Daily Meditation: Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Sleep - a journey that should prepare us for another journey: death

05/15/2013

The period between wakefulness and sleep is an important time of the day. Every evening, before going to bed, spend a little time with yourself, putting aside all that has preoccupied or troubled you during the day you have just lived through. Then think of the mistakes you may have made, and ask the spirits of light to inspire you while you are asleep with the best way to put them right. Lastly, as you fall asleep, place yourself under the protection of the angel of death. The angel of death is the name given in the Cabbalah to the angel of sleep, for every night we die and every morning we come back to life. Going to sleep and leaving the physical body is a journey we must consciously prepare ourselves for every night, so that we are ready for when we really have to leave for the next world. Anyone who does not know how to approach sleep will not know how to die either. There is no difference between sleep and death, except that when we die we leave the house we were living in – the physical body – for good. And so we have to understand the importance of preparing for sleep each evening as if for a sacred journey, so that we will one day be ready for the other much more final journey.