Earn the right to sleep

The cure to insomnia is not with the doctor, but in our lifestyles

Man sleeping

Man is made by nature to work hard for at least eight hours. Unless he works hard for eight hours, he does not earn the right to have a deep sleep. And as a society grows richer, people are not working hard. There is no need; others can work for them. The whole day they are doing small things, which they enjoy doing, but it is not hard work like that of a stonecutter or a woodcutter. The body is made so that after eight hours of hard work, it naturally needs to fall into sleep to rejuvenate its energy. But it seems difficult…you have earned enough money and still you are chopping wood for eight hours? Then for what have you earned all that money? It seems stupid. You could have chopped wood even without becoming a millionaire.

So if people are suffering from insomnia, it simply means these are the people who are not earning the right to sleep. They are not working to create the situation in which sleep happens.

It has been known for centuries that beggars sleep better than emperors. Manual labourers sleep better than intellectuals. The poor sleep better than the rich, because they have to work hard to earn their bread and butter, but side by side they are also earning the right to have a beautiful sleep.

Insomnia is not a disease; it is the richest way of life. In fact, what is happening is: the whole day you are resting; then in the night you are tossing and turning in the bed. That is the only exercise left for you, and you don’t want to do even that exercise. Toss and turn as much as you can. If the whole day is of resting, then the night cannot be of sleep. You have already rested.

If the people who are suffering from insomnia really want to get rid of it, they should not think of it as a disease. Visiting a doctor is meaningless. They should start working in their garden, doing some hard work, and forget all about sleep—it will come. It always comes; you don’t have to bring it.




Insomnia should not be counted among diseases. People should be made aware that you are not following the natural course that the body needs. Then you can do small things… swimming, tennis—but it will not be a real substitute for hard labour for eight hours. Man basically was a hunter—not with machine guns, just with arrows—running after deer. It was not every day that he would get food. The whole day he would run and follow animals and would not be able to catch one, and he would come home empty-handed but utterly tired.


Those insomnia sufferers do not need any compassion from anybody. They have to be told directly and straightforwardly, “Your way of life is wrong; change it. Otherwise, suffer.” And it will bring a great revolution if millions of people start working eight hours a day. They don’t need it for their food, for their clothing, for their shelter, but they can work for those who need food, who need medicine, who need other necessities of life.

If those millions turn out to work hard eight hours per day in the service of the poor, it will change the whole society. The very idea of fighting, of struggle between classes, will disappear—because there will be no classes.

And this is going to become a bigger problem every day because machines are replacing man in every field. Machines are more efficient, more obedient, can work 24 hours without rest, seven days a week… no holiday, no religious holiday, because they are neither Jews nor Christians nor Hindus. Machines don’t ask for anything, not even for a coffee break.


So what can he do? He can play cards, chess, drink alcohol, have a fight—and suffer insomnia. Insomnia is going to be a world-wide phenomenon. What is happening to fifty million people in America will be happening to almost every person whose work is taken from him. When people retire, they start suffering from insomnia, and they had never suffered before.

So I don’t believe that it is a disease. Don’t categorise it as the third most prevalent disease. It is not of the category of diseases; it is our wrong way of life.

They may shout; the mind doesn’t care. The mind, while you are resting in bed, goes on unwinding itself, because in the day, there were many sidelines of thoughts, which have been left incomplete; they have to be completed. Mind is a perfectionist. It wants to do everything perfectly, so whatever has remained incomplete it is trying to complete. And it has no need of sleep. It is the body that needs sleep. If the body has not worked and has not earned sleep, and the mind has been functioning too much and going so fast that it has become habituated to it, this type of man may even work with the body and still suffer insomnia. Then, it will be a disease. Then, he needs the medicine I call meditation, so that his mind can relax and allow the body to go into sleep.

Only very few people, who are enlightened, may not be helped by physical work. I have tried it. I was running four miles in the morning, four miles in the evening, and doing all kinds of hard work. Even before sleep—and I used to go to sleep at 12—from eleven to twelve, I was again going for a walk, but whatever I would do, it would simply relax my body. My body would be completely at rest, but I would be fully awake. It did not disturb, but the awareness was so much that there was no way to reduce it; it cannot be reduced. Once it has happened, it goes on growing.

But all those who are suffering from insomnia are unfortunately not enlightened. These people who cannot sleep are really suffering badly because in their life there is nothing—no meaning, all hypocrisy. “Socialising” they call it. And then in the night they cannot even sleep. The day is useless, the night is useless. They have lost all touch with life. They should be helped.

There should be more meditation centres especially for people who are suffering from insomnia. Meditation will help them to relax. And when they come to meditate they should be told, “Alone meditation will not do; it is half of the work. Half you have to do—that is hard physical exercise.” And I think people are in such a suffering without sleep that they will do anything that is suggested.

And hard work has a beauty of its own. Chopping wood and perspiring…then a cool breeze comes… there is such a beautiful feeling in the body, which a person who is not working hard cannot even understand. The poor man also has his luxuries. Only he knows about them.

Excerpted from The Path of the Mystic, Courtesy: Osho International Foundation/www.osho.com

This was first published in the August 2012 issue of Complete Wellbeing.




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