We see in our daily life that the greatest friend of the child is the one who helps him to go to sleep. However many toys we may give, however many dolls and candy, when the child is helped to sleep, it is then that he is the most grateful. When the mother with her blessed hands puts him to sleep, it is the greatest benefit. It is then that he is happiest. Those who are sick and in pain, if they can sleep, are happy. Then all their pain is gone. If they can only sleep, they say they can endure all else. They say to the doctor, give us something, anything to make us sleep. If you were offered a king's palace and every enjoyment, every luxury, the best surroundings, the best dishes, on the condition that you should not sleep, you would say: "I do not want it, I prefer sleep."

The unhappy - what is the difference between the happy and the unhappy? Only this. The unhappy cannot sleep. The sorrow, care, anxiety, the worry that he has, at once take sleep from him. Why do people take to alcoholic drinks, and drugs of all sorts? Only for this. When a man has drunk alcohol because of the intensity of the stimulant, a light sleep comes upon him. His feet, his hands are asleep, his tongue is asleep. He cannot speak plainly. He cannot walk straight, and falls down. The joy of this sleep is so great that when he has drunk once, he wants to drink again. A thousand times he decides that he will not drink, but he does.

There is a poem of our great poet Rumi where he says: "O sleep, every night thou freest the prisoner from his bonds."

The prisoner, when he is asleep, does not know that he is in prison. He is free. The wretched is not wretched, is contented. The sufferer is not in pain and misery. This shows us that the soul is not in pain nor in misery. If it were, it would be so also when the body is asleep. The soul does not feel the misery of the body and the mind. When a person awakes, then the soul thinks that it is in pain and wretched. All this shows us the great bliss of sleep.

And this great bliss is given to us without a price, like all that is best. We do not pay to sleep. We pay thousands of pounds for jewels, gems, that are of no use to our life. Bread we can buy for pennies. Man does not know how great the value of sleep is because the benefit it gives cannot be seen and touched. If he is very busy, if he has some business that brings him money, he will rather be busy in that and take from his sleep, because he sees: "I have gained so many pounds, so many shillings." He does not see what he gains by sleep.

During the fast sleep ordinarily a person is conscious of nothing. When he wakes up, he feels refreshed and renewed. What are we doing while we are fast asleep? The soul then is released from the hold of the body and the mind. It is free, it goes to its own element, to the highest spheres, and it enjoys there. It is happy. All the happiness, all the wisdom of those spheres it experiences. It enjoys all the bliss, happiness and peace.

Besides the dream and the fast sleep, there are the visions. These are seen when in sleep the soul is active in the higher spheres. What it sees there the mind interprets in allegorical pictures. The soul sees plainly the actual thing, and the mind takes from the impressions, whatever is rather like that which the soul sees. Therefore the thing is seen as a picture, an allegory, a parable which the wise can interpret, because he knows the language of those spheres. If he sees himself walking up a mountain, he knows what it means, if he sees himself in rags, or very richly dressed, or in a ship, or in the desert, he knows what it means. The ignorant does not know. He thinks it is merely a dream, nothing. A person sees in a vision either what concerns himself, or what concerns others in whom he is interested; if he is interested in his nation, or in the whole humanity, he will see what has to do with the nation or with the whole humanity.

In a dream a voice may be heard, or a message given in letters. This is the higher vision. The sages and saints see in the vision exactly what will happen, or what the present condition is, because their mind is controlled by their will. It does not for one moment think, even in sleep, that it can act independently of their will. And so whatever their soul sees, it shows exactly as it is seen. They see visions even while awake, because their consciousness is not bound to this earthly plane. It is awake upon the higher planes.

Besides the dream, vision, and fast sleep, the mystics experience two other conditions, the self-produced dream and the self-produced fast sleep. To accomplish this is the aim of mysticism. It is so easy that I can explain it to you in these few words, and it is so difficult that I should like to bow my head before him who has achieved it. They accomplish this by concentration and meditation.

Can you hold one thought in your mind, keeping all other thoughts away? Can you keep your mind free from all thoughts, from all pictures? We cannot. A thousand thoughts, a thousand pictures come and go. By mastering this, they master all. Then he is awake upon this plane and upon that plane. Then this becomes sleep, and the other the wakeful state. People may say, the mystics, the Sufis are great occultists, very psychic people. That is not their aim. Their aim is the true consciousness, the life, which lies beyond. Allah. When this is open to them, then all wisdom is open to the soul, and all the books, all the learning in the world becomes intellect before them. You may say: "Then the very lazy people who are always sleeping are all saints." No. The soul must experience on the earth also. It must learn what virtue is, it must learn to be virtuous.