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DR. DAVID FRAWLEY (PANDIT VAMADEVA SHASTRI)
The five senses are the key instruments that we have in life to perceive the world and make our way within it. How we use them determines how our lives will unfold; whether towards health or disease, creativity or stagnation, enlightenment or ignorance. Learning to use our senses correctly is one of the main skills that we need, in order to master our existence and experience life in the optimal manner possible for us.
Our outer activities revolve around the messages that the senses convey to us, and how we respond to them. Our culminating experiences of pleasure and pain, happiness and sorrow, depend upon the acuity of our senses and their range of function. Our minds orient themselves according to the information that the senses bring in, which becomes the basis for building our thoughts, emotions and imagination. The senses provide the nourishment of impressions through which the mind is either made calm or disturbed.
If our senses deteriorate, it is a loss that no external wealth or improved outer equipment can compensate for. Yet we seldom care for our senses properly or treat them with respect. Often we abuse them for short term enjoyment that weakens our greater sensory capacity to experience life in all of its vastness. In our pursuit of healing, we seldom look into how to care for our senses and open up their healing energies. While we are willing to buy better entertainment screens, we do not work to improve the power of the eyes that we use to see through them. While we try to detoxify the body periodically, we seldom strive to cleanse the doors of perception that the senses provide for us.
The Senses and Spirituality
The senses play an important part on the spiritual path, both in the negative sense as obstacles that get us caught in outer attachments, but also in the positive sense as higher perceptive powers. Many spiritual approaches require that we deny or limit the senses, which may be regarded as illusory or evil in their function.
Our spiritual lives are also based upon our ability to awaken deeper powers of perception. These include connecting to the “inner senses” hidden behind the outer senses. We have higher forms of seeing and hearing, connected to inner powers of light and sound, that link us to the greater universe of consciousness inside ourselves, just as our outer senses connect us to the external world. The spiritual path requires a mastery of the senses, not simply their denial, unfolding their deeper potential along with the higher energy and awareness that lies within us.
Yogic Management of the Senses through Pratyahara
The role of the senses in classical yoga is dealt with under the practice of Pratyahara, the fifth of the eight limbs of yoga, which is often called “control of the senses.” Pratyahara is sometimes crudely described as attempting to control a group of wild animals with a stick. It is more accurate to compare control of the senses through Pratyahara with control of the prana through Pranayama.
 The real practice of Pranayama is not mere suppression of the prana, or simply not breathing, but deepening of the prana – helping us breathe from the core of our being, removing pranic blockages, releasing prana to flow freely through the nadis or subtle channels within us. Similarly, real Pratyahara is a deepening of the senses, helping us to have better sensory acuity, removing impairments to the functioning of the senses, increasing the relationship between the different senses and, above all, releasing the senses from their bondage to habitual forms and patterns of perception that create negativity within us. Pratyahara entails uniting the senses with the light of consciousness, the deep sense of feeling and knowing in the heart; aligning the outer light with the inner light by harmonizing the senses and the core consciousness within ourselves.
How do we accomplish this internalization of the senses? First we must honor the senses and what they reveal to us as sacred, not as mere opportunities for personal gratification. The senses are our God-given instruments of life, knowledge and expression. They reveal the world of nature, which is imbued with divine energies, in all of its beauty and glory.
The senses should be instruments of worship to honor the Divine presence in the environment around us. For this, we must look at the inner light that the senses reflect, not just attach ourselves to particular forms of sensory enjoyment. We need to connect with the light that is present in what the senses reveal, which is the light of the Seer, the pure awareness or clear light of consciousness within us.
Ayurvedic medicine regards the wrong use of the senses as one of the main causes of all diseases. While overuse of the senses is usually the main problem, lack of use or wrong use, has negative consequences as well. How we use our senses reflects how we use our bodies, minds and deeper consciousness, and is an index of our entire existence and the overall meaning of our lives. |
