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		<b><font face="Times New Roman"><i>The Mystery of the Five Senses</i> </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">THE senses are the doors opening out on the external world
for the consciousness to act and range abroad. That is the usual outward 
movement which is generally so much condemned by spiritual seekers. The doors and windows of the
senses, whatever they are, all openings should be closed, shut
up, hermetically sealed. One should then return within
away from them, if one is to come into contact with the true
consciousness, the true reality. Even the Gita says, the conscious
being is seated in tranquillity within, closing all the nine
gates of the city, himself doing nothing nor causing anything
to be done.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Well, that is one way of procedure in dealing with the senses.
When you consider that the senses always pull you out, they
always entice you to run after the sweet perishable goods of
the world, invite you to the enjoyment of pleasure and pain,
to all the dualities of a life of ignorance normally lived upon
earth, then indeed the senses become terribly suspect. But
this need not be so. The senses instead of being tempters leading
you out into the ignorance may verily be inspirers calling you,
guiding you inward. Instead of opening out on the world of
maya they may open out on the world of light and truth. .</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; How can that happen? The 
clue is given in one of the Upanishads. The Kena Upanishad says: This eye does not
really see, there is an eye behind that sees, and so on with the
other senses. Even this mind does not know, there is a mind of the mind that knows. That is the crucial point. With the
eye of the eye one must see, with the hearing of an inner ear
one must hear, and one must know by the mind of the mind.
Instead of opening these windows and doors outward they
should be opened inward, turned round about as it were like</font>

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&nbsp;Page 225<hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">the flare of a lighthouse. Then instead of being instruments of
illusory knowledge or maya as now, they become instruments
of real knowledge, receptacles or transmitters of the truth and
reality behind and above.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Indeed we say habitually, when speaking of spiritual realisation, that one <i>sees</i> the truth, one has to <i>see</i> the truth: to know
the truth, to know the reality is taken to mean to see the truth,
to see the reality, and what does this signify? It signifies what
one sees is the light, the light that emanates from truth, the
form that the Truth takes, the radiant substance that is the
Truth. This then is the special character or gift of this organ,
the organ of sight, the eye. One sees the physical light, of<br>
course, but one sees also the supraphysical light. It is, as the
Upanishad says, the eye of the eye, the third eye in the language
of the occultists. What we say about the eye may be equally
said in respect of the other sense-organs. Take hearing, for example. By the ear 
we hear the noises of the world, its deafening cries and no doubt at times also some earthly music. But
when the ear is turned inward, we listen to unearthly things.
Indeed we know how stone-deaf Beethoven heard some of
those harmonies of supreme beauty that are now the cherished
possessions of humanity. This inner ear is able to take you by a
process of regression to the very source of all sound and
utterance, from where springs the <i>anahata vak,</i> the <i>undictated
</i>voice, the <i>nada-brahman</i>, the original sound-seed, the primary
vibration. So the ear gives that hearing which reveals to you
a special aspect of the Divine; the vibratory rhythm of the
being, that matrix of all utterance, of all speech that mark the
material expression of consciousness. Next we come to the
third sense, that of smell. Well, the nose is not a despicable
organ, in any way; it is as important as any other more aristocratic sense-organ, as the eye or the ear. It is the gate to the
perfumed atmosphere of the reality: Even like a flower, as a
lotus for example, the truth is colourful, beautiful, shapely,
radiant to the eye; to the nostrils it is exhilarating perfume, it
distils all around a divine scent that sanctifies, elevates the
whole being. After the third sense we come to the fourth, the
tongue. The mouth gives you the taste of the truth and you
find that the Truth is sweetness, the delicious nectar of the
gods: for the truth is also soma, the surpreme <i>rasa, amrta,</i></font>
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Page 226<hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">immortality itself. Here is Aswapathy's experience of the
thing in <i>Savitri:</i></font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In the nostrils quivered celestial fragrances,
</font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; On the tongue lingered the honey of paradise.<sup>1</sup></font><sup>
</sup>
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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Finally we come to the sense of touch. It is the last. But
in another way, it is the first and the foremost—psychologically
and chronologically—it is the most primary and primitive
among the senses, as the eye comes last as the final stage in the
course of the sensory evolution. The eye is the manifestation of
a developed consciousness; perfectly developed eyes as in man
represent a perfectly developed consciousness. But touch is the
organ with which an organism starts its life-course. It is the only
organ a living cell is given when it begins its forward journey.
Plants are endowed with that organ and faculty and that only.
It is the most generalised, the least specific, and the most
sensitive of the organs. Touch gives a closer, more intimate,
even more direct perception of the object, it is contact, it<br>
means identification, it means becoming and being. And it is
through the touch, the sublimated and most intense physical
contact, that you have the direct contact with the substance of
the Supreme, his very body. For what is Sat up there is Annam
here, both are the same identical thing in a dual aspect.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Continuing farther, if we go beyond the five senses, we have
still another sense, it is mind, the sixth sense as the orthodox
Indian view states. In this field too the same law we have
been expounding holds good. Mind here is the chief instrument
of knowledge: it is in and through the mind that man has
knowledge; it is in and through the mind that the other five
senses distil their perceptions allowing a co-ordinated picture of
the sense-experiences. Now, to attain, to realise, to possess the
Truth means, first of all, to know the Truth: for, knowing as
we know, is the function of the mind. It is said, however, that
the mind knows only the outward form of things, its knowledge
is the knowledge of an outside world, elements of which are
supplied by the senses. It is a Knowledge of or in Ignorance.<br>
The true knowledge is not attained by the mind or through
the mind. For the true knowledge, it is delcared, the mind is to
</font>
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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;<font size="2">&nbsp; 1 Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri,</i> Book 1, Canto III</font></font><font size="2">
</font>

