Chapter 30Undated June 1960

did he say’ I’ – it always sounds like boasting.

Sri Aurobindo said that the true or yogic reason for sleep is to put the consciousness back into contact with Sat-Chit-Ananda (I used to do this without knowing it). For some people the contact is established immediately, while for others it takes eight, nine, ten hours to do it. But really, normally you should not wake up till the contact has been established, and that’s why it’s very bad to wake up in an artificial way (with an alarm clock, for example), because then the night is wasted.

As for me, my night is now organized. I go to bed at 8 o’clock and get up at 4, which makes for a very long night, and it’s sliced into three parts. And I get up punctually at 4 in the morning. But I’m always awake ten or fifteen minutes beforehand, and I review all that has happened during the night, the dreams, the various activities, etc., so that when I get up, I am fully active.

To make use of your nights is an excellent thing, for it has a double effect: a negative effect, in that it keeps you from falling backwards, from losing what you’ve gained (that is really painful); and a positive effect, in that you progress, you continue progressing. You make use of your nights, so there’s no more residue of fatigue.

There are two things to avoid: falling into a stupor of unconsciousness, with all those things coming up from the subconscious and the unconscious that invade and penetrate you, and a vital and mental hyperactivity in which you pass your time literally fighting – terrible battles. People come out of that black and blue, as if they had been beaten – and they have been, it is not ‘as if’! And I see only one way out – to change the nature of sleep.

(Letter from Mother to Satprem)

Monday morning My dear little child, shall tell you tomorrow. But it seemed to me that you should feel a little better after that.

Tomorrow at 10.

My love watches over you.

Signed: Mother