The 5 Senses

Wisdom Teachings
Right Living

The eastern wisdom teachings describe that in the early times of creation there was a crisis: When the Devas had formed the planet and created the living creatures, the light beings, which we are in our inner, were still totally turned inwards. They had no senses to enjoy the beauty of objectivity. At first they neither were willing to turn to the outside, for they wanted to remain connected with the oneness.

A bridge had to be created between the subjective and the objective side of creation. The instruments with which the inner man opens up towards the objective world are the mind, the senses and the body. The senses are the five forces of mind, five different angles of reflection. Through them the mind flows to the outside in various rates of vibration. The sense objects stimulate the activity of the mind and draw the awareness to the outside. The sense organs – ear, skin, eye, tongue, nose – are the channels through which we get information about the outer world by means of the five senses – hearing, touch, sight, taste, smell.

The formation of the senses took place with the help of the Prachetas. In Sanskrit Cheta means consciousness, and Prachetas are the intelligences which brought consciousness to the outside through the development of the senses and which are active in us as the sense sensations. In the Bible this process is symbolically represented with the story of Adam and Eve. They were happy in the Garden of Eden, until the serpent came down the tree and Eva, attracted by the senses of taste and touch, tried the apple. As a consequence they “fell” through involution into objectivity and got coats of skin.

The development of the senses was a long process: The Secret Doctrine describes how over aeons one sense was developed in each root race, until we now possess five senses. In future two others will be added. The first sense was hearing and it came into operation during the first race. It is connected with the formation of the ear, with the element of ether and with sound. At that time the other senses existed only in a rudimentary form. The second race developed the sense of touch with the element of air and the skin. With the element of fire the sense of sight and the eye developed in the third race, the sense of taste and the tongue came with the element of water, the sense of smell and the nose with the element of earth.

The five basic senses are now developed. The sixth sense is intuition, with which we can reach the Buddhic plane. Part of humanity has already begun to develop this sense. The seventh sense will allow us to have the experience of unity, of the atmic plane.

In a new-born child the senses are awakened and stimulated, when the midwife gives the baby a clap. It goes on experiencing the sense of touch, while it is being kissed and passed around. With a little milk or honey for sucking it is introduced into the sense of taste. We look into the eyes of the child and say mama and papa and thus teach it the sense of sight. The nose learns by means of smells, the sense of hearing gets stimulated through speech and music.

The children need five years in order to activate their five senses. Then they should also learn how to turn inside and return “back home”. It is an important duty of education to teach the return inside together with the outer training. Therefore in ancient India the children were given an initiation from the fifth year on. They received the five-syllabled mantram “Om Nama Sivaya” which supports the cooperation of the sense organs and the body. It creates order in the five senses, gives harmony to the mind and helps to establish a positive, dynamic and effective will. The number of this mantram is 5 and it is sung in multiples of 5.

Its sign is the five-pointed star, an important symbol for meditation: Meditating on this star in our heart helps the soul to express through the mind, the five senses and the body. At first the star is dark; when it has become a radiant white star, the senses are under the control of the mind guided by the wisdom of discrimination. In the morning during dawn it is good to take to the stance of the five-pointed star looking to the east, intonating the five-syllabled mantram and to feel how the light enters into us and purifies the five senses and the body.

The five senses are symbolically described as five white horses with which we can learn about the world and make experiences. A white horse means a pure sense working in accordance with the law through a pure mind. Through the horses we are drawn out of the inner and we meet innumerable possibilities for experiences. An excessive and wrong use of the senses ties us to objectivity and we become slaves of the senses. We busily keep on reacting to the inputs of the senses and the mind gets caught by it: We are worried about earning money, about the family and health. Even when we turn inside, the sense activity mostly runs on through the impressions stored in memory.

Excessive use of the senses even leads to damages of the body: Music played too loudly is bad for the ear, too bright light is bad for the eyes, excessive eating is bad for digestion. Diseases can be transmitted by drinking impure water or through touch, especially through sexual contacts. However, not using the senses for years leads to degeneration: If someone keeps on living in the dark, the sense of sight gets lost; a sedentary way of life lacking exercise can be harmful to the organs. It is soothing when the spirit makes a beneficial contact with the surrounding through the senses. Harmonious combinations of colours, sounds, tastes and smells promote health when regularly applied.

There are different planes of the senses. With touch we generally know the gross physical touch which again can be gross or fine. However, there is also an emotional touch of the lower magnetism, an etheric touch conveying vital force and finally a touch of the light transmitted by the soul. A healer can refine his sense of touch in a way that he transmits the energy of the soul to the patient through thoughts, looks, speech, and through physical touch with the hands. People with a highly refined sense of touch neither touch our bodies nor our emotions nor personal opinions. They silently touch our being, give inner equilibrium and strengthen us.

It is not the purpose of the senses to stay bound to objectivity. They serve to come in contact with objectivity, make the corresponding experience and then to return to their source. This is also called detachment in the scriptures. It is not a painful act of separation, but a voluntary withdrawal inside. Whereas the experiences of the sense objects give us limited moments of joy, the inner joy is unlimited.

We can withdraw the senses by taking them back into one sense, hearing. That is, we utter the sound OM, at first vocally, then in thought and listen to the utterance. Through this listening we can experience the soundless sound of silence.

An important step to free ourselves from the pull of the senses into objectivity is to serve our fellow beings. Through service we liberate ourselves from our ego; this way the senses get synchronised and synthesised. When we put this knowledge into practice, we slowly overcome the circumscription by the five senses.

This process is illustrated by two symbols, the crocodile and the turtle. The turtle can withdraw its four legs and the head into the shell. It has the possibility to go out into objectivity and also to withdraw again into subjectivity. The crocodile can’t do this; it has a strong grip and keeps a firm hold on what it has seized. Thus the man who is kept through the senses in objectivity is compared to a crocodile. The Sanskrit word for crocodile is Makara, literally meaning the five fingers and representing the five senses. Its symbol is the five-pointed star; it stands for the month of Capricorn, whose sign is a being similar to a crocodile. It says that man as a crocodile, Makara, has to transform into a turtle, called Kurma, so that he can become a Kumara, a Son of God. He applies the power of gripping of the crocodile to the inner instead of to the outer. The master is gripping the souls and releasing the personalities. Thus nothing can hold the Son of God in objectivity, but he is firmly grounded in spirit.

Sources: K.P. Kumar: On Healing / notes from seminars / E. Krishnamacharya: Ayurveda. The World Teacher Trust - Dhanishta, Visakhapatnam, India.