Do you remember when you were a little kid and it was bedtime and you didn't want to go to sleep and your parents were making you go to sleep?
Is tonight one of those nights that I have to force you into bed?
Welcome to the grounded sleep podcast.
I'm David.
I'm going to be your guide tonight.
Get into bed,
Turn off the lights.
I'm going to start to relax into the deep,
Deep sleep space that we're going for so we could wake up nice and rested and ready for our day tomorrow.
And I want to start tonight first by just mentioning if you want help meditating during the day,
You can go to davidgandleman.
Com and you can find all my stuff there.
And on that note,
Let's get ready to sleep.
And I want to start tonight by reading a passage from one of my favorite authors,
Eckhart Tolle,
From the first meditation book that I've ever read called The Power of Now.
You've probably heard of it.
And I picked this book up when I was 16 years old.
My brother forced me to go to a bookstore.
I was a lazy non-reading ice hockey player growing up in the suburbs of New Jersey.
And he made me pick up a book.
I randomly picked up this book in the year 2000 before Eckhart was all Oprah famous.
And literally a few pages in,
Just a light bulb turned on in me and something very radical shifted.
And here we are.
So thank you,
Eckhart.
And I want to share what he has to say about dreamless sleep because tonight we're going to be going into dreamless sleep at some point.
And in Indian philosophy,
They say there are four states of consciousness,
Our normal waking state,
Our dream state,
Our deep sleep state,
And then the fourth state or what they would call turya.
I don't know if there's a perfect translation,
Enlightenment beyond maybe even being conscious in what seems like that deep sleep state.
So let's take a listen to what Eckhart has to say about this state,
The dreamless sleep state in particular.
He says,
You take a journey into the unmanifested every night when you enter the phase of deep deep dreamless sleep.
You merge with the source.
You draw from it a vital energy that sustains you for a while when you return to the manifested,
The world of separate forms.
This energy is much more vital than food.
Man does not live by bread alone.
But in dreamless sleep,
You don't go into it consciously,
Although the bodily functions are still operating.
You no longer exist in that state.
And you imagine what it would be like to go into dreamless sleep with full consciousness.
It's impossible to imagine it because that state has no content.
The unmanifested does not liberate you until you enter into it consciously.
That's why Jesus did not say the truth will make you free,
But rather you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.
This is not a conceptual truth.
It is the truth of eternal life beyond form,
Which is known directly or not at all.
But don't attempt to stay conscious in dreamless sleep.
It's highly unlikely that you'll succeed.
At most,
You may remain conscious during the dream phase,
But not beyond that.
This is called lucid dreaming,
Which may be interesting and fascinating,
But it's not liberating.
So use your inner body as a portal through which you enter the unmanifested and keep that portal open so that you stay connected with the source at all times.
Thank you,
Eckhart,
For those beautiful words.
And I hope by now you're starting to rest deeply into your bed and allowing yourself to just ease any tension that maybe you brought into bed with you and start to get ready for that deep journey into the unmanifested.
And yes,
Having beautiful lucid dreams can be very cool and sexy,
But allowing yourself to go into that emptiness,
That restful,
Deep,
Unmanifested state and recharge is incredibly important.
Allow your body to get a little heavier and allow yourself to start to really let go of the day.
You might be really good at holding on or ruminating around or swimming in all the thoughts.
And notice all of your thoughts arise and dissolve from that unmanifested place that Eckhart is talking about.
Your consciousness arises itself out of that place,
And then as you go to sleep,
It dissolves back into that place.
From the formless comes form,
And form goes back into the formless.
Start to breathe a little bit deeper,
A little bit slower.
Draw your attention into your inner body,
That energetic body deep inside of you.
Lightly,
Almost telepathically communicate to your physical body that it can unwind and just let go.
There's nothing else that it's needed for today.
It's off the clock.
Really let yourself sail across the dark river of sleep with a sense of ease and a sense of acceptance and a sense of wonder.
Because that sleep is truly your friend,
And it's here to regenerate you,
Almost like a rechargeable battery or a better image,
A bear that goes to sleep for the winter.
You might just be a little bit less furry,
Or maybe not.
I don't know.
As you fall asleep,
Fall asleep with a sense of self-compassion and kindness towards yourself.
No judgment,
No pressure,
And definitely no expectations.
Tonight,
We're going to pass through three out of the four states of consciousness.
Waking,
Dreaming,
And dreamless sleep.
The fourth state is being awake beyond those three states.
Most people are asleep while they are awake.
Enlightenment is when you are truly awakened out of the illusion that most people find themselves in during the day.
When you awaken in each state,
That is Tauria.
Even if you find yourself awake and conscious and dreamless sleep,
Almost floating in emptiness,
Don't get nervous.
It's perfectly okay.
Just allow yourself to enjoy it.
All of existence is born out of the unmanifested and dies back into the unmanifested.
Allow yourself to just dissolve into the unmanifested tonight and have a very deep,
Restful sleep.
