Commonsense About The Senses (The Five Senses )

Add as a preferred source on Google

Obviously, senses refer to the powers that our body uses to obtain information about the world, and to respond to it. These powers of the body have been classified into two: the powers of perception (jnana-indriya), and the powers of action (karma-indriya). Five powers, of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, come under the power of perception, and the ability of the body expressed in actions through speech, hands, feet, and organs of expulsion and generation comes under the power of action.

These powers operate through a complex mechanism involving both the body and the mind. Whenever a teacher of spirituality wants us to restrain our senses, he means not only restraining the sense organs, but taking care of the whole process of perception. Swami Vivekananda speaks of this process of perception and its restraint thus: I shall explain to you first what the word 'organ' means. Here are the eyes; the eyes are not the organs of vision, but only the instruments. Unless the organs are also present, I cannot see, even if I have eyes. But, given both the organs and instruments, unless the mind attaches itself to these two, no vision takes place.

So, in each act of perception, three things are necessary—first, the external instruments, then, the internal organs, and lastly, the mind. You must bear in mind that by the word 'organ' is meant the nerve centre in the brain. The eyes and ears are only the instruments of seeing and hearing, and the organs are inside. If the organs are destroyed by any means, even if the eyes or the ears be there, we shall not see or hear. To restrain the mind from wandering outwards or inwards, is what is meant by the words Shama and Dama. Shama consists in not allowing the mind to externalise, and Dama, in checking the external instruments.

In short, every sense perception is the combined work of a faculty (of perception or action) plus an instrument plus the presence of mind. Every sense organ has its fixed area of operation, and it cannot violate it. Ears cannot smell, nose cannot see, eyes cannot hear. All senses have a jurisdiction and they cannot transgress it. Though they have these inherent restrictions, together, senses produce a full picture. When we say that we 'know' a person, what we mean is that we 'know' his form, 'know' his sound, 'know' his touch, and so on. Suppose any of our sense organs is malfunctioning, our perception too will become faulty or incomplete. Or if we develop an extra organ of perception, our perception of the world will undergo change.

Senses are designed to perceive the external world. They report to us the information about the external world. But do they? We see the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. But does it? We feel a cooling sensation when we enter a room after walking in the sun. But the same room feels warm in winter. If we touch the forehead of a normal person immediately after washing our hands with cold water, it may feel warm. Physics and chemistry everyday open up newer areas of the illusions cast by sensory experiences and tell us many startling facts about the reality called this world.

The more one proceeds in higher physics, for example, the more one discovers the falsity of sensory experience. Senses are not only limited in their operation, they also grow weaker and become less sharp with aging. That is a natural aging process that ears, eyes, nose and so on decline in their power of perception. We, then, use aids like spectacles, hearing-aids, and so on to enhance their capacities. Besides the limitations caused by aging, the functions of senses are also governed by some other factors.

Every sense organ has its specific range of operation. For example, the naked human eye cannot see beyond certain distance, the ear cannot hear beyond a few metres, nose cannot smell a distance flower, and so on. Nor can one hear a sound of very high frequency or low frequency. For every perception, the senses must have the right positioning of the object it perceives.