CWTVKS Volume 2

4) Sleep—Health—Medicine

Sleep—Dreams

Those who do more physical work are naturally rewarded with good rest in sleep. Those who have mental worries even though they may give work for the material frame, deprive themselves of the benefit of mental quiet even in sleep.

However much one may be interested in an affair, usually accompanied by joy or grief or other passion, some excitement, it must be possible for him, at any rate for you, to deal with things in the waking state with a background of equanimity in some measure to begin with.

Physical exercise, carefree mind and prayer before going to bed form the main means for you to get rest in sleep, with less of dreams.

12 November 1936

The somewhat necessary delays from me, a short silence for a few weeks (what you call no letters from me) must not be made and shall not be a prop for fanciful fears or doubts as regards your inner strength and faith and devotion and push towards the Ideal which has attraction for you—attraction that is accompanied by unmistakable signs of genuine interest and central sincerity on your part, and also by visible manifestations of a living and Conscious Presence gesturing responses immediately or after a while to your needs, to your prayer, to your call in meditation upon God or upon the Divine Mother.

Before sleep, you must learn to put faith in the body with a will in it and say (in prayer or meditation): During sleep there shall be no bad dream, no wastage of sexual substance, no pollution or weakening of the body that is to be the strong and consecrated temple of the Pure Soul, the Blissful Spirit, of the Almighty Father, of the Divine Mother.

It may take some time, but slowly you can succeed if you persist in the attempt.

28 August 1934

When such things come upon you, treat them as passing clouds and call for help, call the Mother from the heart. By habit, you can grow in capacity to be so conscious of your ideal even in sleep that the disturbing and alluring dreams may gradually cease to rear their heads. Think of this before going to bed and pray that it may in the long run become the temple of the Mother, the dwelling house of the Supreme Divine.

9 January 1935

If you can follow what I say, such dreams will slowly cease to come, much less worry you.

(1) Take regular physical exercise—without overdoing.

(2) Go to bed early, and rise early. Don't give room for superfluous sleep in the early hours of the morning which is sheer habit and not a necessity.

(3) Do not go to sleep when you are very tired; wait till you feel refreshed for going to sleep.

(4) Of course then, prayer before entering into the state of rest, relaxation, sleep—entrusting the body, mind and soul to the benign care of the Divine Mother.

15 July 1936

I sent up your letter containing your complaints, with a note of explanation. I just received in reply the words of Sri Aurobindo which I am copying hereunder. No comment from me is necessary. What more is necessary when Sri Aurobindo has chosen to take notice of you and written so many words of masculine strength?

These are the words:

“He must get rid of fear if he wants to do yoga. These dreams are often only formations in the Vital soul—one has only to reject them.

For the wet dreams the first thing is to be quite free from sexual thoughts and feelings in waking consciousness and next to put a will in the subconscient every night for the dreams or emissions not to occur. Both these take time to be effective. Meanwhile to be nervous about the dreams is not good, for it helps to create a bad effect—one should be quiet about them and have the idea —will that they can have no effect in the body."

7 September 1937

Health

Health is essential for worldy life, equally, if not more, for a Godly life of our conception. May you have it in plenty is my prayer to the Divine Mother.

16 September 1935

Be strong in every sense; once strength is there, light and joy when they come can be held.

5 July 1936

Medicine

I wrote to you about the necessity of taking a tonic because the physical substance has to be maintained at any cost as that is the support of life in the world or of this spiritual life; and one cannot afford to ignore the ordinary means of supporting the material body especially when it is at such a distance from the Centre and cannot be expected to respond to the many-sided functioning of the Force. Besides even here, occasionally, one finds instances of a good tonic being advised.

3 November 1936

Try to habituate your system to relax in a sitting posture, and you can be watchful over the course of long and deep breathing and also retaining the life-force in that part where you feel the pain due to what you call ‘dyspepsia’. I know this is difficult perhaps. But you simply bear in mind what I say, keep quiet for a few minutes, as often as possible in the midst of your work. The power from above is sure to tackle with the affected part.

23 February 1932

You ask me if it is not possible to do away with medicines altogether for the cure of bodily ills. Yes, possible, not only possible, but absolutely necessary to overcome in the long run the conditions under which illnesses are invited and necessitate medical help. Even ordinary Yoga succeeds to a great extent in keeping the body immune from most diseases, teaching it to rely more and more on its force and to avoid the body's dependence on medicine for its ailments. Is it necessary then to speak of the enormous potentialities and actualities of this Yoga-force to which daily and hourly our experience testifies—the Yoga Force that flows from a Divine Grace and Love that is ensouled and embodied in One ‘whom we adore as the Mother’?

In the light of this, your question cannot arise; but as long as the necessity exists that one has still to breathe the atmosphere of worldly thoughts and feelings and attachments, material means have to be resorted to as a concession in some measure to be gradually substituted by the higher means, the supreme Force, which is the Force of the Mother.

But Rome was not built in a day.

July 1938