Meditation and the Seven Senses

 by Swami Nishchalananda Saraswati

To go into the state of Meditation one has to transcend the seven senses.
The first five are well the known - that of smell, taste, sight, touch and hearing - the means by which we perceive the external world.

The sixth sense - less well known but equally important - is the sense of proprioception. This is the sense that gives us the feeling and identification with the physical body. It gives us a constant stream of feed-back about the body. Because it functions below conscious perception we are never aware of it - never, that is, unless we lose it! If this happens, it is a disaster as is vividly explained by Dr. Oliver Sacks in his case history of ‘The Disembodied Lady .’

A normally active woman fell while riding a horse. She damaged the brain centre associated with proprioception. From then on, twenty four hours a day, she could not sense her own body! Over the following months she had to train herself to identify with her body. She succeeded to some extent, but her life was never the same again. This kind of incident is very rare, but it does show us how important this sense is and how we take it for granted.

The seventh sense is the individual mind. Unlike modern neurology, psychiatry and psychology, Yoga considers the mind to be another sense. The reason for this is simple - from the point of view of Underlying Consciousness, the mind is also a sensory instrument. Without the mind, the other six senses cannot function and we would be unable to perceive the outside world. So, in a ‘sense’, the mind is the master sense which controls the others and allows them to function.

Before the state of Meditation can spontaneously arise, we go through a process of what is called in Yoga, Pratyahara (literally, ‘sense withdrawal’). This process of sense withdrawal is often incorrectly called the practice of Meditation; but actually there is no such thing as the practice of Meditation, because Meditation is a state of Being, not a practice.

Technicalities aside, the aim is to direct our attention inwards so that, temporarily, we cease to perceive through the first five senses mentioned above. We introspect further and even go beyond the sense of proprioception, so that we cease, temporarily, to identify with the confines of our physical body. We lose what is commonly called ‘body consciousness’. This is known in Yoga as the process of Pratyahara.

But the process of Pratyahara goes further: introspection continues and our attention goes further inwards. We start to face the ‘raw’ contents of the subconscious mind, ‘seeing’ bubbling thoughts and obsessive anxieties. We confront feelings and emotions, many of which we perhaps haven’t acknowledged before, at least consciously. As we go a little deeper, we see dream-like visions and primordial archetypes. All these inner experiences are expressions of the different layers of the mind.

Eventually, we come to the end of the internalising process of Pratyahara. We transcend the individual mind, the personality itself, and glide into the state of Meditation. We realise That which is beyond the mind and the other six senses. We realise the more Essential level of our Being.

Yoga is the art of accepting, understanding, and even appreciating the seven senses, and then transcending them to give us a glimpse of the Beyond.

In our daily life, of course, the seven senses are essential in order to live and function in the world. They are not to be denied or suppressed. But in the process of Pratyahara, they are temporarily put to one side so that we can ‘see’ beyond them. And, paradoxically, a glimpse beyond the seven senses allows all the senses to function more efficiently and harmoniously. Furthermore, we are flooded with Joy.