Sleep is a cleanser for the subconscious mind. By the use of willpower this can be done slowly or quickly. §
When you sleep, you are cleaning out the subconscious mind and educating it to face the experiences that you must go through as you evolve. This is done automatically, but you can help it by the use of your will. Everyone has willpower, but few know that they have any more than a certain amount. It is really unfair to tell them they have unlimited powers, because they have not the consciousness of how to awaken them, and it only leads to a subconscious frustration unless you give the key along with the statement. This is the key, and when you practice it you will realize that you are not a mere man in a physical body. You are a being that has unlimited power within: the power to acquire, to give, to understand, to love, to remember, to be magnetic and to be happy. This power is yours. It is locked up within you, only to be realized through the conscious use of the will. The will is a thing, just like your body, your mind and emotions when you learn to separate and control them. The will you can also control, once you locate it through feeling. This feeling you must search yourself for and try to locate where it is and trace it to what it controls and weigh it as to how much you use to accomplish different missions. You do this through concentration–just plain thinking, coupled with feeling. ¶This is your birthright, your heritage. When you grasp this will from within, your consciousness will unfold before your vision. And during sleep you will speed up the process of purification and build strength daily until you fall into a conscious sleep. §
When the Ego functions in subconscious or subsubconscious dream states, situations are created. These situations remembered while in a conscious state, termed awake, will create on the conscious plane similar happenings.§
Here we have a manifestation of the subsubconscious mind in the dream. It is apparent that we dream things that we could not have possibly thought up. Such dreams are a conglomeration of seemingly unrelated happenings that pass through the mind. The unrelated happenings do, however, re-impress the subsubconscious state of mind if remembered, and in turn impress the subconscious state, and similar happenings are created in our everyday life. This, perhaps, is hard to believe, but as we think back over our lives, we can pick instances where this rings true. ¶To change the picture, use the power of the subconscious mind to clear this subsubconscious state of mind and release within you the full, abundant life you were born to live. When using the subconscious mind in manifesting control over this situation, take into consideration that it is not able to eradicate the vibration. During sleep your subconscious will make it possible for you to continue working out the rate of vibration created while in the dream state and remembered while awake. ¶Simply tell your subconscious, when you are in the process of remembering a dream, to work out the remaining particles of that experience during sleep rather than recreating it on the physical plane.§
Thoughts created at the time of intense concentration remain vibrating in the ether. When the Ego enters the etheric or astral plane in sleep, this powerful thought vibration generated while in the conscious mind draws the Ego to the spot of creation; then the Ego re-experiences the activities first concentrated upon. Another mind concentrated upon the same thought at the same time will intensify the above-stated situation.§
It is in this way that two, three or more people can go into the same area of the astral plane and experience, learn from great teachers there. This is because they have shared the same thought, intensified it; the thought itself draws them in their astral body to the desired destination. Should the amplification of thought occur idly, similar results will happen. These are often called nightmares, disturbed sleep or fantasy. Yes, it is true that intense concentration does impact the lower astral world. Therefore, we must be aware that dreams of this nature are not prophetic, but self-created during normal daily life, or even within a state of meditation itself, when one is intensely concentrated upon a certain subject or a variety of subjects. ¶The dream has become a part of the intense concentration, and if you become conscious of it later, it is as much in your conscious mind as it was to begin with when it rose to manifestation. There are some of these playback creations that we want to have manifest in the material world, and others we don’t. Therefore, when you find a playback happening within your dreams you wish to manifest, then intensely concentrate on it the following day. If you do not want it to manifest, endeavor to forget it as soon as possible. Tell no one, looking at it as a passing fantasy that never happened.§
Upon passing into a state of sleep, the body’s five positive currents are systematically depolarized; this allows the Ego to pass from the physical plane into the subsuperconscious regions. When the body is fully recuperated, the currents are again polarized, thus pulling the Ego back into the physical body, hence the conscious plane.§
