寒冷的冬日，树木袒露，赤裸的树枝暴露在天空下。 这儿的常绿乔木很少， 甚至连它们也能感受到冰冷的风与严霜的夜。 远处的高山被厚重的雪覆盖， 奔涌的白云笼罩着他们。草是棕褐色的， 因为已经好几个月没有下雨了，春雨还很遥远。 地球处于睡眠和休耕的状态。 在绿色的树篱中，归巢的鸟儿们没有了欢快的运动， 道路崎岖，铺上了灰尘。 湖面上有几只鸭子，在朝南的途中停了下来。 高山怀抱着新春的承诺，大地梦见了它。

What would happen if sleep were denied to us? Would we have more time to fight, to intrigue, to make mischief? Would we be more cruel and ruthless? Would there be more time for humility, compassion and frugality? Would we be more creative? Sleep is a strange thing, but extraordinarily important. For most people, the activities of the day continue through their nocturnal slumbers; their sleep is the continuation of their life, dull or exciting, an extension at a different level of the same insipidity or meaningless strife. The body is refreshed by sleep; the internal organism, having a life of its own, renews itself. During sleep, desires are quiescent, and so do not interfere with the organism; and with the body refreshed, the activities of desire have further opportunities for stimulation and expansion. Obviously, the less one interferes with the internal organism, the better; the less the mind takes charge of the organism, the more healthy and natural is its function. But disease of the organism is another matter, produced by the mind or by its own weakness.

如果不给我们睡眠，会发生什么？ 我们是否有更多的时间去打架、搞阴谋、制造灾难？ 我们会更残忍、更无情吗？ 会有更多的时间谦卑、慈爱和节俭吗？ 我们会更有创造力吗？ 睡眠是一件奇怪的事情，却非常重要。 对于大多数人来说，白天的活动通过夜间睡眠在继续； 他们的睡眠是他们生活的延续， 无论是沉闷或兴奋的，都是那种乏味或无意义的冲突 在不同层面上的延展。 身体通过睡眠恢复生机； 内部的有机体拥有它自己的生命、自我更新。 在睡眠期间，欲望处于止息状态，因此不会干扰有机体； 随着身体的更新， 欲望的活动有了进一步去寻求刺激和扩展的机会。 显然，人对内部有机体的干扰越少越好； 头脑对有机体的控制越少，它的功能就越健康和自然。 但有机体的疾病是另一回事，是由头脑或自身的虚弱产生的。

Sleep is of great significance. The more the desires are strengthened, the less the meaning of sleep. Desires, positive or negative, are fundamentally always positive, and sleep is the temporary suspension of this positive. Sleep is not the opposite of desire, sleep is not negation, but a state which desire cannot penetrate. The quietening of the superficial layers of consciousness takes place during sleep, and so they are capable of receiving the intimations of the deeper layers; but this is only a partial comprehension of the whole problem. It is obviously possible for all the layers of consciousness to be in communication with each other during waking hours, and also during sleep; and of course this is essential. This communication frees the mind from its own self-importance, and so the mind does not become the dominant factor. Thus it loses, freely and naturally, its self-enclosing efforts and activities. In this process the impetus to become is completely dissolved, the accumulative momentum exists no longer.

睡眠有重大的意义。 欲望越强烈，睡眠的意义就越小。 欲望，无论是主动性的还是被动性的，从根本上讲，都是主动性的， 而睡眠暂时性的中止了这种主动性。 睡眠不是欲望的反面，睡眠不是被动， 而是一种欲望无法穿透的状态。 在睡眠期间，意识的浅表层安静下来 因此它们能够接收更深层的暗示； 但这只是对整个问题的部分理解。 显然，意识内的各个层面 是有可能相互交流的，不论是在清醒的时候，还是睡眠期间； 当然，这是必要的。 这种交流将头脑从自我的强化中解放出来， 因此头脑不再是支配因素。 那么，它就自发地解散了自我封闭的努力和活动。 在这个流程中， ‘成为’的动力被完全消解，积累的动量不再存在。

But there is something more that takes place in sleep. There is found an answer to our problems. When the conscious mind is quiet, it is capable of receiving an answer, which is a simple affair. But what is far more significant and important than all this is the renewal which is not a cultivation. One can deliberately cultivate a gift, a capacity, or develop a technique, a pattern of action and behaviour; but this is not renewal. Cultivation is not creation. This creative renewal does not take place if there is any kind of effort on the part of a becomer. The mind must voluntarily lose all accumulative impulse, the storing up of experience as a means to further experience and achievement. It is the accumulative, self-protective urge that breeds the curve of time and prevents creative renewal.

但是在睡眠中，还有更多的事情发生。 我们的问题找到了答案。 当有意识的头脑安静下来， 它能够接受一个答案，这是一个简单的事情。 但远比这一切更有意义和更重要的， 是更新，它不是一种培养。 一个人可以刻意培养一种天赋，一种能力， 或者发展一种技术、一种行动和行为模式；但这不是更新。 培养不是创造。 在成为者的某部分，如果有丝毫的努力， 这种创造性的更新就不会发生。 头脑必须自愿地失去所有累积的冲动 —— 积累体验，以作为进一步体验和成就的手段。 正是这种累积的、自我保护的冲动 滋生了时间的曲线，阻碍了创造性的更新。

Consciousness as we know it is of time, it is a process of recording and storing experience at its different levels. Whatever takes place within this consciousness is its own projection; it has its own quality, and is measurable. During sleep, either this consciousness is strengthened, or something wholly different takes place. For most of us, sleep strengthens experience, it is a process of recording and storing in which there is expansion but not renewal. Expansiveness gives a feeling of elation, of inclusive achievement, of having understood, and so on; but all this is not creative renewal. This process of becoming must wholly come to an end, not as a means to further experience, but as an ending in itself.

我们所知道的意识，来自于时间， 它在它的各个层面上，记录和储存体验。 它里面所发生的任何事情，都是它自己投射的影子； 它有它自己的品质，是可以衡量的。 在睡眠中， 这种意识要么得到加强，要么发生完全不同的情况。 对于我们大多数人来说，睡眠增强了体验， 它是一个记录和存储的过程，其中有扩展，却没有更新。 扩展给人带来一种 欣喜感、广阔的成就感、领悟感、等等的感觉； 但这一切都不是创造性的更新。 这种‘成就’的过程必须完全结束， 不是作为进一步体验的手段，而是它自身的终结。

During sleep, and often during waking hours, when becoming has entirely ceased, when the effect of a cause has come to an end, then that which is beyond time, beyond the measure of cause and effect, comes into being.

在睡眠中，经常在清醒的时期， 当‘达成’已经完全退却，当一个原因的结果已经终结的时候， 那么，那超越时间、超越因果衡量的，就会出现。