The Path to Freedom: Mastering the Art
of Total Perception

by Swami Krishnananda

The act of self-control in spiritual sadhana needs not merely great understanding, but also power of will. The force of volition that is exerted in self-restraint is really like the dynamo that generates the power, without which the vehicle of spiritual practice will not move. Though we have heard a lot about the power of will and its importance in every activity of life, when we come to spiritual practice, we realise that it constitutes not merely a psychological function but something deeper, and seems to reflect in itself a power which cannot be equated with mental activity.

In Sanskrit we use the term buddhi-shakti to understand what generally goes by the name of will power. As a matter of fact, there is no proper equivalent in English to designate this particular force which, at a particular stage, reveals itself to be an agent of a deeper energy within us, rather than a reaction set up on account of the perception of an object. There is a great difference between the will which is merely a psychological function, and the will which is buddhi-shakti or the power of understanding. Our capacity to discriminate, understand and judge plays a dual role in every walk of life.

We have, as it is usually said, a lower nature and a higher nature. The lower nature is what may be regarded as the sum total or the cumulative effect of the sensations and the perceptions in which we are involved daily. The sensations and perceptions in terms of objects of the world get sifted in the act of intellectual judgement, and the essence of these sensations and perceptions crystallises itself into what we call understanding. From this point of view, human understanding is not independent of sensory reaction. We do not act as independent judges of the objects of the world if our judgement is based on the sensations and perceptions which are conveyed to us through the senses. But there seems to be within us something which is independent. Sometimes it is called the pure reason – not the ratiocinating power which plays second fiddle mostly to sensory reactions, but a pure, unadulterated capacity to understand which knows things directly in an immediacy, rather than indirectly through the mediate process of sensations and perceptions.

When we say we lack the power of will, that our will is weak, and so on, we generally complain of our incapacity to judge objects and situations independently. In other words, it is equal to saying that the objects control us, rather than our controlling the objects. The impressions produced by the processes of sensation and perception sit so heavily upon our understanding that they may be said to cloud it and prevent a larger understanding; and if our understanding is to work at all in terms of these reactions of stimuli received from outside, its function will be in terms of these impressions which are already embedded on its surface.

It is like the sun peeking through the clouds, to give an example. When the light of the sun passes through a thick layer of cloud, it appears to go through a transformation in terms of the quality of the cloud and the way in which they are arranged, and so on. In the same way, the understanding, which really is a kind of light within us, gets so influenced by the impressions heaped upon it that for all practical purposes it is only a handmaid or a tool of the impressions that seek expression.

The impressions which are produced in the process of objective sensation and perception bear an intimate relation to the objects of the world. The objects react upon our minds and produce these impressions, and the impressions, again, have a tendency to move towards the very same objects, or objects of similar character. There is a kind of vicious circle created in our process of perception: objects producing impressions, and impressions again tending to contact objects of the world. In this vicious circle, if our mind is to get involved, then naturally our will is weak.

Where is independence in this process of psychological functions? We are wedded to objects. The objects determine our thinking and feeling, and as long as we are restrained by the chains of objects of sense, so long we are in samsara, and so long also our will is incapable of working except as ordained by the objects of the world. But when we speak of the power of will, in spiritual sadhana particularly, we refer to something different and markedly distinct in its constitution because here in this spiritual activity of the exercise of the will, we utilise not the impressions produced in our mind through the processes of sensation and perception, but the light of the understanding directly.

There is a mistake that we commit when we contact objects of sense, on account of which it is that we become generally weak in our will – the mistake being our attunement with the objects, rather than with what we really are. The mind is midway between the objects of sense and what we truly are in our own subjective essence. We are not a description of merely objective references. What we call ourselves as the Self is something which cannot be equated with merely a bundle of sensations, perceptions, etc. There is something asserting itself within us, and this assertion is something which our understanding is unable to explain through its logic. It is this indomitable assertion within us which is responsible for all activities within us, psychological as well as physical.

The mind receives a push from a force that is behind it, and it is also pulled by the senses, so it receives an impact of a push and a pull, simultaneously. The force within pushes it forward for a particular purpose, and the objects outside pull it in the direction of the senses. Now, where comes the question of will?

