Jnanendriyas | tantra

World perceived through Senses

Jnanedriyas provide first information about the world outside our skin barrier to the higher faculties.

The primary goal of Bhuma Vidya is to find remedy for the sorrows of life and acquire such life skills that equip one with better understanding. The goal of present life is to make best use of it and achieve more subtler levels of consciousness. While doing so with proper understanding, we will overcome sorrows and bring out our hidden potential. Bhuma Vidya takes one on the path of progress step by step. The first step is 'Nama' that denotes any label given by us to the things perceived by us by our senses. Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching are the five actions corresponding to our five sense organs of eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin. Upanishads call these senses jnanedriyas.

Jnanedriyas provide first information about the world outside our skin barrier to the higher faculties. This information can be used to process further and act if necessary. Our jnanedriyas are continuously bombarded with millions of information packets each moment. But we will not pick up all those information packets. There are two ways of looking at the mechanism of first information report processing at the gateways of jnanendriyas. One is like sun rays falling on a surface. If we look at this way, information packets just fall on the gateways of our jnanendriyas. Because an information packet landed at the gateway, jnanendriyas process it just like we open and see when a letter is thrown into our house by a postman. Even when such information packet lands on the gateway, many do not bother much to take it seriously. Again it is like opening or not opening the letter received. Another way of looking at the mechanism of first information report processing is paying attention in anticipation and catching the information as it comes. In the first case there is processing only after receiving an impulse. In the second case, our jnanendriyas send out an impulse and wait for its return to receive it and process further. This is something like a radar or sonar detecting the objects. The first way is somewhat passive though the information processing is an active process. The second way is more active process and it is triggered by higher faculties like sankalpam, chittam etc.

Though all the jnanedriyas process first information beyond our skin to be used by higher faculties, there is a difference in the way these jnanedriyas process the information. Except the skin whose major part is away from the head, all other jnanedriyas are in the head close to pineal, pituitary, thalamus, and hypothalamus glands. These four collectively hold the data of higher consciousness. Though the other four jnanendriyas hold such importance, we need to understand a bit more about skin. If you want to make the best use of the four jnanedriyas or to stop these four jnanedriyas from taking any input we have to make the function of skin irrelevant. This is something like restricting entry of normal visitors when higher ups meet for a very important meeting. It is necessary to allow information processing at the gateways of jnanedriyas in normal circumstances. It is also necessary to regulate their activity for performing a more important task. Meditating in 'Yoni Mudra' is an example for temporary shutting down of four jnanendriyas. In many BPOs, the atmosphere is created in such a way that the skin need not work to regulate the amount of heat or cold from the environment affecting our inner organs. Many BPOs that operate round the clock shifts create such an atmosphere that even our circadian rhythms are suppressed. Circadian rhythms are nothing but the reactions of our body due to presence or absence of sunlight and different intensities of sunlight. When our skin is relieved off several functions of our self preservation needs, the other four jnanedriyas can focus more on their tasks. Serious meditators in Himalayas chose such place which has a temperature band of 5 to 15 degrees Celsius for most part of the year. Here also the reason is same.

Our five jnanedriyas perform simple, passive, active, instinctive, survival, mischievous and addictive tasks. Higher faculties order jnanendriyas to function in a particular way. As long as jnanedriyas function in accordance with the plan of higher faculties, they benefit us through their information processing. They bring us more harm than the benefits when they: do not perform when required; perform when not required; and indulge in tasks that are not desirable by the higher faculties or context. Let us understand with some examples. Our eyes seeing something is a passive act. Looking something is an active process. Seeing an object is a simple task. Seeing colours, estimating distances between objects etc are a bit complex tasks. Ability to distinguish real snake from a rubber snake is a survival task. Looking at an attractive object of enjoyment on a TV is instinctive. Here the seer knows for sure that he/she cannot enjoy that, but instinctive seeing prompts more attention.

Hearing and listening are for the ears compared to seeing and looking for the eyes. Our ears hearing something is somewhat passive where as listening to a melodious music is active process. Then, there are several tasks ears can perform for information processing that can be used by the higher faculties.

The sense of touch or the activity of skin, the largest organ of the body, has so many functions. The touch of a doctor heals. The touch of a mother gives comfort or security. The touch of a lover arouses. Human consciousness levels and levels of arousal are directly related. A person can survive even when eyes, ears, nose or tongue fail him. But go to a burns ward and understand the difficulty in surviving when the most part of the skin is damaged. This can extinguish life.

These examples are enough to understand how much hard work is needed to hone up jnanendriyas so that their information processing is more useful and more meaningful to our higher faculties. Working with 'Nama' is the starting step in Bhuma Vidya. Developing expertise in this LKG step itself gives immense benefits to the practitioner. Command in this first step resolves many of the worldly problems. Our modern education and knowledge in the schools and universities is limited to the labels. Rishi Sanat Kumara says, the labels are conventional terms given to objects, ideas and branches of knowledge given by the people of a particular culture. Labels help jnanedriyas to quickly segregate the incoming information. Performing the task at this first step properly paves the way for the progress on the path. On the other hand the one who slips at the first step leads a hopeless life in the Samsara. Just by developing the skills to use the jnanendriyas, one can achieve good scores in exams by reproducing their subject books. They can perform well in several professions that demand intellectual tasks.

For the serious practitioners on the spiritual path, working with the senses and bringing them under control of higher faculties is the first and most important step. They progress quickly on the pact when they can master the indriyas. Some people cannot control or regulate the tasks of their indriyas. Instead, their indriyas control them and guide their lives as if they are slaves to the indriyas. They lead a miserable life and invite all sorts of sorrows.