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Page 227<hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">be expunged altogether or silenced at least. One must get
away, one must withdraw from that play of activity and be
far from it. True knowledge comes through revelations. It
descends from above, it does not enter by a level side-door and
it comes only when the mind is not there. But this also, as in the other cases, 
as in respect of the other senses, is an extreme view. Like the other senses the mind too can be turned
inward or upward, made a receptive organ or instrument. </font>
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<font face="Times New Roman">When turned round, when it is the Mind of the mind, then
there begins to appear the true knowledge. Then even this
physical mind remains no more ignorant or obscure, it be-
comes transparent and luminous: it is able to bring its own
gift, it can serve with its own contribution to the real knowledge; for it is the mind that gives a form and shape, a local
habitation and a name to the higher truth, to the real light,
to the true knowledge. It is the <i>surupa</i> (beautiful and perfect
form) chanted by the Vedic Rishis that the purified mind
models for the Gods to inhabit—it is what the poets and
prophets always aspire for in their creative consciousness.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But these separate senses with their separate qualities are not
really separate. In the final account of things, the account
held in the Supreme Consciousness, at the highest height,
these diverse elements or movements are diverse but not
exclusive of one another. When they find themselves in the
supreme consciousness, they do not, like the rivers of which the
Upanishads speak, move and merge into the sea giving up
their separate individual name and function. These senses do
maintain their identity, each its own, even when they together are all of them part and parcel of the Supreme Universal
Consciousness. Only, they become supple and malleable, they
intertwine, mix together, even one doing another's work. Also,
as things exist at present, modern knowledge has found out
that a blind man can see, literally see, through some part of his
body; the sense of hearing is capable of bringing to you the
vision of colours. And the olfactory organ can reveal to you
the taste of things. Indeed it has been found that not only at the
sight of good food, but in contemplating an extraordinarily
beautiful secenery or while listening to an exquisite piece of
music, the mouth waters. It is curious to note that Indra, the
Lord of the gods, the Vedic lord of the mind and the senses, is</font>
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Page 228<hr>

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<font face="Times New Roman">said to have transformed the pores of his skin into so many eyes,
so that he could see all things around at once, globally: it is
why he was called Sahasralochana or Sahasraksha, one with a
thousand eyes. The truth is that all the different senses are only
extensions of one unitary sensibility and the variation depends
on a particular mode or stress on the generalised sensibility.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This is what the Rishis meant when they named and
represented even the senses as gods. The gods are many, each has his own attribute and function, but they form one indivisible
unity.</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The senses therefore are not merely externalisers but they
are also <i>internalisers.</i> They are modes and movements that work
separately and conjointly and present aspects of the Supreme
Reality. These aspects are there in the very essence and the
constitution of the One Truth, also they are projected outwards
to manifest and embody those very elements in the material
manifestation and incarnation of the Supreme Divine:</font>

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<font face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A magical accord quickened and attuned
To ethereal symphonies the old earthy strings; ...</font>

<font face="Times New Roman">... it made<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
The body's means the spirit's acolytes.<sup>2</sup></font><sup> </sup>
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&nbsp;<p style="line-height: 150%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0" align="justify">
<font size="2" face="Times New Roman">2 Sri Aurobindo: <i>Savitri,</i> Book 1, Canto III</font><font size="2">
</font>

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