Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academ-advaita.com
The Netherlands

23 February 2020

Senses (1)

“Five”


What could senses be? What could life be? Everything in life keeps changing. The changing happens in the now. The now is the changing. Could this be described by words? Could the senses as they are be described by words?

You cannot reject the senses. They remain in the mind as words. Therefore, you will always be dealing with opposite words, which donate meaning to each word in the same moment, like good and bad. 

So how could one encounter senses or live the senses as they are, or just be certain in a non-verbal or a verbal state. What could be the existence of senses as they are, is the question? 

Senses as they are indicate pointers to life, but how does that come to a state of realisation or awareness? How does one approach it or melt into it or become one with the senses? 

If you look into life, man experiences life only through his five senses - an indirect way of experiencing life. Why are the five senses not a direct experiencing of life? 

The five senses are sight, hearing, taste, smell and, finally, touch. You see. You hear. You smell. You taste. You touch. The ego and the mind, however, do not make the five senses happen. The five senses happen, if they are meant to happen, by the intelligence in life.

Deep understanding of the sense of sight reveals that there is only seeing, meaning seeing is the entire field of vision. The mind cannot put a label on the entire field of vision that is seen. You keep labelling and identifying singular things that you see in the field of vision.

The same phenomenon happens if you just listen to what you hear, which is sound, without labelling the sound. Understand that behind every word is silence. If silence is not there, words cannot come out or sound cannot be uttered. 

Deep understanding of the sense of hearing reveals that there is only hearing, meaning the entire field of sound that is heard. You cannot put a label on the entire field of sound. You keep on labelling particular sound that you hear as words. 

Similarly, with the sense of smell, taste and touch. Words separate you from senses as it is. 

The enlightened do not use words to describe the five senses. They live the five senses directly.

Author Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copy V. S. Shankar 2019 
 

Editor;s Note:
Every man, woman and child, not to mention the whole, living world experiences life in its innumerable manifestations. These experiences are recognised and certified, in knowledge, objectively by the senses as proof of the manifestations. The respect attributed to knowledge in every generation could scarcely be higher. Knowledge is king. Mankind has become addicted to this king as man may become addicted to a drug. In such a state, man takes unreality to be reality and his dream for actuality. He will defend his dream with his life - for the second time  - he has already surrendered his life to knowledge. The wise, in their compassion for mankind, lost to knowledge and knowing, reveal their deep understanding of the senses, whereby man may become enlivened, if he or she is meant to.
Julian Capper. UK

back to articles page