Does the soul go closer to God during sleep?
What point of time does so what is the concept of efficient sleep or that before that in sleep the soul comes closer to god in deep sleep the soul comes closer to god so should we meditate before sleeping see sleep is a very complex philosophical subject why think objectively if we met someone who would everyday get a memory blackout for 6 hours or 8 hours like somebody is talking they are talking with someone and that person switches off as if he is not there only what happened to you he is curious atleast but that is what happens to everyone of us we are here and suddenly we are off but because it happens to everyone we take it as normal but at one level we can say biologically the body needs some rest and that comes from sleep but yes biologically we need rest but why does that rest require the switching off of consciousness we could just have rested our body physically without needing to switch off our consciousness tune out we don't need to tune out the world to rest the body why are the two living together by nature so sleep from the from the philosophical perspective from the Vedic philosophical perspective is one way that god ultimately arranges us for us to realize the insubstantiality of impermanence of our present existence so so we normally think that we are the body so we normally think of ourselves as the body and each night when we go to sleep at that time the body is not experiencing anything the body is asleep and yet we are experiencing something we are experiencing quite a lot of things we might experience being chased by a tiger we might experience ourselves as a hero cavorting with a heroine or whatever we may experience different things so now if we think deeply about sleep not go to deep sleep, but think deeply about sleep then we really understand that I am not the body how see if I am the body as I normally think of myself at night my body is inactive so the body is not the experiencer but I am experiencing at night therefore the experiencer is not the body and therefore I am not the body so I am the experiencer and the body experiences somebody slaps me, I feel pain somebody pats me I feel appreciated the body experiences I experience therefore I assume that I the experiencer am the body so I am the experiencer and the body experiences I experience but at night the body is not experiencing and still I am experiencing therefore, I can infer I the experiencer am different from the body Now, what I am, that I cannot come to know by what the nature of that experience of is.
That I cannot come to know by sleeping. For that I have to wake up and practice yoga. Then I will realize I am Atma.
But just that I am something more than the body, that I can understand by analyzing the phenomenon of sleep. So in one sense, the phenomenon of sleep is not just for biological rejuvenation, but it is also for intellectual contemplation. It is meant to prompt our consciousness to perceive the higher realities of our existence.
The realities beyond the living reality. So with respect to deep sleep, does that mean that in deep sleep we go closer to the super soul? It's possible. But it's not essential.
That means, in the Govinda Bhashya, which is Baldev Vidyamesh's commentary on Vedanta Sutra, he analyzes the nature of sleep quite deeply, and especially of dreams. So often sometimes we may say in scripture, we have a 6-hour sleep at night, and then we have a 60-hour dream during the day. But both are temporary.
Normally some people think that this example's point is that our current world is also unreal. Like dreams are unreal, so this world is also unreal. But Baldev Vidyamesh's point is that the point of this example is not that our current world is unreal, but the point is that even dreams are real.
Even dreams are real. What he says is that when we dream, we see different people have different dreams. And in some dreams we are observers, in some dreams we are participants.
But in no dream are we usually the absolute controllers. Even in our dreams, everything doesn't happen according to our will entirely. Somebody needs to act in some way, somebody does something like that.
So things may have a happy ending sometimes, but things don't happen entirely according to our will. But still, things even in the dream don't always happen, everything is not happening chaotically. Some things have certain patterns.
And different people have different dreams. Sometimes some people habitually get nightmares. I know one person, he is afraid of sleeping.
And different people are afraid of different dreams. But different people are afraid of sleeping. Why? Because as soon as he sleeps, he suffers nightmares.
It's actually a nightmarish situation. To not be able to sleep, the woman needs a rest, but the man is not able to sleep because he is afraid of dreams. So why is this variety? So Baldev Vidyamesh says that the dream world is also created by the Supreme Lord.
And through the dream world, the Supreme Lord gives us the results of our minor karma. So the major karma, somebody may be in an accident, somebody may have a difficult relationship, somebody may have poor health. And through all these, we are getting the results of our major karma.
So like that, we may get results of our minor karma through dreams. So, that's how the phenomenon of dreams is. Now, one problem, so when we say dream is real, and waking state is also real.
Is there any difference between Jagruti and Swapna? The difference is that, in Jagruti, we can consciously use our Sveksha spiritually. We consciously choose to turn towards Krishna. In Swapna, we cannot do that.
In Swapna, things happen more or less as we observe as a participant. We are not consciously choosing. So spiritual advancement happens primarily when we consciously use our Sveksha properly.
Spiritual advancement happens primarily through our Jagruti stage. And through what we do in the Jagruti stage. Now, in some cases, yes, the Vedanta Sutra does have some sutras which say that in deep sleep, the soul goes closer to the Supreme.
But that does not mean that that proximity leads to any further spiritual advancement in and of itself. No path of yoga says that you sleep more, then you'll get one small package. No.
So, for that, actually we have to do sadhana, which is at the waking stage. So, largely speaking, what happens in our sleep is not in our control. And what happens in our sleep does not shape our destiny.
What happens in our sleep, at best, by that we are exhausting some minor karma. So, we use sleep. We can't use sleep as a means for spiritual advancement.
Then we can use sleep as a means for resting the body so that what we do when we are in the waking state, that will lead to spiritual advancement.