What is will? The will would be that particular activity of the mind whereby it brings about a reconciliation between this push and pull and understands its true position, midway between an essence which seems to be its background and the temptations standing before it as the objects of the world. If the mind is to be interpreted always in terms of desires for objects, then there is no question of independent exercise of the power of the will. There would be only a yielding of the mind to the demands of the objects. To flow with the current of the river is easier than to run upstream. The senses naturally tend towards the objects because the objects and the senses are constituted of similar essences, called the tanmatras. In Sanskrit we call these tanmatras as sabdha, sparsha, rupa, rasa and gandha. It is difficult to know what these tanmatras are, but suffice it to say they are the subtle essences out of which the physical universe is constituted, and are subtler than even electric force. To these tanmatras, even the pranas are gross. Such are the tanmatras.

These subtle essences constitute the forces which subjectively form the sensations within us, and objectively constitute the physical objects. So there is a mutual friendship between the objects and the fivefold senses. When we live in a sense world, therefore, there is no question of power of will. Sometimes we appear to be exercising a kind of freedom of choice, while really that freedom is listening to the voice of the senses.

Hypnotised patients appear to have a kind of freedom. The patient acts exactly according to the instructions of the physician, who by the power of his will hypnotised the mind of the patient. The patient will move in a particular direction, do certain things, perhaps speak certain words, all with the notion that he or she is doing this independently out of freedom of choice, not knowing that all these activities are directed by the will of the hypnotist. The patient will not know what is happening.

Similarly, there is a likelihood of the mind getting hypnotised by desires for objects of sense, such that we are likely to mistake dependence for independence, slavery for freedom, subjection for exercise of independent power of will. This is exactly what is happening in the world. No man can be said to be absolutely free, though each one thinks he is free, to a large extent. The freedom is only to be dependent on others. That is all the freedom that one has. It is not possible to be truly independent as long as we work through the senses, as long as we live in a world of objects, and as long as we live in a relative world.

To be related is to be dependent. There is a mutual relation between the mind and the objects, one influencing the other, one determining the other, one being impossible without the other. So in this circular motion of the objects and the mind thinking the objects, there cannot be freedom. This circular motion is again what is known as samsara: movement in a whorl, being caught in the current of this vicious activity of subjective tendency in the form of mind, and objective form in the shape of the things of the world.

As long as we are caught up in this vicious circle, there cannot be independent judgement. Desires shall control us. For all practical purposes, what we call this ‘us’ or ‘we’ or ‘I’ is a bundle of these psychological functions. It is on account of laying too much emphasis on this aspect of individual personality that many Western psychologists do away with the notion of the Self, thinking that the self is all that there is, which is nothing more than a bundle of sensations. They cannot understand that there is an Atman, or can be an Atman, behind the groups of sensations and reactions of perceptions.

What do you see when you analyse your own self? You see only thoughts, feelings and ideas, and all these are in terms of certain things outside. What are you then, independently? The sceptic Hume of England concluded that, “When I look into myself, I see nothing but a bundle of these threads of thoughts, feelings, emotions and ideas; and if these threads were to be cast aside, rent asunder, there would be no self.” This was the conclusion of the master sceptic that the world has produced – as, for example, if you cast away all the threads of a cloth, there will be no cloth. What is cloth, independent of the threads; and what is the self, independent of the thoughts, feelings and these psychological functions? This is the empirical self that we try to analyse.

All human beings live in an empirical world. We are all empirical beings, whatever be our aspirations from the bottom of our hearts. We cannot get rid of the idea that we are bodies and, therefore, cannot free ourselves from the clutches of the objects of the world which bear a relation to the body in which we are encased. The body is pulled by the objects and vice versa, with a gravitational attraction, as it were; and the mind lodged in this body is again influenced in terms of these attractions.

This is why astrologers tell us that planets can also influence minds. You will be wondering how the mind can be influenced by planets. They indirectly influence the mind by the influence they exert on the bodies. If the mind were independent of the body, there would be no such influence of the mind, but the mind is so much dependent on the body that whatever happens to the body seems to also happen to the mind. So if there is a magnetic pull of the planets over the bodies, well, they should also have the very same influence on the minds, which are dependent on bodies.

