May 15, 2016
Continuity of Consciousness
Jenny asks:
My son desires do learn to live without sleep as some masters have. Have you heard of anyone who has been successful doing so?
JJ
I have heard stories, but haven’t seen any proof that anyone has been successful avoiding sleep.
Sleep is based on the principle of rest and this applies to all lives on all levels, even God. God, we are told in the Bible, needed to take a rest after creation was complete and the ancient wisdom teachings tell us that in between creations the universe dissipates and God and all lives in him/her/it rest in the Great Pralaya.
When it is said of certain masters that they need not sleep it doesn’t mean they do not need times of rest. Like they say a change is considered a rest and this is really what sleep or rest is. It is not the obliteration of consciousness, but a change in where consciousness is directed.
In normal sleep our consciousness is split between the astral/emotional and the mental. The mental part returns to the world of the soul and the astral part takes you into the dream state. In both cases attention is taken off the physical body which allows it to get some rest and recharge. This recharging of the physical body is absolutely necessary for anyone who is occupying one. Anyone who goes several days without such a recharging gets himself in serious trouble on he physical plane.
When a Master who is in a physical body is said to go without sleep what really happens is that he has developed continuity of consciousness that allows him to have continuous consciousness and awareness of surroundings 24 hours a day. During part of those 24 hours he will take his attention off the body so it can recharge, but will maintain full awareness in the world of the soul. So his consciousness is awake 24 hours a day, even though for part of that time his attention on the physical will be minimal allowing for physical rest and recharging.
Here are a couple quotes from DK on continuity of consciousness:
We call it continuity of consciousness, and by this we mean the power to be fully aware of all happenings in all spheres and departments of man’s being during the entire twenty-four hours of the day. As yet this is far from being the case. There is no real awareness of existence during the hours of sleep. The dream life as related is as full of illusion as any of the more definitely lower psychic experiences. The slowly growing interest in dreams from the standpoint of psychology and the investigation of their probable source are the first weak attempts towards establishing the awareness on a really scientific basis. There is as yet no conscious registering of mental activity during such times, for instance, as when the emotional body holds the centre of the stage.
A Treatise on White Magic, Pages 423-424
Learn to keep focussed in the head through visualization and meditation and through the steady practice of concentration; develop the capacity to live increasingly as the king seated on the throne between the eyebrows. This is a rule that can be applied to the every day affairs of life. *** Learn, as you go to sleep, to withdraw the consciousness to the head. This should be practiced as a definite exercise as one falls to sleep. One should not permit oneself to drift off to sleep, but should endeavor to preserve the consciousness intact until there is a conscious passing out onto the astral plane. Relaxation, close attention, and a steady drawing upwards to the center in the head should be attempted, for until the aspirant has learned to be steadily aware of all processes in going to sleep and to preserve at the same time his positivity, there is danger in this work. The first steps must be taken with intelligence and followed for many years until facility in the work of abstraction is achieved.
A Treatise on White Magic, Pages 503-504
Copyright 2016 by J J Dewey
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