The following is the first teaching from a large unedited manuscript, well over 1000 pages long, called ‘Aham Sphurana’. You can download the entire text here.

Aham Sphurana [‘I Shining’ or ‘I vibration’ or ‘I Am shining’ or ‘Shining of the I AM’] claims to contain a collection of previously unpublished talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi as apparently recorded by a visitor to Sri Ramana Ashrama, Sri Gajapathi Aiyyer, in 1936.

The authenticity of the teachings as being genuinely from Sri Ramana Maharshi cannot be confirmed, a fact acknowledged in the manuscript preamble itself, but I share these teachings here in case they are of interest to you.

5th July 1936

Questioner: How to prevent falling asleep in meditation?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: If you think “I must not fall asleep; I am meditating now. Falling asleep would spoil my meditation”, your meditation will be spoilt, for thinking is the anti-thesis of meditation. If you try to consciously prevent sleep, therefore, it will lead to emergence of thought.

However, if you slip into sleep while meditating, the meditation will continue even during and just after sleep. Since thoughts about sleep are also distracting thoughts, such thoughts must also be got rid of, for the native thought-free state has to be obtained consciously in jagrat [Tom: jagrat means the waking state]. The resultant state of thought-free subjective consciousness sustained effortlessly and volitionlessly is known as jagrat-sushupthi [Tom: waking sleep or conscious sleep, see here for more], and it is the same as samadhi.

Never forget that dreaming, apparent wakefulness and sleeping are mere pictures upon the screen of the inherent, effortless thought-free state. Let them pass unnoticed.

You focus on Being the abiding Reality that serves as the permanent substratum underlying the 3 states, and let the 3 states, and what transpires in them, take care of themselves. Never worry about them.

The state of absence of thought and the state in which there are no ideas present is the primordial, natural state of mind for all; this is the original state of peace, which we subsequently spoil by bringing in thoughts.