Senses and the Inner Centre

 

Photo Credit: Rumi by Candlelight

Senses and the Inner Centre

We see through the eyes. Remember, we see through our eyes. Eyes cannot see; we see through them. The seer is hidden behind, the eyes are just the opening, just the windows. But we go on thinking that we see by the eyes; we go on thinking we hear by the ears. No one has ever heard by the ears. We hear through the ears, not by the ears. The hearer is hidden behind. The ears are just receptive organs.

The senses are just doors, receiving stations, mediums, instruments, receptors. We are hidden behind. While hearing music, don’t forget yourself in the ear, don’t lose yourself into the ear. Remember the awareness that is hidden behind. Be alert! While seeing someone… Try this. We can try it right now, while looking at someone near us. What is happening? We can look at the person by the eyes, and when we say “by the eyes,” it means we are not aware that we are hidden behind the eyes. We can look at the person through the eyes, and when we say “through the eyes,” then the eyes are just in between you and me. You are standing there behind the eyes, looking through the eyes, just as if someone looks through a window or spectacles.

We have seen people peering over their eye-glasses umpteen times, the glasses have slipped down the nose, and the person just looks. And when someone looks at us like that, we get a creepy feeling, that someone is trying to penetrate our depths. Sometimes we find ourselves staring into space, into nothingness and our eyes don’t see anything – that becomes meditation.

We have other senses too – we hear through the ears, smell through the nose, feel by touch. When we are doing this, we should be aware that what we see, hear, smell, and feel is not something that is going to pollute our senses and numb them. Invariably when we are with friends, are perusing visual or print media, all our senses are being bombarded with a lot of junk; and if we are not careful, then this junk becomes a barrier for us to reach our inner centre.

For instance, we are interacting with one person, and while doing so all our senses are active – we see the person, hear him, smell him and may even feel his touch. Now, all these senses are different, and don’t report to each other – the information goes to one centre. That is why we can coordinate. Ears hear, eyes see, hands touch, the nose smells, and suddenly somewhere inside we know that this is the same person that we are hearing and seeing and touching and smelling. This knower is different from the senses. Every sense reports to this knower, and in this knower, in the centre, everything falls, fits and becomes one. This is miraculous.

Our body and body’s presence, body’s odour, our speaking, are one. Our senses will divide us. Our ears will report if we say something, our nose will report if there is some odour, our eyes will report if we can be seen and are visible. They will divide us into parts. But again, somewhere within us, we will become one. Where we become one within ourselves, that is where our centre of being exists. That is our awareness, and we have forgotten it completely. This forgetfulness is the ignorance, and the awareness will open the doors for self-knowledge. And we cannot know ourselves in any other way.

In a world which is just an appearance, they have deceived us to feel as if it is real. If we can look through the senses and remain alert, the world will by and by appear to us as illusory, dream-like, and we will be able to penetrate to the substance — to the very substance of it. That substance is the BRAHMAN.