Read Summary of '''[[Refining of Senses Summary|Refining of Senses ]]'''
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=Why Is It Important to Cultivate Senses?=
==For Knowledge==
Sensations are an excellent instrument of knowledge and education, but to make them serve these ends, they must not be used egoistically for the sake of enjoyment, in a blind and ignorant search for pleasure and self-satisfaction.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-four-austerities-and-the-four-liberations#p28</ref>
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It is through sensations that you learn: by seeing, observing, hearing. Classes develop your sensations, studies develop your sensations, the mind receives things through sensations. By the education of the sees the growth of one's general education is aided; if you learn to see well, exactly, precisely; if you learn to hear well; if you learn through touch to know the nature of things; if you learn through the see of smell to distinguish between different odours—all these are a powerful means of education. In fact, they should be used for this, as instruments of observation, control and knowledge. If one is sufficiently developed, one can know the nature of things through sight; through the see of smell one may also know the value, the different nature of things; by touch one can recognise things… <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/31-march-1954#p13</ref>
==For Accuracy and Precision==
In this connection, I have noticed another thing, that I no longer know in the same way the languages I know! It's very peculiar, especially for English.... There is a sort of instinct based on the rhythm of the words (I don't know where it comes from, maybe from the superconscient of the language) that lets you know whether a sentence is correct or not—it's not at all a mental knowledge, not at all (that's all gone, even the knowledge of spelling is completely gone!), but it's a sort of sense or feeling of the inner rhythm. I noticed this a few days ago: in the birthday cards, we put quotations (someone types the quotations, sometimes he makes mistakes), and there was a quotation from me (I didn't at all remember having written it or having thought it either). I saw it—it was in English—I saw it, and in one place it was as if you tripped: it wasn't correct. Then there came to me clearly, "Put this way and that way, the sentence would be correct." (To say this mentalizes it too much: it's a sort of sensation, not a thought, but a sensation, like a sensation of the sound.) With the sentence written this way, the sound is correct; with the sentence written that other way, using the same words but reversing their order (as was the case), the sentence isn't correct, and to correct that sentence where the order of the words had been reversed, it was necessary to add a little word (in that case it was it), and then, with the sound it, the sentence became correct.... All sorts of things—if I were asked mentally, I would say, "I haven't the faintest idea!" It doesn't correspond to any knowledge. But so precise!... Extraordinary.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/05/february-5-1964#p61</ref>
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==For Expansion of Consciousness==
The body provides our consciousness with the gates of the senses through which it can establish the necessary communication and means of observation and action upon the world, upon the not-self outside it… <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/knowledge-by-identity-and-separative-knowledge#p8</ref>
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I know people of this kind. They enter their room and spend their time bumping against this and that; and so they have to go round about and make all kinds of extraordinary movements in order to be able to use the things they need. And they don't give it a thought, they don't give it a thought, it happened like that.... Most people are so unconscious that when they are asked, "Why is it like that?"—"It happened like that, it is like that." It happened like that, you see, by chance! And they live all their life "by chance", things happen like that.... Well, this is indeed a lack of the education of the senses. If you really train them in the true way, first of all you escape immediately from this unbearable thing: "It is pleasant, it is unpleasant, this pleases, that displeases.... Oh, what an unpleasant sensation !" One doesn't know why, besides, it is just this. And then, suddenly, "Ah, how pleasant it is !"
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/31-march-1954#p24</ref>
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People value visions for one thing because they are one key (there are others) to contact with the other worlds or with the inner worlds and all that is there and these are regions of immense riches which far surpass the physical plane as it is at present. One enters into a larger freer self and a larger more plastic world; of course individual visions only give a contact, not an actual entrance, but the power of vision accompanied with the power of the other subtle senses (hearing, touch, etc.) as it expands does give this entrance. These things have not the effect of a mere imagination (as a poet's or artist's, though that can be strong enough) but if fully followed out bring a constant growth of the being and the consciousness and its richness of experience and its scope.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/30/the-value-of-visions#p23</ref>
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If you approach things with this idea—of studying, of wanting to develop exactitude of perception and the relation between things—then, instead of living in sensations for sensations' sake (that is, "Oh, this is pleasant" or "this is unpleasant", "I like this, I don't like that" and all this kind of foolishness), you know the quality of things, their use and their interrelations through this study of the sees. This puts you in contact with the world in a completely conscious way… <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/31-march-1954#p16</ref>
==For Widening of Perception==
People have many senses which are asleep. They are terribly tamasic. If all the senses they possess were awake, there are many things they would perceive, which can just pass by without anyone suspecting anything. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/11-may-1955#p18</ref>
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To have the perception of the Presence, the participation of feeling is indispensable, and when sensation collaborates, then the perception becomes concrete and tangible.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/19-december-1968#p2</ref>
==For Nobility and Generosity==
Certain things, like cruelty, could be called "sin", but I can only see this explanation, that it is a distortion of the taste or need for an extremely strong sensation. I have observed in cruel people that they feel Ananda at that moment; they find an intense joy in it. So that is its justification, only it is in such a state of distortion that it is repugnant.
