What Shakespeare has said about the inevitable sleep cannot be overemphasized as we all know that even if we don't get enough
sleep,
nature has so devised that not only humans but also dogs and cats are bound to sleep in some way or the other. Nature has invented sleep. Cervantes has gone to the extent of blessing the first inventor of sleep. Sleep is indeed magical which we cannot escape even in the most tumultous spans of life. Keats in Endymion says that sleep is like magic, it is also like comfortable bird that broodest over the troubled sea of the mind till it is hushed and smooth. Blake in Cradle Song has described it as a beauty shining its brightness during the dreams of night. However, it is during the sleep that even the minutest sorrows sit and weep. Samuel Taylor Coleridge has described it as the gentlest of all things which is the beloved of all. He praised Mary who transported the sweet sleep from Heaven to nurture his soul. Shakespeare thinks it to be just a death of the day's life and sore labour's bath. He considers it even the balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course and chief nourisher of life's feast. Then, he calls it Nature's soft nurse. The greatest of the minds we have seen have belittled the Nature's panacea to simple analogies. They couldn't foresee that sleep would indeed be the major issue of study by the scientists. In fact, even they could not say more than the fact that 'seven to nine hours of sleep maintains alertness, memory and overall
health, apart from reducing the accidents'. Conversely, they have said that sleeplessness or short sleep induces risk factor for weight gain, hypertension and Type 2 diabetes, and even lead to heart problems and hardening of the arteries. These bunch of jokers simply view this problem from the health point of view. They fail to understand the fact that the lovers and the beloved who are bitten by the love bugs go in the shelter of less and less sleep. They keep on dreaming about their unification whether it be day or night. Even while they are awake, they hope to become one.
This is the mainstay of our universe. God without resting for six days and six nights out of love created this universe for man. Then he got the opportunity on the seventh day to get himself the balm of sleep he himself seem to have invented. The lovers and the beloved also go to such an extent after less duration of sleep and more of love strife that one day, they get united and rest in each others' arms.
The scientists have seen the world like a grain of sand but the infinite lovers see the world of love during their times of sleeplessness. Even while sleeping, they are awake to the sweet music of their love. The true genesis which was even experienced by the Lord Almighty before creating this world full of resources.
What good does the sleep brings if people don't forget their vile deeds and begin themselves afresh when awake. Sleep has no meaning if they they don't forgive each others' trespassed the other day. I once saw a man hitting his wife and children going before sleep. When he woke up, he went straight away to them began hitting them as hard as he could. Whatever may be the reason of his recrimination, it can't be forgiven.
Scientists forget the fact that the chain of thoughts if does not change, sleep can never bring those benefits of health to the patients which they have enumerated in this article. They think about cardiovascular diseases and hypertension. But this is all in vain. Do they have any panacea for breaking the chain of thoughts that begets such misery upon their patients. Not indeed. They have miserably failed.
Some say yoga and meditation bring solace to such patients and help them to break the chain of vile thoughts which endanger not only their health but also the lives around them. How false a philosopher was in thinking that there would have been no world war if the politicians and the strategists had gone to sleep on a piece of moor. Even if they had gone to sleep, they could never have changed their minds from a war. That mind was simply an egoistic creation which even God could not have helped. The Satanic verses ushered in humans to go for war. Philosphies and sciences of this nature are all false. What men don't feel to understand the fact that sleep brings change in humans and they should use it to start the day afresh and renew themselves to quiet and humble beings. Jesus said " Come to me who labour for I shall give him rest" Our ultimate rest is in the hands of Christ our Saviour ushering in peace in middle-east or global rest to the far reaches of the globe. Let this Christmas remind the true serenity in which our infant jesus was born in the quietitude of night while the angels sang and the shepherds heard. Let us keep our ears open to the soft rhymes of those days which are still in the air. Who will hear it? It is we who should hear their good tidings " Peace to Men of Good Will"