The Creation of Pleasure and Pain : 15.

The mind has to be trained to perceive independently of the senses, so far as it is possible. This is the great task before the yoga student. We should not trust things merely because we see them with our eyes, hear them with our ears, etc. Tangibility, visibility, audibility, etc., cannot be regarded as standards of correct perception or judgment. “I hear it; therefore, it must be there,” is not an argument, because we have to be charitable enough to concede that the instruments of observation can go wrong. The instruments of our observation are the senses.


Thus, it is necessary that we enter into self-investigation rather than object investigation, world investigation, or an enquiry into the structure of the pattern of the world externally. There is no use observing a minute substance in a laboratory through a defective microscope. Whatever be the carefulness of the observation, inasmuch as the instrument is defective, the observation will bring a wrong conclusion.


So the first thing would be not to strain our nerves in observing through the telescope or the microscope, but to see that the instrument is in perfect good condition; otherwise, all our labour will be a waste. What is the good of philosophy, theology, argument, and scientific observation through defective apparatus? While sensory observation is the basis of scientific discoveries, mental observations are the basis of philosophical conclusion. Both are sailing on the same boat as far as their conclusions are concerned. If the senses are defective in one way, the mind is defective in another way. The senses cannot collaborate among themselves on account of their distinction in their structural pattern, and they seem to be collaborating on account of the single mind operating behind the senses; otherwise, independently, what the eyes see, the ears cannot hear, and so on. The mind somehow collates these reports of the different senses, and comes to a judgment of its own.

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued   ......