[Based on Aphorism 66—Sin is that which was once in its place, persisting now it is out of place; there is no other sinfulness.]
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-66#p9</ref>
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For one who has developed a truly refined taste will, because of this very refinement, feel incapable of acting in a crude, brutal or vulgar manner. This refinement, if it is sincere, brings to the being a nobility and generosity which will spontaneously find expression in his behaviour and will protect him from many base and perverse movements… <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/vital-education#p11</ref>
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Even the Gods esteem one whose senses are controlled as horses by the charioteer, one who is purged of all pride and freed from all corruption.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/the-adept#p5</ref>
==For Self-Protection==
There is a tremendous power in sensorial immobility. If you can remain like a wall, absolutely motionless, everything the other person sends you will immediately fall back upon him. And it has an immediate action. It can stop the arm of the assassin, you understand, it has that strength. Only, one must not just appear to be immobile and yet be boiling inside! That's not what I mean. I mean an integral immobility. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/22-february-1956#p12</ref>
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There is always a drawing of vital forces from one to another in all human social mixture; it takes place automatically. Lovemaking is one of the most powerful ways of each drawing up the other's vital force,—or of one drawing the other's, which also often happens in a one-sided way to the great detriment of the "other". In the passage come many things good and bad, elation, feelings of strength, fullness, support or weakness and depletion, infiltration of good and bad qualities, interchange of psychological moods, states and movements, ideas helpful and harmful, depression, exhaustion—the whole gamut. In the ordinary consciousness one is not aware of these things; the effects come into the surface being, but the cause and process remain unknown and unnoticed because the interchange is subtle and covert, it takes place through what is called the subconscient, but is rather a behind-consciousness covered by the surface waking mind. When one gets into a certain Yogic consciousness, one becomes very much aware of this covert movement, very sensitive to all this interchange and action and reaction; but one has this advantage that one can consciously build a wall against them, reject, refuse, accept what helps, throw out or throw back what injures or hinders. Illnesses can also pass in this way from one to another, even those which are not medically regarded as contagious or infectious; one can even by will draw another's illness into oneself as did Antigonus of Macedon accepting death in this way in order to save his son Demetrius. This fact of vital interchange, which seems strange and unfamiliar to you, becomes quite intelligible if one realises that ideas, feelings etc. are not abstract things but in their way quite concrete, not confining their movements to the individual's mind or body but moving out very much like the "waves" of science and communicating themselves to anyone who can serve as a receiver. Just as people are not conscious of the material waves, so it is and still more with these mental or vital waves; but if the subtle mind and senses become active on the surface—and that is what takes place in Yoga—then the consciousness becomes aware in its reception of them and records accurately and automatically their vibrations. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/interactions-with-others-and-the-practice-of-yoga#p118</ref>
==For Deeper Awareness==
When we go inwards away from the restricted surface consciousness and develop a subtler sense and deeper awareness, we begin to get an intimation of the origin of these movements and are able to watch their action and process, to accept or reject or modify, to allow them passage and use of our mind and will and our life and members or refuse it… <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-order-of-the-worlds#p12</ref>
==For Divine Delight==
This is what the person who taught me occultism told me straightaway: "You are depriving yourself of senses which are most useful even for the most ordinary life." And this is true, quite true. We can know infinitely more things than we usually do, simply by using our own senses. And not only from the mental point of view, but also from the vital and even the physical point of view.
[Based on Aphorism 72- The sign of dawning Knowledge is to feel that as yet I know little or nothing; and yet, if I could only know my knowledge, I already possess everything.] <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-72#p28</ref>
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…Senses should be used as instruments to approach and study the physical and vital worlds in all their complexity; in this way they will take their true place in the great endeavour towards transformation. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-four-austerities-and-the-four-liberations#p29</ref>
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In truth, a cultivated and illumined vital can be as noble and heroic and disinterested as it is now spontaneously vulgar, egoistic and perverted when it is left to itself without education. It is enough for each one to know how to transform in himself the search for pleasure into an aspiration for the supramental plenitude. If the education of the vital is carried far enough, with perseverance and sincerity, there comes a time when, convinced of the greatness and beauty of the goal, the vital gives up petty and illusory sensorial satisfactions in order to win the divine delight. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-four-austerities-and-the-four-liberations#p32</ref>
==Importance of Educating the Senses==
[Very happy effects on one’s character]
To this general education of the senses and their functioning there will be added, as early as possible, the cultivation of discrimination and of the aesthetic sense, the capacity to choose and adopt what is beautiful and harmonious, simple, healthy and pure. For there is a psychological health just as there is a Physical health, a beauty and harmony of the sensations as of the body and its movements. As the capacity of understanding grows in the child, he should be taught, in the course of his education, to add artistic taste and refinement to power and precision. He should be shown, led to appreciate, taught to love beautiful, lofty, healthy and noble things, whether in Nature or in human creation. This should be a true aesthetic culture, which will protect him from degrading influences. For, in the wake of the last wars and the terrible nervous tension which they provoked, as a sign, perhaps, of the decline of civilisation and social decay, a growing vulgarity seems to have taken possession of human life, individual as well as collective, particularly in what concerns aesthetic life and the life of the senses. A methodical and enlightened cultivation of the senses can, little by little, eliminate from the child whatever is by contagion vulgar, commonplace and crude. This education will have very happy effects even on his character…
