TO DANCE TO HIS TUNE

 
Did Baba ever tell us that if we woke up in the night it was bad for our health to go back to sleep? No. Not that I ever recall. You mean should we, if we happen to wake in the night, sit in meditation and repeat His name instead of trying to go back to sleep? No, that was in the early days. That wasn't for us.

You see, in the early days there were youngsters with Him, and you know how it is with youth. There is so much energy, so much enthusiasm, that unless it is properly channeled, this will lead to mischief of some sort. So in those days Baba used to give instructions like that. But once those with Him were older, once they were firmly established in His love, then all that sort of thing went by the side.

You know, Prophet Muhammad when He came used to have a standing rule that you shouldn't disturb anyone while they were sleeping. But then the next time He comes, as Meher Baba, He is known as the "Awakener."

And it was true, even in a literal sense. Baba used to say, "Go give Peter this message." And we would go and we would find Peter asleep, so we would wake him up to give him the message. And what was the message? It was, "Peter, Baba wants you to sleep well." So we would wake Peter and tell him, and he would grunt and roll over and fall back asleep.

That is the way it was with Baba. Why? Why should He have been one way as Muhammad and just the opposite as Baba? It is just His whim. But no, Baba did not tell us that we couldn't go back to sleep if we woke up in the middle of the night. In fact, I remember one time we had been traveling with Baba and we hadn't slept for some time, days and nights together....

When we went on mast tours with Baba we often got very little sleep. Sometimes we got no sleep at all. The particular time I am reminded of I had had no sleep for several days and nights. And now we were taking a bus somewhere, this must have been in the interior, and we were traveling by state transport bus. And you know how it is, the rocking motion of the bus, the rhythm, the heat, the days and nights without sleep, and somehow I succumbed, and the next thing I knew I woke up with a start.

We were traveling on dirt roads and we must have hit a pot hole, a sudden jolt, and I woke up. But woke up from where? From His shoulder. In my sleep my head had fallen on Baba's shoulder, and I looked and I saw that I had drooled on Baba's coat. You know how it is when you're fast asleep, your mouth gapes open and the saliva collects and runs out. And I could see the stain on Baba's shoulder and I sat up feeling very abashed, but Baba just did this, He gently pushed my head back on His shoulder and gestured, "Don't worry, go back to sleep."

I couldn't disobey Baba, but how could I sleep? So I sat there with my head on His shoulder and my eyes closed for a minute or two to honor His instructions and then sat up. Baba seemed surprised. "So soon? Is that all you're going to sleep?"

"It's all right, Baba, I feel refreshed now." And it was true. That deep sleep was such that I did feel completely revived, fresh, ready to go another week without sleep.

I don't know how long I must have been asleep, whether it was ten minutes or half an hour, but it was such a sound sleep that I did feel completely revived when I woke up. Baba said sound sleep is the original state of God. We are unconscious of it when we sleep, when we enter this original state of God, but the Avatar or the Perfect Masters are conscious of this state during their sound sleep. And I think I must have entered that real sound sleep, that original state of God, because I woke up so refreshed. Now don't say it was because of Baba's shoulder. Let's not get sentimental, it was because that's the nature of real deep sleep.

But anyway, to answer your question, you can see that Baba did not say to me, "Now that you're awake, stay awake and repeat my name." On the contrary, when I woke up, He on His own told me to go back to sleep.

You cannot make rules for the Avatar. Do not try to limit Him by saying He always will do this or He will always do that. That would be to make Him a normal person, enslaved to habits and routines. Baba was not that, He was always most natural, and for us to become natural, not normal, we must simply learn to dance to His tune.