Osho on Meditatively going to sleep and waking up

 

 

In the morning when you feel the sleep has left you, don’t open your eyes immediately. The mind has the tendency to open the eyes immediately. You miss a great opportunity... because when sleep leaves you and life energies are wakening inside, you can watch them, and that watching will be very helpful for going into deeper meditation.

 

The mind is fresh, the body is fresh after the whole night’s rest; everything is fresh, unburdened. There is no dust, no tiredness – you can look deeply, penetratingly. Your eyes are fresher; everything is vital. Don’t miss that moment. When you feel sleep has left, don’t open the eyes immediately. Remain with closed eyes and feel the energy which is changing now from sleep to waking. And that’s what I am going to teach you: how to change all your energies from sleep to waking. So just watch.

 

You may be lethargic in that moment, you would like to turn over and go to sleep again, so do one thing: for three minutes with closed eyes stretch your body like a cat. But with closed eyes; don’t open the eyes and don’t look at the body from without. Look at the body from within. Stretch, move, and let the body energy flow, and feel it. When it is fresh it is good to feel it; the feeling will remain with you the whole day.

 

Do this for two or three minutes – if you enjoy it, five minutes. And then for two or three minutes laugh loudly like a madman, but with closed eyes, don’t open the eyes. With closed eyes laugh loudly. The energies are there, flowing; the body is awake and alert and vital. The sleep has gone. You are filled, flooded with new energy.

 

The first thing to be done is laughter, because that sets the trend for the whole day. If you do it, you will feel within two or three days that your mood remains the whole day the mood of laughing, enjoying. Don’t be afraid of what others will say, because they may be just waiting for you – so laugh and help them to laugh.

 

Remember, the first thing in the day sets the trend, and the last thing in the night also sets the trend. So begin your sleep with a deep relaxation so the whole night becomes samadhi, the whole night becomes a deep meditation – relaxed. Six, seven, eight hours – it is a long time. If you live for sixty years, twenty years you will be in your bed. Twenty years is a long time, and if you can change the quality of sleep you need not go to a forest to meditate; twenty years – enough! No need to go anywhere, no need to do anything.

 

If you can change your sleep there is no need to go like Mahavira in the forest for twelve years, or like Buddha for six years. Twenty years is a long time, and you are not doing anything in that sleep so meditation is easy, because meditation is more like nondoing than like doing. It is a deep relaxation. Relax when you go to sleep and laugh when you come out of sleep. That laughter should be the first prayer.

 

Remember that if you can laugh, sooner or later you will come to believe in God. A person who laughs cannot remain an atheist for long, and a person who is sad, whatsoever he may say, cannot be really a believer in God, because sadness shows that he rejects, sadness shows that he is against, sadness shows that he denies, condemns. Laughter shows a deep acceptance, laughter shows a celebration, laughter shows that life is good.

 

First thing in the morning stretch your body like a cat so you can feel energy, move like a cat, and then laugh, and only then get out of the bed. Then the whole day is going to be different. Then we will be doing three meditations in the day.

 

-Osho, "Vedanta: Seven Steps to Samadhi, #1"