The Senses and the All-Pervading Consciousness

This Devi sets the systems of the senses in motion in every living being, and through them She pervades every class of creature at all times. To that Shakti, salutations, salutations, salutations.

The Indian Sanatana tradition follows a set rule. After it has shared each treasury of spiritual knowledge, it reminds us of that knowledge again, so that we keep it safely in the mind and in the subconscious mind.

We call this play of the Adi Shakti chetana, consciousness. A power abides in its original form within us and sets all the systems of our senses in motion. It is a conscious power that pervades every class of being continuously, without a break, and it keeps bringing everything into manifestation.

When body and mind come into being, the system of the senses also begins to move. No one can know how the senses grow stronger or weaker, because that Devi Shakti pervades body and mind constantly, standing behind the senses in the form of their systems. Influences coming from outside make the senses dull and distorted.

That too is the play of the Adi Shakti. When we walk the spiritual path, the first fight that begins is with the senses. We wrestle and struggle with them, and we are told that they must be brought onto the pure path.

So when we walk the path of purity, we turn the senses into enemies. This is because we have never seen or experienced their divine forms, though the play of the Adi Shakti is present there too.

What is the system of the senses? Form and colour, a pleasing fragrance, a good taste, good sight, a good sound and a sweet, gentle touch. All of this is experience that comes through the senses, and it too is the play of the Adi Shakti.

Yet spiritual people are alarmed and afraid of sense experience. They struggle, saying “We don’t want sense experience,” and insist they want only the experience of conscious power. That is because they do not know what the experience of consciousness is.

The point is this: it is conscious power itself that brings about experience through the medium of the senses. There is no other method of experiencing it.

What does happen is that the journey from impurity to purity in our senses becomes the spiritual journey of Shiva-Shakti sadhana.

For example: just as coal is made into diamond, there is a journey from impurity to purity.

What happens when we watch the senses and give up the taste of their experience? We are told:

• Do not hear what is bad; hear good sounds.
• Do not take in bad smells; seek good fragrance.
• Do not look at what is bad; look at what is good.
• Do not touch what is bad; touch only what is good.
• Do not taste what is bad; taste what is good.

But all of this is the play of the Adi Shakti. People live under the illusion that by giving all this up they will advance in spiritual practice. Instead, the senses simply become dull.

Wherever the senses are in an ordered state, Shakti is present. It works as an eternal law, balancing everything within us and guiding our life. The senses too are a form of the Devi’s power, and the power that moves behind them is the Adi Shakti.

Look at people who keep their senses in turmoil. Confused and unsettled, they never enjoy the taste of experience through the senses, and they suffer from ill health. When any sense is thrown off balance, a great deal of trouble follows.

To set such problems right, you must stay natural and in a good state with your senses and what they perceive.

These are faultless, pure senses. They should not be overstimulated; they are like children. When you overstimulate them, the senses become dull.

So keep them divine and pure, because as the play of the Adi Shakti they are run by very beautiful laws.

Keep and protect your whole body and mind in balance and excellence. Do not act against them.

Do not run away from the senses and sensory experience.

Watch the gap between your breaths, at the heart centre. At that point you have the darshan, the vision, of the Adi Shakti.

Sutra 23: the Devi as consciousness

Who in the form of consciousness pervades this universe and abides in it: salutations to Her, salutations to Her, salutations to Her, salutations again and again.

The Adi Shakti, whose nature is chit shakti, the power of consciousness, fills the whole cosmos in the form of chetana. To Her, salutations, salutations, salutations.

This Devi fills the entire universe in the form of consciousness. She pervades it.

She is present here as the primal Mother. The power that runs the whole universe is the Adi Shakti.

Existence, that which exists, is supreme: whatever exists is consciousness.

Only because that power of chit shakti exists does everything exist. She is Ma, the Mother; She is awareness, death and birth. All of it whirls in a divine dance. The living energy of Shakti is the Adi Shakti.

She is night, She is day, She is the full moon and the new moon. She is time, the minute, the days, the months, the years and the seasons. All of this is the maya, the glory, of the Adi Shakti.