Is sleep a state of aloneness?

Is sleep a state of aloneness?

No. Sleep as it exists is not aloneness. It is not oneness, it is not twoness, it is just unconsciousness. You are unconscious of that which is. In ordinary wakefulness you are conscious of the two. In ordinary sleep you are not conscious of oneness nor are you conscious of twoness. But in real wakefulness -- in meditation, in samadhi -- you are conscious of aloneness. There is a similarity and there is a difference also. In sleep, you are unaware of the two but not aware of the one; in samadhi, in meditation, you are aware of it. If you can become totally aware and there is no twoness -- as in sleep there is not -- then oneness happens. In sleep the mind goes to sleep. In samadhi the mind dies. So sleep and samadhi appear to be similar but they are not, because after samadhi there is…

A friend has asked: Osho, if through meditation or spiritual practice one can conquer death, does not the same state occur in sleep? And if it does, why can’t death be conquered through sleep?

But meditation and hypnosis are not the same. Understand me carefully. I said: up to this point it is hypnosis, mesmerism—so long as we are manufacturing suggestions. When the manufacturing of suggestions stops and you awaken—where awareness begins—there meditation begins. Where witnessing begins, meditation begins. And the reason for this hypnosis is that you have fallen into a reverse hypnosis. In scientific language, this is not hypnosis but de-hypnosis. Not mesmerism, but the breaking of mesmerism. We are the ones mesmerized—but we don’t know it. In life we have become hypnotized, and we have no idea how many kinds of hypnotic trances we have taken on, by how many devices we have produced them. A large part of our life is hypnosis. And when we want to be hypnotized, we don’t notice what we are doing. For example… we live like this all our lives. If we became aware of…

So in deep sleep no division remains—because the divider is gone. The world becomes one. In deep sleep you arrive where the knower arrives in samadhi. The only difference: the knower is full of awareness; you are unconscious. That is all. Deep sleep and samadhi are identical—save for a slight but crucial difference. The knower arrives awake; filled with awareness; deep sleep + awareness = samadhi. You too arrive there every night. In the morning you say, “I slept so blissfully.” Do you know which part you call blissful? If dreams ran all night, you never say you slept well—you say, “I was restless; dreams after dreams; I couldn’t sleep.” Blissful sleep is only when dreams stop. But while it happens you do not know it is blissful—because you are unconscious. In the morning you only know it was blissful—a faint afterglow remains, an echo of joy.

If you all sleep here tonight—so long as you are awake, there may be some differences; once asleep, all difference disappears. One and the same sleep descends upon all. If someone were to inspect each face—he would find only one taste: of sleep. However he investigates—women will be sleeping, men sleeping; children sleeping, old people sleeping; the healthy sleeping, the ill sleeping; the ugly and the beautiful sleeping; the poor and the rich sleeping; the worldly and the sannyasin sleeping—but the sleep is alike. The taste of sleep is one: unconsciousness. So too happens in the supreme awakening. Whoever awakens—their taste is one. Certainly their words differ—Krishna spoke in Sanskrit, the Buddha in Pali, Mahavira in Prakrit, Jesus in Aramaic, Mohammed in Arabic; languages differ, cups of different colors and shapes from different lands and times—but the taste is one. And the one who recognizes this taste—he alone is religious.

Also, meditate on knowledge that comes during sleep. Also, meditate on anything that appeals to you.

THUS, THE YOGI BECOMES MASTER OF ALL, FROM THE INFINITESIMAL TO THE INFINITE. Nothing is new in life; it is a wheel; it moves on the same route. Because you go on forgetting about the past, that's why you feel so much excitement. Once you remember, the whole excitement drops. In that remembrance happens sannyas. Sannyas is an effort to get out of the rut of sansar. It is an effort to jump out of the wheel. It is to say to yourself that "Enough is enough! Now I am not going to participate anymore in the same old nonsense. I am getting out of it." Sannyas is a perfect dropping out of the wheel -- not out of the society, but out of your own inner wheel of life and death. This is the fourth type of dream. And then there is a fifth type of dream, and the…