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/vital-education#p11</ref>
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It is much in fashion. Now in the schools certain disciplines are invented to develop children's power of observation, the quickness of decision, of choice, the capacity to reckon with the eyes, appreciation, all that. All kinds of games are made for children now, to teach them all that. The sense of hearing can also be developed, the sense of smell, the sense of sight—all these can be methodically developed. If, instead of merely living in one's sensations—this is "pleasant or unpleasant", this is "pleasing or displeasing" and all kinds of things which are perfectly useless—one succeeds in calculating, measuring, comparing, noting, studying in detail all the vibrations.... You see, human beings live like blind men, constantly, absolutely unconscious, and they plunge into sensations and reactions, all the impulses, and so it is pleasant, it is unpleasant, it is pleasing, it is displeasing, all that. What is all that, then? What's the see in it?—None at all. One ought to be able to appreciate, calculate, judge, compare, note, know exactly and scientifically the full value of the vibrations, the relations between things, study everything, everything—for instance, study all sensations in connection with the reactions they produce, follow the movement from the sensation to the brain, and then follow the movement of response from the brain to the sensations. And in this way one succeeds in controlling one's will, one's sensations completely, to such an extent that if there is something one does not want to feel, it is enough, with one's will, to cut it off: one feels it no longer. There are many disciplines of this kind. Some of them keep you busy for a lifetime, and if they are well followed, you don't waste a moment and are altogether interested. You no longer have time for impulses, this takes away all impulses. When you become scientific in these studies, you are no longer like a cork: one wave sending you here, another sending you there! There is a passing movement of Nature. Nature, oh how she plays with men! Good heave, when you see how it is, oh! Truly it is enough to make you revolt. I don't understand how they do not revolt.... She sends round a wave of desire, and they are all like sheep running after their desires; she sends round a wave of violence, they are once again like other sheep living in violence, and so on, for everything. Anger—she just does "poof", and everybody gets into a rage. She has but to make a gesture—a gesture of her caprice—and the human mobs follow. Or else it passes from one to another, just like that; they don't know why. They are asked, "Why?"—"Well, suddenly I felt angry. Suddenly I was seized by desire." Oh! It is shameful.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/24-march-1954#p18</ref>
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[Attain harmony and exactitude of perception]
…Refinement of the senses are the means of curing movements of crude instinct and desire and passion. To obliterate them is not curing them; instead they should be cultivated, intellectualised, refined. That is the surest way of curing them. To give them their maximum growth in view of the progress and development of consciousness, so that one may attain to a sense of harmony and exactitude of perception is a part of culture and education for the human being. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/aims#p31</ref>
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[Precision and power of functioning far exceeding]
The education of the senses, again, has several aspects, which are added to one another as the being grows; indeed it should never cease. The sense organs, if properly cultivated, can attain a precision and power of functioning far exceeding what is normally expected of them. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/vital-education#p9</ref>
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We have subtle senses; even as we have a physical body, we have other more subtle bodies which also have senses, and much more refined senses, much more precise and much more powerful than our physical senses. But naturally, as it is not customary in modern education to work in these domains, these things generally escape our ordinary knowledge. Yet children spontaneously live a great deal in this domain. They see things which are as real for them as physical things, they speak about them—and they are usually told that they are stupid because they speak of things others don't see but which are as true for them, as tangible and real as what can be seen by everyone. Their dreams have an intensity and a capital importance in their life, and it is only with intensive mental growth that those capacities diminish. Now, there are people who have the good luck to be born with a spontaneous development, with inner sees, and nothing can prevent them from remaining awake. If these people meet in good time someone who can help them in a methodical development, they can become very interesting instruments for the study and discovery of this occult world… <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/3-march-1954#p4</ref>
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You see, you can begin the training when quite small, quite small, and you can continue for more than a hundred years. And then, truly, within yourself to begin with, you never grow old because it is always interesting and always you make progress; and finally, after some time, not very long, something like about twenty years—that's not much—you succeed in using your senses in a logical, rational, useful way and this helps
you to enter into contact with the world consciously… <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/31-march-1954#p26</ref>
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[Extraordinary perfection]
I don't think there's one in a hundred who does things consciously and deliberately and who is in tune with an inner principle of taste or see of harmony. There are people like that, but not many, not very many. And even those who have an innate taste (there are people with an innate taste, whose senses are refined from birth—they should show some gratefulness to their parents always, for it is something very rare and they must have been born under a lucky star), even these can reach through education an
extraordinary perfection… <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/31-march-1954#p27</ref>
=What Are Senses?=