But there is a great secret in the way in which the will is to be exerted in the practice of spiritual sadhana. We have to turn the tables round when we enter into the field of spiritual activity. It is as if we start looking at things through a new set of spectacles. We begin to see things in a new way altogether.

What is this new way, this novel method? This method is not to think in terms of objects, because to think in terms of objects is the opposite of self-restraint. Self-control is the attempt at thinking in such a way that the mind does not depend on objects for its thinking. It can think even without objects, and even if objects are to be there in front of it, it need not be interpreted in terms of objects. When we are constantly tempted from all sides by objects of sense, self-restraint is almost an impossibility because to restrain the self is to restrain the tendency of the mind to think in terms of objective description.

Every sadhaka should find a little time daily to think along these lines. “Do I think? Yes. But what do I think?” Questions should be very precise, incisive, and the answers should be to the point. “When I think, what do I think at any given moment?” And our answer would naturally be that we think something that is external to the mind, outside the mind – perhaps, in most cases, an object. “But why do I think this object?” may be our next question. First of all, our question was, “What do I think?” Now our question is, “Why do I think this?” which is a more difficult question to answer because we cannot know why we think an object.

Why do I think this call-bell in front of me? This question can only be answered if I know what thinking is. The analysis of the structure of the process of thinking would promise a kind of answer to the question of why the mind thinks objects at all. And on the basis of the answer that is obtained in this manner, we may gain some strength with which we can wield self-restraint; otherwise, self-restraint would be only talk.

We can restrain anyone or anything in this world, but we cannot restrain ourselves because we are made in such a way that we move towards objects of sense. We may wonder, “Do we really move towards objects?” Now, we are being seated here in the hall. Or, we may be in our puja room; we are not physically moving, so how could we be moving towards objects?

The physical body is not such a compact, localised substance as it appears. To give an example, the flame of the lamp is at one place, it is not everywhere, but the flame can shed its rays around to some distance. In this sense we may say the flame travels, though the flame really never travels. If we keep the lamp on a table in the centre of the room, for example, the flame is just there on a particular spot, occupying only one square inch of area, but it can reach up the walls of the room through the light that it sheds. But what is this light? It is the flame itself moving through its own constituents. The constituents of the flame move, and this movement of the very structure of the flame is called the movement of the rays of light.

Sunlight travels, we may say. Sunlight impinges on our body, touches the surface of the Earth, and the influence that is exerted by the Sun on the Earth is exactly a kind of contact subtly established between the constituents of the Sun and the body of the Earth. This process of physical contact continuously takes place through vibrations. Instead of a ray of light, we may call it vibrations. It is on account of the presence of what we call vibrations that we are asked to have a satsanga and not dussanga. “Do not keep bad company,” we are told. We should not even sit with an evil-minded person because we may be influenced, though the person might not speak at all.

Now, what is this influence? The influence is a kind of emanation, we may say, from the body and personality of another, which has an impact on our personality. There is a physical contact, perhaps even a psychological union. This is the rational reason behind the favour of satsanga and against dussanga. Well, this is by the way, to explain what dussanga is.

Now, when we are in the midst of objects of sense, there is an emanation mutually taking place between our bodies and the bodies outside us. The very presence of bodies stimulates our senses, and the senses become activated; they become alive. They rise up and gaze at the objects through an eye which is not physical. The senses have a peculiar way of contacting objects even without our consciously knowing what is happening in our mind. The way in which vibrations work is subtle; secretly, in the deeper recesses of our personality, activities may be going on when we are completely oblivious of what is happening. We may only return with a disturbed mind without knowing what the cause of our disturbance is. There are some people who are very sensitive and when they go to certain places, they immediately get influenced by the vibrations of the place.

If we go to a burial ground, we will be influenced in a particular manner, though we may not be aware that it is a burial ground. If we go to a holy place, the influence will be altogether different. It is said that Gauranga Mahaprabhu came in search of the real birthplace of Sri Krishna, and when he approached a particular spot which today goes by the name of Brindavan, he felt thrilled and said, “This must have been the place of the birth of Sri Krishna.” It is called Madhuvana, in ancient tradition. There was the receptive capacity in his mind to feel the vibrations subtly working in that atmosphere.