Vigyan Bhairav Tantra
“WHEN VIVIDLY AWARE THROUGH SOME PARTICULAR SENSE, KEEP IN THE AWARENESS.”
You see through your eyes. Remember, you see THROUGH your eyes. Eyes cannot see; you see through them. The seer is hidden behind, the eyes are just the opening, just the windows. But we go on thinking that we see by the eyes; we go on thinking we hear by the ears. No one has ever heard by the ears. You hear THROUGH the ears, not BY the ears. The hearer is hidden behind. The ears are just receptive organs.
I touch you: I give you a loving touch, a handclasp. The hand is not touching you: I am touching you, through the hand. The hand is just instrumental, so there can be two types of touch — when I really touch you and when I just avoid touch. I can touch your hand and avoid touch. I may not be there in my hand, I may have withdrawn. Try this, and you will have a different, a distant feeling. Put your hand on someone and withdraw yourself. A dead hand is there, not you. And if the other is sensitive, he will feel a dead hand. He will feel insulted. You are deceiving; you are just showing that you are touching, and you are not touching.
Women are very sensitive about it; you cannot deceive them. They have a greater sensitivity of touch, of body touch, so they know. The husband may be talking beautiful things. He may have brought flowers and he may be saying, “I love you,” but his touch will show that he is not there. And women have an instinctive feeling when you are with them and when you are not with them. It is difficult to deceive them unless you are a master. Unless you are a master of your own self, you cannot deceive them. But a master would not like to become a husband, that is the difficulty.
Whatsoever you say will be false; your touch will show it. Children are very sensitive, you cannot deceive them. You may pat them, but they know that this is a dead pat. If your hand is not a flowing energy, a loving energy, they know. Then it is just as if a dead thing is being used. When you are present in your hand in your totality, when you have moved, when your center of being has come to the hand, when your soul is there, then the touch has a different quality.
This sutra says that the senses are just doors, receiving stations, mediums, instruments, receptors. You are hidden behind. “WHEN VIVIDLY AWARE THROUGH SOME PARTICULAR SENSE, KEEP IN THE AWARENESS.” While hearing music, don’t forget yourself in the ear, don’t lose yourself into the ear. Remember the awareness that is hidden behind. Be alert! While seeing someone… Try this. You can try it right now, looking at me. What is happening? You can look at me by the eyes, and when I say “by the eyes,” it means you are not aware that you are hidden behind the eyes. You can look at me through the eyes, and when I say “through the eyes,” then the eyes are just in between you and me. You are standing there behind the eyes, looking through the eyes, just as if someone looks through a window or specs.
Have you seen some clerk in a bank looking from above his specs? The specs have slipped down on his nose, and he looks. Just look that way at me, towards me, as if you are looking from above your eyes, as if the eyes have slipped down a little on your nose and you are standing behind looking at me. Suddenly you will feel a change in the quality. Your focus changes; eyes become just doors. This becomes a meditation.
When hearing, just hear through the ears and remain aware of your inner center. When touching, just touch through the hand and remember the inner one who is hidden behind. From any sense you can have a feeling of the inner center, and every sense goes to the inner center. It has to report. That is why, when you are seeing me and you are hearing me, when you see me through the eyes and you hear me through the ears, deep down within you know that you are seeing the same man whom you are also hearing.
If I have some body odor your nose will smell it. Then three different senses report to one center. That is why you can coordinate. Otherwise it will be difficult: if your eyes see and your ears hear, it will be difficult to know whether you are hearing the same man whom you are seeing or two different ones, because these two senses are different and they never meet. Your eyes have never known about your ears and your ears have not heard about your eyes. They don’t know each other, they have never met; they have not even been introduced.
So how does everything become synthetic? Ears hear, eyes see, hands touch, the nose smells, and suddenly somewhere inside you know that this is the same man that you are hearing and seeing and touching and smelling. This knower is different from the senses. Every sense reports to this knower, and in this knower, in the center, everything falls, fits and becomes one. This is miraculous.
I am one, outside you. I am one! My body and body’s presence, my body odor, my speaking, are one. Your senses will divide me. Your ears will report if I say something, your nose will report if there is some odor, your eyes will report if I can be seen and am visible. They will divide me into parts. But again, somewhere within you, I will become one. Where I become one within you is your center of being. That is your awareness, and you have forgotten it completely. This forgetfulness is the ignorance, and the awareness will open the doors for self-knowledge. And you cannot know yourself in any other way.
“WHEN VIVIDLY AWARE THROUGH SOME PARTICULAR SENSE, KEEP IN THE AWARENESS.” Remain with the awareness; keep in the awareness; remain alert. It is difficult in the beginning. We go on falling asleep, and it seems arduous to look through the eyes. It is easy to look “by” the eyes. In the beginning you will feel a certain strain — if you try to look through the eyes. Not only will you feel a strain; the person you look at will also feel a strain.
If you look at someone through the eyes, he will feel as if you are trespassing upon him, as if you are doing something unmannerly. If you look through the eyes, the other will become aware suddenly that you are not behaving properly, because your look will become piercing, your look will go deeper. If it comes from your depth, it will penetrate to the other’s depth. That is why society has a built-in security: don’t look too deeply into anyone unless you are in love. If you are in love, you can look deeply into the other; you can penetrate to the very depth because the other is not afraid. The other can be naked, totally naked, the other can be vulnerable, the other can be open to you. But ordinarily, if you are not in love, you are not allowed to see directly, to see penetratingly.
In India, a person who looks in such a way, penetratingly at someone, is called a LUCHCHA. A LUCHCHA means a seer. The word LUCHCHA comes from LOCHAN; LOCHAN means eyes, and LUCHCHA means one who has become eyes towards you. So don’t try it on someone you don’t know; he will think you are a LUCHCHA.
First try with objects — a flower, a tree, the stars in the night. They will not feel trespassed upon and they will not object. Rather, they will like it and will feel very good and appreciated. First try with them, then with loving persons — your wife, your child. Sometimes take your child into your lap and look at him through the eyes, and the child will understand. He will understand more than anyone else because he is still uncrippled by the society, still unperverted, still natural. He will feel deep love if you look through the eyes; he will feel your presence.
Look at your lover or beloved, and then only, by and by, as you get the feel of it and as you become more artful about it, you will be able to look at anyone — because then no one will be able to know that someone has looked so deeply. And once you have this art of standing always alert behind your senses, the senses cannot deceive you. Otherwise the senses deceive you.
In a world which is just an appearance, they have deceived you to feel it as real. If you can look through the senses and remain alert, the world will by and by appear to you as illusory, dream-like, and you will be able to penetrate to the substance — to the very substance of it. That substance is the BRAHMAN.