Hazrat Inayat Khan now begins to reveal the depth of the mystery of sleep. The first instalment is here.

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.

To be continued…