The conscious plane, when in a physical body, is always home base. The five currents hold individual awareness, which in this aphorism is referred to as the Ego in the conscious plane or conscious mind. Therefore, individual awareness can soar into the subsuperconscious regions and entertain great input, knowledge, direction for one’s future, understanding of the karmas that have been gone through, as well as creativity that can later be manifest on the conscious plane. But as the aphorism says, once the body is fully recuperated from a state of sleep, individual awareness is now again aware of the conscious plane, which is the external world. All of the subsuperconscious input from the various regions is not forgotten, but is not remembered, and will slowly infiltrate from the subsuperconscious to the subconscious to the conscious mind and manifest in the conscious plane or conscious mind intelligence at a much later time. ¶The aphorism states that “the body’s five positive currents are systematically depolarized.” This implies that they can be depolarized in an unsystematic way. To have them systematically depolarized, prāṇāyāma, haṭha yoga and japa should precede the state of sleep. It also implies that the state of sleep is a state of deep meditation for the unfolded person. This does not happen for everyone. This happens for the one who prepares himself to go into that kind of deep sleep, who is in a state in which the five currents can be systematically depolarized. The five currents are the five winds of the body. ¶Depolarized means that they all rest. It’s like nīkashūm. When you are doing nīkashūm, you are withdrawing all the five winds into simshūmbīsī, the center of your being. Depolarizing means bringing together that which is naturally apart. In the Shūm language this is called nīkashūm. The energy of these five functions would be drawn into the sushumṇā current and enliven kuṇḍalinī activity somewhat, just enough for individual awareness to flow into subsuperconscious inner worlds of creative intelligence, absorbing all the knowledge which they at that time could contain. This then is held as a deposit, along with other intelligence experienced within the subsuperconscious mind, slowly infiltrating through the subconscious to the conscious mind.§
When the Ego “wakes up” from sleep, the physical body should be immediately put into action. To go back into the state of sleep immediately after naturally becoming conscious causes the five positive currents to be unconventionally depolarized–the Ego passes into the subsubconscious regions.§
The mystical edict has always been, “Wake up, get up.” Any time during the night the mystic wakens, he sits up, stands up immediately, bringing himself totally into the conscious mind, turns on the light, moves the body, divorces individual awareness, his Ego, from whatever had been experienced during sleep. Then, as a conscious being, fully aware of head, arms, legs and the functions of the physical body, he puts the body to sleep again, to systematically depolarize and go back into the inner state he was drawn away from for one reason or another. The aphorism explains the penalties for neglecting this personal discipline, and, I might add, they double in effects once the discipline is known, because you know you should do something and you don’t do it; that amount of extra energy will add in unconventionally depolarizing the currents. This means that some of the five currents give way half way and others will give way fully, and–as they merge together during this time into individual awareness–will conjure up the sub of the subconscious mind, give it strength and power to manifest at a later time. The sub of the subconscious mind should not be conjured up in this way, lest the manifestations not be welcome in the experiential pattern of the individual’s life. There are other sādhanas to handle the sub of the subconscious mind. ¶It should be embarrassing to any devout Śaivite, especially one who has been initiated, to not wake up with “Aum Namaḥ Śivāya” in the mind. Traditional practices of basic japa are to fall asleep chanting “Aum Namaḥ Śivāya” and wake up starting off on the same syllable one left off on when going to sleep. Therefore, to quickly heal the embarrassment, the devotee should, upon awakening, mentally or verbally say, “Aum Namaḥ Śivāya,” or “Śivāya Namaḥ Aum,” bringing the mind back to normal consciousness. ¶In a state of sleep, one must know that he himself behaves as he would in an awakened, conscious state. The mystic knows there is no state of unconsciousness, and that the same laws apply, the yamas, niyamas and pañcha nitya karmas, whether one is awake or asleep. Whatever one does, even in a dream–lying, cheating or stealing, deceiving, coercing or mutilating–is a cause of karmas or forces to be re-experienced, re-enacted at a later time. Right thought, right speech, right action must hold through daily life and dream life. Those who do not have proper dreams, or who have violent dreams, should never be taught meditation, outside of group meditation, lest the power of meditation itself manifest their hidden unruly nature. ¶The guru, having all-pervasive consciousness, which is superconsciousness, is simultaneously within the subsuperconscious of all śishyas at every given moment or every space of time–in their waking states, in their dream states, guiding, loving and protecting.§