Sometimes that “sleep” is just avoidance or habit, but sometimes it’s a calm in-between state where your mind rests, you still hear, and the talk sinks in deeper than memory.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Osho, during your discourse I have observed the faces of the sannyasins. It seems they slip into a deep sleep. And my own experience is the same: the kind of sweet, deep, and alluring sleep that comes during the discourse never comes at any other time. What is the reason?
If you belong to the first kind, it is better you stop coming. If you belong to the second, then struggle, because that sleep is the mind’s old habit—you will have to break it. If you belong to the third, consider yourself fortunate and do not fight this tandra; quietly let yourself be taken by it. For whatever I am saying will not miss you in tandra; it will surely reach you. It may be that later you do not remember, because memory is very superficial; it will go even deeper. If you listen in tandra, that listening is very deep. It will penetrate to the very core of your being. If your state is tandra, do not try to break it. Then close your eyes and gently sink into it. Because what I am saying to you is not just words; within these words I am also giving you…
Osho, why do I always fall asleep during the discourse?
That's what happens in many car accidents. Many car accidents happen somewhere in the night nearabout between two and four, and the reason is that the driver is trying hard to keep his eyes open; by and by, he becomes capable of keeping his eyes open, and still he falls asleep. He keeps his eyes open and falls asleep with open eyes. Now this is a scientific finding. And that makes the whole problem: because he thinks he is awake he goes on driving because his eyes are open, but the sleep has taken possession of him, he is no longer aware. When you are awake, there is not much wakefulness; just a small part of you is awake. So you are not a loser, don't be worried. Whenever sannyasins come and ask me, "What should we do?" I tell them: Don't fight, otherwise you will miss me and you…
Why do I always fall asleep in discourse? Sometimes I can't help comparing myself to those people who sit absolutely still, just imbibing you, and that makes me feel like I have so far to go, especially every time when people come up to me after the lecture and say, "wasn't it amazing today?" maybe more would come through to me if I just accept that discourse is a good place for me to sleep.
It is the perfect place. Don't be worried about those people who come and tell you, they must be joking. You sleep well. They must be trying to disturb you, they must be trying to create some jealousy in you. They must be really jealous of you -- that you are sleeping so well and snoring, and those poor people are just sitting. They want to disturb you. Don't be worried. Go on sleeping. You have to go far, but in sleep, nowhere else. The game was drifting off into total boredom when a man in the crowd suddenly burst into a round of applause. The man next to him said, "Why did you do that?" "Sorry," he replied. "I was trying to keep myself awake." You don't know how much difficulty people are having in keeping themselves awake. You just go into your sleep, relax into it. If you…
The state in which the soul, with the help of the energies of the sun and other gods, and through the instrumentality of these fourteen: mind, intellect, mind stuff, ego, and the ten sense organs -- becomes sensitive to sound, touch and such other gross objects, is called the waking state. When the living being, on account of the unfulfilled desires of the waking state, becomes sensitive to sound, touch and such other gross objects -- even in the absence of the latter -- it is called the dreaming state of the self or soul.
This state of dreaming, the rishi says, means without the instrumentality of your senses. The senses are closed -- they are not aware of the world beyond you; now you are within your cells, within your body, but still you can create you own worlds. This creation of your own worlds in dreams becomes possible because your mind is a conditioning of everything you have known, you have felt; everything has been accumulated in it. It is an accumulation, not only of this life, but of all the lives one has lived; and not only of human lives, of animal lives also; and not only of animal lives, but of vegetable lives also. So in a dream you can become a tree; in a dream you can become a lion. Sometime you have been a tree: that memory is still there -- it can unfold. This unfolding of past memories,…
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.