Overcoming the Limits of Perception of the Physical Sense-Organs

We tend to accept the limitations of the sense organs and the mind as if they are axioms, unable to be altered. We accept that blind people cannot see and that deaf people cannot hear. We believe we cannot interact using the mind alone to communicate or to experience things at a distance. We tend to believe that the limits of our sense organs are fixed and anything outside their normal range is simply imperceptible to us.

What if, however, these limits which we accept are not the actual limits. We can observe that if we try to run, or jump, or swim, that, with practice, we can increase our ability, we can train our physical bodies to respond and we can enhance what was formerly the natural capacity that we accepted as our limit of action. At a certain level of training, we constantly find that world records for speed, height of jumping, distance of throwing, etc. are frequently being broken as individuals enhance beyond the limits that previously set those records.

The widespread reports of ‘out of body’ experiences highlight the artificial limitations we place on how we sense or perceive things. While we believe that our ability to see, hear or otherwise sense things is tied to the physical body and its sense organs, the experience of those who have an out of body event makes it clear this cannot be the case. The physical body is lying inert somewhere while the awareness of the individual is outside the body, frequently looking at the body from a distance, or from above. In such cases, the individual, once he returns to consciousness in the body, is able to accurately report what was taking place in the room, who was there, what they were doing, what the circumstances were, from a perspective that makes it clear that they were outside and observing the event. It is thus certain that the individual can perceive without use of the physical sense organs, and can do so at a distance from those physical sense organs.

The phenomenon of ‘remote viewing’ also makes it clear that under certain circumstances individuals can experience what is taking place at distances of many thousands of miles and report back on what is being viewed. This power has been widely researched and utilized by trained individuals in both a military and civilian setting, and courses are available to train people on how to hone this skill. Once again, there is no reliance on the sense organs of the physical body.

Various spiritual practices utilize the power of visualisation to create or re-create the atmosphere and vibration of a distant location. For instance, an individual may place himself in a sacred spot in his mind to awaken the force that is active in that location. There are also instances where yogic practitioners have been seen in multiple locations at the same time, or have been observed in a palpable form and conversed with someone while at a physical distance. Paramahansa Yogananda in his Autobiography of a Yogi, describes several such events to which he was personally the observer. The great yogi of Tibet, Milarepa, was said to have appeared to his disciples concurrently in multiple locations to provide them a teaching at the time of his physical death.

The Mother writes: “The field of our sense experience has an absolutely ridiculous limitation; while in the mind, if you think of someone or something, a city or a place, you are there immediately, instantaneously, you see. And you are there — it is not that you are not there, you are there, and you can have so precise a mental contact that you can have a conversation, ask questions and receive answers, on condition that the other person is fairly sensitive. Why, this is something which happens constantly, constantly. Only, you must have a little knowledge, naturally, for otherwise you don’t even understand what is happening.”

“Even physically, with this, with the eyes, the nose, the fingers, the mouth, the ears, oh, it is ridiculous! One can develop these if one wants. One can succeed, for example, in hearing something which occurs at a fairly great distance and hearing it physically, not by another means than the physical, but one must have a control over his senses and be able to prolong their vibrations sufficiently. One can see at a distance also, and not by an occult vision. One can manage to stretch his vision, and if he knows how to prolong the vibration of his nerves outside the organ, he can prolong the contact, I don’t say some kilometres away, no, but in a certain area, say, for example, through a wall, which is considered something impossible; one can see what is going on in a room which is separated from another by a wall. But a very methodical practice is necessary. Yet this is possible, seeing, feeling, hearing. If one wants to take the trouble, one can enlarge his field considerably. But it asks for work, for perseverance, a kind of assiduous effort. Why, it has even been found that one can develop other visual centres than the eye. It has been tried out with people who, for some reason or other, have no vision in the eye. One can develop other centres or another centre of vision, by a continuous, methodical effort. Jules Romains has written a book about it. He himself conducted experiments and obtained very conclusive results.”

“This means that we have a number of possibilities which we let sleep within us, because we don’t take the trouble to develop them very much. We can do infinitely more than we actually do. But we take things like that, as they come.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter I Latent Powers, pp.7-8