Slip into Sleep

I used to have sleepless night once in a while generally due to over-thinking while lying on the bed for years till 2014/15. It seemed that my creative faculties were the most active during night – I was generally thinking about Either a new software product idea from A to Z or poems etc. (as much as I can recall now) during such a night.

It was June 2014 when I started with meditation out of curiosity (more about that in some future post) and I soon fixated on a daily routine of meditating twice (morning/evening). I started having mystical experiences which gave me enough motivation to continue experimenting and reading about meditation and related subjects.

But my material desires and pursuits (which included a job at Microsoft, casual freelancing, building some product idea) were still on-going in parallel, and hence such infrequent sleepless nights were still there. Add to this, the meditative sensations started building up and they also started contributing to hyper-active mind at night, even though not over-thinking every time but couldn’t be easily slept, due to constant awareness of energy flows. It worsened the problem: now almost every night, an hour or two were spent lying on the bed, trying to get into sleep, which as I recall used to come only when the sensations had calmed down.

I think during this time I had also started meditating before sleep. This may have contributed to the heightening of sensations. Nevertheless, I also started praying for a solution, and I don’t recall how, but I eventually discovered one in 2015. I don’t recall reading specifically about it, but I think it might have to do with getting epiphany about the science of chakras by the grace of the lord. Before we delve into the specifics of what does that mean, let me reveal my simple yet very powerful method to let you slip into sleep

The practice is simple. Turn lights off. Sit (with hips on your pillow you use during sleep) on the same bed you’re going to sleep. Sit straight and comfortably (preferably in cross-legged pose), gently close your eyes (either half or full as you prefer).

Now concentrate on the area Right in the middle of your chest. You can feel bone, muscle or anything else when you focus here. Just continue to concentrate on that physical sensation or feeling you’re experiencing. Just discard every thought that comes even the thought of how much time has passed. If mind drifts onto some thought, gently bring it back to the area and its sensations.

About 8 to 10 minutes of this meditation and you’re ready to sleep (on most days, you can end up feeling sleepy even during meditation).

as you Lie down, keep the focus on the same middle of the chest area and don’t entertain any thought. They may still come and if you focus on them, start analyzing/deliberating upon them, you’ll lose the peaceful state just gained with meditation. And you may have to do it again.

If you use a mantra to meditate, you can continue doing so with this method as well – you just meditate on your mantra by focusing on the same area between the middle of the chest. (In fact, I switched to meditating with mantra since long with this method for accumulating mantra energy).

I generally fall asleep within first few minutes of lying down after this meditation. I don’t remember having any sleepless night after started doing this form of meditation except on one occasion recently (during Feb2021). However, during days of extreme restlessness/stress, one may have to repeat the method more than once if the first attempt didn’t yield the result. Chiefly because you fail to check the mind from starting thinking again as you lie down (or you couldn’t stop thinking during meditation).

Why does this method work? As per science of chakras, the brow plexus (Agya Chakra) is the place where all thoughts originate. If our mind is seated here, it’s obvious that it’d be hyper active or can indulge in over thinking. As per Swamiji’s excellent book, Kundalini – An Untold Story, the Rudra Granthi is also at this place which is associated with the onslaught of thoughts one experiences during meditation.

By meditating on the heart, we bring down the mind from the place of activity to the place of peace and calm – the place where the Paramatma dwells. If your concentration is good, you may also literally experience a clear feeling of something in you coming down during meditation. It may not happen always and you shouldn’t certainly attempt to create or anticipate it. The entire focus should be on the object of meditation and not on the expected results/experiences of it.

Sriman Narayan