Prelude:
The message of Patanjali in the yoga sutra is that, mental activities, which can be classified into five types, are both useful, as well as a source of trouble. This time we look at the fourth type of mental activity, sleep.
abhava pratyaya alambana tamo vrttih nidra | Yoga Sutra I.10

Sleep is the absence of any mental activity, which is sustained by the dominance the quality of heaviness.

Sleep is the favorite pastime of most of us. Although it is a state of mind that is devoid of any mental thoughts, Patanjali calls it as a mental activity. This is because even this state of inactivity is an activity. Much like how “nothing” is also something.

When Patanjali defines sleep as a state of no mental activity, he is talking about deep sleep and not the one that is filled with dreams. He does not consider state of dream, as sleep, since here the mind still is active, albeit in a sub-conscious manner. It is intriguing to explore why Patanjali says, a state of mind that is devoid of any activity is both a source of trouble as well as a useful tool. Lets explore these through the following real life story.

Shobha was a hard working medical student who just had one semester to complete before she would become a doctor. The dreams of her parents, who had worked hard to save money to send her to the best medical school, were going to come to reality.  Shobha was a sincere student and did not want to let her parents down. She never missed a class, was always the first to submit her assignments, and was always eager to work hard to become a good doctor.

As the day of her exam approached, she began to work even more, as she wanted to be first in her class. Her dedication to her goal was one hundred per cent. She had five papers to complete and she went through four of them very well. The last one was the toughest paper of the entire five-year course, and she wanted to conquer it without any trouble. So she went about preparing for the course day and night, with hardly any time for sleep. Her friends warned her that she needed more rest, but she merely told them “my sleep can wait until I finish the exam”.

The day of the examination dawned, and Shobha was all-confident as she took her place to complete the final hurdle. Half way through the test, sleep caught up with her and she fell asleep leaning on the table with her forehead resting on her answer paper. When woken up by her teacher, and told that the test was over, and then it dawned on her that she had failed to conquer the final frontier. This shattered her. She had to wait one year to complete this paper in the following year, and only then could she become a doctor.

Through this story, not only Shobha, but also we can see how important sleep is to our lives. It is because of sleep that our whole system become fresh and rejuvenated, so that we can pursue our daily activities. Without sleep our system will get tired and our mind becomes dull and our functioning becomes inefficient, and sometimes even dangerous.

But sleep can also be very useful in many occasions. Although many of you will vouch for the myriad benefits of sleep, I would like to present this story.

Joseph is a great chess player who lives in Europe. He often plays in tournaments and keeps his life busy through this sport. Recently I had the opportunity to meet him and share a brief conversation with him. I asked him “Hey Joseph, how do you prepare for your tournament games. What exactly do you do just before a game?” He was very calm and sure when he replied to me. “Sir, just before a game, I sleep. All the preparation for the game happens before the sleep. If I don’t sleep before the game, I feel miserable and end up tense, while if I have slept well, it keeps me fresh and prepared for the game”.

Here we see how this state of sleep is a useful activity. It prepared Joseph to do better in his sport. Much like Joseph, sleep is an integral part of our lives and it is important that we find time to sleep. This will help us rejuvenate, stay fresh and be efficient and effective in our daily lives.
Time to go to sleep.