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 him, however many dolls and candy, it is when the child is helped to go to sleep, that he is most grateful. When the mother with her blessed hands puts him to sleep, it is of the greatest benefit for the child; it is then that he is happiest.

Those who are sick and in pain, are happy if they can sleep; then all their pain is gone. If only they can sleep, they say they can endure all else. They ask 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 my sleep."

What is the difference between the happy and the unhappy one? The unhappy one cannot sleep. His sorrow, care, anxiety, and worry at once take sleep away 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 over him. His feet and 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 any more, but he does it all the same.

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, he is contented; the sufferer is no more in pain or misery. This shows us that the soul is not in pain or in misery. If it were, it would also be so when the body is asleep. The soul does not feel the misery of the body and the mind, but when a person awakes then the soul thinks that it is in pain and wretched. All this shows us the great bliss of sleep.

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, for 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 or 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.