Why It Is Necessary To Train The Senses?

Just like a camera consumes energy even if it is just switched on, similarly our sense organs consume energy even if they just stay put on a particular object. The best way to conserve the energy of the sense organs is to restrain from taking in any sensory input that one does not need.

Then, the eyes would see only what has to be seen, the ears would hear only what has to be heard, the tongue would taste only what is to be tasted, the skin would touch only what has to be touched, and the nose would smell only what has to be smelled.

 

Trained in such a fashion, not only would the distraction caused by the senses be reduced to a bare minimum, the sensory experience of such trained senses would be accentuated and superfine with a remarkable intensity.

We constantly blame the mind for distractions and for losing focus. Our complaint is that the mind is wandering all the time.

Imagine a person who is served several plates of mouth-watering dishes at the same time, all dishes exuding mind-blowing scents, and served with royal dressings. How can that person concentrate on only one dish then? Such is the predicament of our mind. It is constantly being simultaneously fed several sensory inputs.

When the eyes see, all the other four senses do not shut down and so is the case with the other sense-organs. Much like a person, who is aware of the usage of electricity, would switch off the electrical appliances that are not needed; we should switch off our sense organs that we are not using at that moment. That would lead to an enormous energy surplus in our body.

Source – Prabuddha Bharata February 2016 Issue