One of the consequences of practicing mindfulness is that it helps us to ‘gain control of the senses’. Now what does this mean exactly, and how can this help us?
Most people let their senses control their thoughts and emotions. For example, we hear a loud noise and it causes us to feel alarm and even stress. Or, we feel cold and it causes us to think ‘I am cold; I wish I was warmer, how can I get warm?’. We become trapped in a constant cycle of seeking satisfaction and avoiding dissatisfaction. The Bhagavad Gita tells us that ‘when you keep thinking about sense objects, attachment comes.’ We end up attaching to our sensual preferences, and live in a constant state of seeking out those sensory inputs.
Mindfulness reminds us that we are in control. On a basic level, we remind ourselves that we have the power to decide what we tune into in our environment.
One way of practicing mindfulness is to tune into different senses in turn. See, normally our brains filter out 90% of the sensory input and we just latch on to those observations that we associate with a positive or negative experience. Because our instinct is to seek out pleasure and resist pain. This constant assigning of sensory input as positive and negative leads us to either reinforce the attachment to the current situation or aversion to the current situation (driving a want to change our situation for the better).
When we practice mindfulness, we intentionally try to observe things that we wouldn’t normally notice e.g. the way a candle flickers: the patterns on a leaf. Crucially, we try to observe these things without analysing or attaching to a thought or emotion. This is called ‘neutral observation’
This ability to observe our sensory input without thought or emotion, and to notice things we might not normally notice, reminds us that we normally live on autopilot and that it’s possible to live more mindfully – we learn that we can be mindful even when it comes to simply experiencing our senses.
In yogic philosophy, as described in the ancient sutras of Patanjali, and the epic poem the Bhagavad Gita, mastery over the senses is associated with enlightenment. When you can gain control of the senses, you can also learn how to withdraw from the senses (‘even as a tortoise draws in its limbs, the wise can draw in their senses at will’), allowing you to eventually recognise that which is permanent, immovable and essential, removing all sense of duality and understanding the unity and oneness of universal consciousness, our true nature beyond the senses, beyond the ego, beyond earthly existence and the illusion of separation from each other+ God.
This is YOGA.
