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=How Can One Refine One’s Senses?=
==By Intent and Discipline==
For each thing there is a method. And the first method is to want it, to begin with, that is, to take a decision. Then you are given a description of all these senses and how they work—that takes some time. You take one sense or several, or the one which is easiest for you to start with, and you decide. Then you follow the discipline. It is the equivalent of exercises for developing the muscles. You can even succeed in creating a will in yourself.
[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#p31</ref>
==By Regular Exercise==
…I wonder whether you remember the exercises you used to do when you were very young in order to walk, to drink, to talk, to hear, to feel. You used to do many exercises. All children do exercises without knowing it, but they do them. So you have to do something on the same lines. You must build up senses and develop them, make them conscious, independent and precise in their perceptions. That is the second stage. It may take time, it may come quickly, it depends on the degree of development of your inner being. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/30-january-1951#p24</ref>
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[Choose a fixed time]
But for more subtle things, the method is to make for yourself an exact image of what you want, to come into contact with the corresponding vibration, and then to concentrate and do exercises—such as to practise seeing through an object or hearing through a sound, or seeing at a distance. For example, once, for a long time, for several months, I was confined to bed and I found it rather boring—I wanted to see. I was in a room and at one end there was another little room and at the end of the little room there was a kind of bridge; in the middle of the garden the bridge became a staircase leading down into a very big and very beautiful studio, standing in the middle of the garden. I wanted to go and see what was happening in the studio, for I was feeling bored in my room. So I would remain very quiet, close my eyes and send out my consciousness, little by little, little by little, little by little. And day after day—I chose a fixed time and did the exercise regularly. At first you make use of your imagination and then it becomes a fact. After some time I really had the physical sensation that my vision was moving; I followed it and then I could see things downstairs which I knew nothing about. I would check afterwards. In the evening I would ask, "Was this like that? And was that like this?"
[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#p32</ref>
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I tell you, it is like a small exercise you can do, which can be done during any... Why is it like that? Why have you done that?—I don't know.—Why have you arranged this in this way?—I don't know. If you are honest to yourself, you will be obliged to say to yourself a hundred times a day, "I don't know… <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/31-march-1954#p26</ref>
==By Patience and Obstinacy==
[Take the senses one by one]
But for each one of these things you must practise for months with patience, with a kind of obstinacy. You take the senses one by one, hearing, sight, and you can even arrive at subtle realities of taste, smell and touch.
[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#p33</ref>
==By Concentration and Observation==
After that—this is only a beginning—after that, you must learn to isolate yourself from all the other parts of the being, to concentrate on the one where you want to have the experience and concentrate in such a way that you come into contact with the corresponding outer world. I don't mean that it is an exteriorisation that leaves your body in a state of coma. No, a very intense concentration is enough, a power to isolate yourself from everything except the place where you are concentrating. And then you come into contact with the corresponding world. You must want that and little by little you learn how to do it. And there you have the exercise required to improve the senses you have gradually developed and give them a field of action. At first, you may be rather lost in this outer world, you won't feel quite at ease. But little by little you will get used to it and start moving about there in the way that is appropriate to each of these worlds. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/30-january-1951#p25</ref>
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Nobody can prevent you from having your body with you, your thought and your feelings, your sensations; it is the field of work which is always there, it is very convenient—no need to seek outside. One has all that is necessary. And so what must be acquired is the power of observation and the capacity for concentrating and for pursuing a little continuously a certain movement in one's being; as when you have some very strong feeling which takes hold of you, seizes you, then you must look at it, so to say, and concentrate upon it and manage to find out where it comes from, what has brought you this. Just this work of concentrating in order to succeed in finding this out is enough to lead you straight to an experience. And then if, for example, you want to do something practical, if in your feelings you are completely upset, agitated, if there's a kind of storm within, then by concentrating you can try to find out the cause of all that, you see, the inner cause, the real cause, and at the same time you can aspire to bring peace, quietude, a kind of inner immobility into your feelings, because without that you can't see clearly. When everything is in a whirlwind one sees nothing; as when you are in a great tempest and the wind is blowing from all sides and there are clouds of dust, you cannot see; it is the same thing. To be able to see, all must become quiet. So you must aspire and then draw into this storm... draw peace, quietude, immobility, like this; and then if you succeed it is still another experience, it is the beginning. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/9-march-1955#p24</ref>
==By Inner Calm==
…if you have the inner calm, then the pain changes into an almost pleasant sensation—not "pleasant" in the ordinary sense, but an almost comfortable feeling comes. Again, I am speaking purely physically, materially.
