SENSES SUBLIME

Our higher consciousness, often described as super conscious is like a pyramid structure spiralling upward from the base to the summit. Our body consciousness, awakening of the so called “serpent energy” (Kundalini) and final arrival at the summit of consciousness can be best described by this pyramid metaphor, as we move from the energy of the body to the energy of the pure consciousness—differently described by many gurus and motivational speakers as cosmic mind, cosmic intelligence, soul power etc.

 Some philosopher had said-“Man is a cow treed on earth”, a very significant statement for my topic here. 

The cow stands for our horizontal existence and the tree signifies the vertical. The horizontal existence is the base and the vertical is the progression to a higher level not losing the integration with the base. Like the structure of the pyramid, broad at the base and gradually narrows upward to a point at the peak. But the peak cannot be achieved without the base at the bottom.

The body consciousness is the strong edifice at the base; disintegration with this edifice, seldom leads to the consciousness at the peak. Many religious beliefs across the world have failed to recognise this foundation, resulting in serious incoherence in their professed religious path. As such, adherence to such disintegrating religious ideologies for thousands of years has resulted in serious psychological maladies in human beings: taboos, dogmas, inhibitions, perversion, violence, jealousy, discrimination, behavioural disorders and serious impairment of creative imagination. All major religions in the world have ignorantly sacrificed individuals for the sake of creating order in human society, by preaching distorted moralities, and building prison like social institutions, instead of harmony. They have failed to recognise that balancing the human body and mind with the purpose and rhythm of the Nature would spontaneously create order and moralities in the individual, as well as in the society without any intensive teaching of moral values. The world would have been a much orderly and harmonious place to live in had the mankind practised a natural religion since the dawn of its civilization, in place of embracing artificial religious dogmas and taboos imposed upon mankind at regular intervals.

We all have five senses—visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory and gustatory. These senses along with our central nervous system register our existence in the universe. We can understand our world more intently by sharpening these sense organs—sharper the senses more meaningful and harmonious the universe around us, offering myriad possibilities in life. The idea of “mindfulness” or “awakening” is precisely the razor sharp state of the consciousness—that flows from the base at the bottom to the peak at the top unlocking all latent energy centres vertically arranged in the body—“treed on earth”. The awakening of latent consciousness locked inside our corporeal body was a matter of great interest in the Oriental mysticism associated with “Tantra” cult, as well as for the “Kabbalists” of Judaism. They believed, in opposition to the popular beliefs in the religions, that higher consciousness is a state of the mind which is achievable through asceticism and renunciation of the physical.    

In our various instinctive as well as day to day conscious activities, these sense organs play pivotal roles in experiencing our world-- sharper the sensory involvement, stronger the experience, and better the remembrance of such experiences. Experiences devoid of strong sensory perceptions fade away very fast and often distort and falsify the experience with negative impact. In real life situations, unfortunately, due to very complex psychological reasons, majority of us fail to experience the true nature of our person and often resort to self-deception by transacting with the world with near-dormant sensory perceptions. As a result of which, from cradle to grave we spend a life in slumber. The events, circumstances capsize us and we fail to hold the rein of our life and true potential; life, in fact, appears like a burden—unfulfilled and directionless.

Let me explain some psychological reasons that stand on our way to relate to the world with fully awakened senses: the belief system of every person is greatly borrowed from the socio cultural milieu, which includes family upbringing, character of the parents and guardians, religious precepts, economic background, education, peer factor, dogma, taboo etc. These unending numbers of factors incapacitate our naturally endowed awareness emanating from a pure and powerful sensory transaction with the world. 

For a better understanding of this idea let us take the example of a growing up infant. As soon as a child is born, it receives impression about the world with very alert sensory activities. It is interesting to note that what a child achieves in first three years of its life are no less than miracles. Imagine a child learning the language within first two years of its life—it picks up vocabularies, grammar, syntax, pronunciation etc. only through sensory impressions. The risk taking abilities of a child is another remarkable activity worth close observation.  A child endeavours to stand up and walk before it is one year old. This is the most dangerous risk a child takes at a very tender age because it involves the risk of fatal fall and injuries. It is very exciting to observe the first day a child successfully walks a few steps—the happiness, the innocent ecstatic expression on its face speak an indelible volume. What does it signify? If as innocent children we were prepared to take fatal risk to stand up on our two legs what drives us to languish in our comfort zone as adults?

The child works purely by its widely alert sensory receptors, and understanding of the body consciousness and knowledge in its pure form—a noble state of pure consciousness, devoid of any belief system. But as the child grows its purity and sharp sensory abilities decline by the influence of several extraneous factors as stated above and a strong belief system takes root in the process. It is believed by the psychologists that a major part of the personality formation in a child takes place between the ages of three to five.

When all senses in our body are wide awake with full sensory potential a few new sensory abilities arise, which are variedly described as sixth sense, psychic experience, precognition, intuition, clairvoyance etc. But as a matter of fact, they are only awakening of our body energy locked up within the realm of the physical. There are two different methods taught by the adept Master for awakening these latent potential—one very traditional school teaches the denial of the body and control of the senses, and the other school emphasises on understanding the power of the body and the natural utility of the senses being very positively engrossed with the body. The denial of the body is an aberration, negation of existence and wilful suppression of the self.    

For example, denial of body which is practised by many by long fasting, celibacy, conscious suppression of senses, lead to a delusory distortion of the consciousness which the practitioners often define as supernatural experience. It goes without saying that if a person consecutively fasts for a few days he will start hallucinating as a result of utterly diminishing sensory abilities. When the senses do not function properly, the physical body slowly collapses to the lowest level of perceptibility and the diminished brain functioning creates phantoms of hallucination in a desperate bid to revive the organism from termination. This state is also achieved by some people by consuming psychotropic drugs. Consumption of psychotropic substances obstructs proper functioning of the senses and a chaotic perception arises from such distortion, which is often misconstrued as invocation of paranormal or supernatural.

Our sensory faculties are used in different degrees for our different activities. For example, while seeing a beautiful flower in the garden our visual sense is predominantly active and to some extent the olfactory sense faculty reacts to the fragrance of the flower; if we touch the flower then the tactile faculty comes into operation. In most of our transaction with the outer world we do not use the resources of all five senses. The faculties that are sparingly used show the sign of debility over a period of time owing to their negligence. In order to arouse the latent potential of the super conscious, intense exercise of all the senses on a regular basis is needed. Super conscious, quite often than not, is described as a faculty beyond our physical embodiment. In reality super conscious is an intense realisation of the body energy through awakening of the full potential of the sensory power, not by their suppression or denial. Some philosophers in the past, particularly Lao Tzu had realised that alertness of the senses lead to the empowerment of body as well as mind—the loftiest empowerment of body- and- mind combination is known as super consciousness. The idea of “now and here”—the concept which is also used by many motivational writers and speakers, emphasizes on being intensely awake at every moment of life, participation with complete engrossment with all event, situation and activity of life; a conscious participation in the orchestra of life.