We live in a world dominated by our senses. The five senses are our window to the external world; and eventually, the way we perceive the world through our senses becomes our internal reality. The greatest pleasures in our lives seemingly come from experiences derived from these senses – as eyes admire the beauty, the taste buds relish the gourmet food, the sense of a lovers’ touch makes the heart sing, and so on.

As we begin to experience these pleasures, we tend to want more of them; we desire to increase the frequency of such experiences and also want them to ideally last longer. However, simultaneously, we also experience situations that seem not to go per our desire and make us uncomfortable and unhappy. We hate to go through those experiences, wishing we could somehow totally eliminate them from our lives. This desire to seek only the pleasant sensations and avoid the supposedly unpleasant ones is what sets us up for future suffering – either the excessive want for these pleasures or the feeling of lack of enough of these experiences in our lives then leads to frustration, anxiety and unhappiness.

If we include our mind, along with its conditioned thought forms and mental patterns, in the list of our sense organs, we totally and absolutely live by these senses. The mind adds the unique dimension of attaching judgments to every experience; with the sense of a separate self, the mind also adds the evaluation of whether the experience is good for us or not. The mind also adds the sense of time – making our thoughts (and resultant feelings) always wander in the past or the future. The mind then wants to cling to the pleasant experiences and makes us believe that as we seek out more such experiences, we would be happier on an ongoing basis.

Many of us eventually find our own ways of accepting and living with a mixture of both pleasant and unpleasant experiences. While this provides some balance and calm in our lives, how do we create sustained happiness?

Living a life ruled primarily by our senses may have some fundamental limitations. It escapes an understanding of the laws of nature and the reality of our existence. It does not capture the impermanence and transient nature of all thoughts, feelings, and sensations. After a few hours of a tasty meal, one craves for the next mouth watering experience. After enjoying the time with one’s beloved, one has to deal with the loneliness that follows. They say the only thing constant is change. But learning to become aware of the ever-changing nature of existence is part of starting the journey for truth.

As we become more aware of our own truth – how we are no different from the universal life energy that lives and breathes through every living thing, only in our case happens to flow through the manifestation of a human form; and how we are all made of the same energy and are very much part of the same whole and that only our conditioned minds and senses make us believe in the sense of separateness – we begin to move away from the duality of our sense-based experiences.We can then begin to become aware of taste as simply taste, without mentally attaching labels to it as pleasant or unpleasant; same way for our thoughts and feelings. As we learn to be a witness to our own minds, we start to discover the transient nature of all our thoughts and feelings. This allows us to be non-judgmental of all our experiences and train our minds to be detached from momentary sensations. As we become skilled at living with greater consciousness of our true nature and just playing a witness to our minds and senses, we also become better equipped to living in the present and not letting our thoughts (and resultant feelings and sensations) constantly wander in the past or the future.

As we develop greater self-awareness and begin to notice the miracles in all aspects of our life (including the one of our breath going in and out), we start the process of living in greater harmony with nature and away from the dictates of our senses. Living in fuller consciousness of our true nature, and its eternal permanence, creates the ability to live a life full of sustained joy, bliss and compassion. To me, this journey of change, self-awareness, and inner growth, is integral to the journey of personal mastery that I have been writing about.