[Based on Aphorism 93-Pain is the touch of our Mother teaching us how to hear and grow in rapture. She has tree stages of her schooling, endurance first, next equality of soul, last ecstasy.] <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/10/aphorism-93#p5</ref>
==By Self-Reflection==
The habit of outer silence proves of valuable help. For when one is assailed by a wave of sensations or feelings, this habitual silence gives you time to reflect and, if necessary, to regain possession of yourself before projecting the sensation or feeling in words. How many quarrels can be avoided in this way; how many times one will be saved from one of those psychological catastrophes which are only too often the result of uncontrolled speech. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/the-four-austerities-and-the-four-liberations#p45</ref>
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Well, this is what you should note and ask: "When I heard that sentence, why did I suddenly feel like this? When that was said, why did it make me think of this?" These would be interesting questions. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/8-june-1955#p11</ref>
==By Helpful practices==
One remedy: that signpost must always be there, a mirror well placed in one's feelings, impulses, all one's sensations. One sees them in this mirror. There are some which are not very beautiful or pleasant to look at; there are others which are beautiful, pleasant, and must be kept. This one does a hundred times a day if necessary. And it is very interesting. One draws a kind of big circle around the psychic mirror and arranges all the elements around it. If there is something that is not all right, it casts a sort of grey shadow upon the mirror: this element must be shifted, organised. It must be spoken to, made to understand, one must come out of that darkness. If you do that, you never get bored. When people are not kind, when one has a cold in the head, when one doesn't know one's lessons, and so on, one begins to look into this mirror. It is very interesting, one sees the canker. "I thought I was sincere!"—not at all.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/1-april-1953#p10</ref>
==By Rejection of Undesirable Sensation==
[Absolutely refuse to receive and express]
…When you have undesirable feelings or sensation: if you pay attention to them, concentrate on them or even look at them with a certain indulgence, they will never stop. But if you absolutely refuse to receive and express them, after some time they stop. You must be patient and very persistent.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/22-september-1954#p18</ref>
==By Detachment==
The working of the senses is warped: one does not see, hear, taste, feel things as they are in reality as long as one has a preference. So long as there are things which please you and others which don't, so long as you are attracted by certain things, and repulsed by others, you cannot see things in their reality; you see them through your reaction, your preference or your repulsion. The senses are instruments which get out of order, in the same way as sensations, feelings and thoughts. Therefore, to be sure of what you see, what you feel, what you experience and think, you must have a complete detachment; and this is obviously not an easy task. But until then your perception cannot be wholly true, and so it is not sincere.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/19-december-1956#p21</ref>
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Detachment from one's physical being, saying, "I am not the body", then detachment from one's sensations, "I am not my sensations", then from one's feelings, saying, "I am not my feelings", and so on. One detaches oneself from thought and goes more and more within until one finds something which is the Eternal and Infinite.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/1-february-1956#p5</ref>
==By Offering to the Divine==
Ask yourself, "Did I think this as an offering to the Divine, did I feel this as an offering to the Divine?..." If you recall this every moment of your life, the attitude becomes quite different from what it was before. sensations become very wide…
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/22-february-1951#p9</ref>
==By Renunciation of an Error==
The only process that I have known, and which has been repeated several times during my life, is the renunciation of an error: something you believe to be true—which probably was true for a time—on which you base part of your action, but which in fact was only an opinion. You thought that it was a true evaluation with all its logical consequences, and your action—part of your action—was based on that, and it all followed automatically; and suddenly, an experience, a circumstance or an intuition, warns you that your evaluation is not as true as it looked. Then there is a whole period of observation, of study—or sometimes it comes like a revelation, a massive demonstration—and not only the idea or the false knowledge, but all its consequences must be changed—perhaps a whole way of acting on some point. And at that moment there is a kind of sensation, something akin to the sensation of renunciation, which means that you must break up a whole set of things which had been built—sometimes it can be quite extensive, sometimes it is something very small, but the experience is the same: it is the movement of a force, a power that dissolves, and there is resistance from everything which has to be dissolved, from all the past habits; and it is this movement of dissolution, with its corresponding resistance, which is probably expressed in the ordinary human consciousness as a feeling of renunciation.
[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#p31</ref>
==By Changing Attitude Towards Every Sensation==
There is also a whole little teaching of every minute with regard to the different ways of receiving sensations (of the body, of course), like the teaching you are given when you do the yoga: the attitude with regard to all thoughts, reactions, feelings, all those things; you are taught to have the true attitude (all that is the past). Well, the body is given the same teaching in detail: the attitude to be taken with regard to every sensation: every sensation—every event, everything that happens, every contact. It's a painstaking work, in details. And it's accompanied by a general attitude; but the general attitude, the body has taken it, it's a settled thing—it's the working out, that is, the painstaking work of every minute.... It's not interesting. It's only the body that finds it interesting; even then, it's not fascinated—it's something painstaking, a painstaking work. The reactions to the attitudes in action—not what people say, not that, only their gestures, their attitudes, all that. How to have constantly the true bodily attitude. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/10/september-10-1969#p6</ref>
=Importance of Senses in Yoga=