Falling Asleep, Astrology and Ram Dass

February 11, 2024

Feeling anxious about not being able to fall asleep.

Topic submitted by: Emma S. from Charlotte, NC

Tossing and turning at night? You’re not alone.

There could be many things going on causing your inability to fall right asleep:

Caffeine usage.
Eating heavy foods too late in the evening.
Circadian rhythm is being affected by the blue light from your screens.
Identification with your mind chatter.
Nasty build-up of physical toxins in your brain and body.

Whatever the reason, here is a helpful technique make you less anxious about not being able to fall asleep.

Practice

I call it the “Tidal Volume Meditation”, and it’s both simple and effective.

With eyes closed, imagine a 2D graph. The y-axis is your lung volume, and the x-axis is time (see below)
As you breathe normally, start graphing out what the peaks and valleys in real time, a bit like an earthquake seismograph.
Focus your entire mind on generating the graph and feeling the sensations on your nostrils.
If your mind wants to wander towards abstract thoughts and visuals, let it. This is its bridge towards dreaming.

If you did this for the entire night, even if you never actually fell asleep fully, you would still wake up feeling rejuvenated.

This is because your conscious mind and physical body naturally rest during this exercise.

Do the planets, moons and stars really affect us, like in astrology?

Topic submitted by: Robert Y. from Charlotte, NC

Yes and no.

Yes: When it’s summertime — i.e. when the sun is physically closer to you — you are in a better mood, have more energy, and sleep less.

Similarly, the position of the moon literally changes what hormones are flowing through your body.

With those facts in mind, it’s not crazy to claim that other celestial bodies like Jupiter and Mercury also directly affect you.

No: Thinking that you are the way you are because of what Saturn’s doing automatically implies separation. It says: “Saturn is way over there, floating alone in some infinite space void, and I’m over here existing in my own isolated bubble.”

But space and distance are illusions — they emerge from a greater Reality in which everything happens right here, right now, in the simultaneous Present.

In this way, celestial bodies aren’t actually causing your behavior, billiard-ball-style. Instead, you, me, the rocks, moons, planets and stars are all linked up to the same Universal clock.

This makes astrology seem like it is controlling you, when in reality it’s just reflecting you.

“We are all just sitting under the tree of our thinking, wondering why we aren’t getting any sunshine.” — Ram Dass

Quote submitted by: Meredith P. from Boulder, CO

Paradoxically, not thinking is both the easiest and the most challenging task a human can undertake.

And that’s because of how the mind works.

When I tell you not to think of a green toothbrush, it’s the first thing that will pop into your mind.

Thus, suggesting you “not think” is completely antithetical to the process of “not thinking”, because the mind is designed to “think” about “thinking” whenever it comes in contact the concept of “thinking”!

How to escape from this insane mind-loop? How to step out from under the tree of our own perpetual thoughts, and back into the warm rays of cosmic silence?

It’s very simple.

Just pay attention to the stillness that already exists within and around you.

Consider this: every thought you have — whether in words or in images — has a brief rest period.

That is, there are nano-pauses between each of your thoughts.

By giving those pauses your attention, they will dilate and expand until the vastness and sunshine is all you perceive.