VBT – Week’s Meditation 39
The Watcher Is Asleep
The Greeks have called it HYPNOS, and from hypnos the word hypnotism has been derived. In yoga, they call it YOGA TANDRA – a particular sleep which happens to the yogi and not to the ordinary man. It is hypnos – an induced sleep, not an ordinary sleep. And the difference is very basic, so try to understand it – because if you try a mantra, any sound, this is going to be your problem. The greatest problem to face is sleep.
Hypnosis uses the same technique – creating boredom. The hypnotist goes on repeating a certain word or certain sentences. He is continuously repeating, and you become bored. Or he gives you a light to concentrate on. Seeing a light continuously, you get bored.
In many temples, churches, people are fast asleep. Listening to scriptures, they fall asleep. They have heard those scriptures so many times, it has become a boredom. There is no excitement, they already know the story.
Preachers’ voices are very deeply sleep- inducing, monotonous. You can talk monotonously, in the same pitch, then sleep happens. Many psychologists advise their patients with insomnia to go and hear a religious talk, that gives sleep easily. Whenever you are bored, you will fall asleep, but that sleep is hypnosis, that sleep is yoga tandra. And what is the difference? That is not natural. It is unnatural, and with particular attributes.
One, when you fall asleep through a mantra or through hypnosis, you can create any illusion easily and the illusion will be as real as possible. In ordinary sleep you can create dreams, but the moment you are awake you will know that they were dreams. In hypnosis, in yoga tandra, you can create visions, and when you will be out of it you will not be able to say that they were dreams. You will say that they were more real than the life around you. That is one of the basic differences.
You can create any illusion. So if a Christian falls into hypnosis, he will see Christ. If a Hindu falls, he will see Krishna playing on his flute. It is beautiful! And the quality of hypnosis is that you will believe that this is real. That is the danger, and no one can convince you that this is unreal. The feeling is such that you KNOW this is real. You can say that the whole life is unreal, MAYA, illusion, but you cannot say that whatsoever you have seen in hypnosis, in yoga tandra, is unreal. It is so alive, so colorful, so attractive and magnetizing.
In hypnosis, or in yoga tandra, the watcher is asleep. That is the problem with all those who want to use sound to go into soundlessness or soundfulness, to go beyond. They must be aware that the mantra should not become an auto-hypnotic technique. It must not create auto-hypnosis.
So what can you do? You can do only one thing: while you are using your mantra, while you are intoning your mantra, do not simply intone it. At the same time be alert and listen to it also. Intone it and listen to it both. Otherwise, if you are not listening consciously, it will become your lullaby and you will fall into deep sleep. That sleep will be very good – you will feel refreshed after it, alive; you will feel a certain well-being – but this is not the point.
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