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A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga576
A sensation is the internal, mental conception, resulting from an external
object or fact exciting the sense organs and nerves, and the brain, thus
making the mind “aware” of the external object or fact. As Bain has said,
it is the “mental impression, feeling, or conscious state, resulting from the
action of external things on some part of the body, called on that account,
sensitive.”
Each channel of sense impressions has an organ, or organs, peculiarly
adapted for the excitation of its substance by the particular kind of
vibrations through which it receives impressions. The eye is most cunningly
and carefully designed to receive the light-waves; and sound-waves
produce no effect upon it. And, likewise, the delicate mechanism of the ear
responds only to sound-waves; light-waves failing to register upon it. Each
set of sensations is entirely different, and the organs and nerves designed
to register each particular set are peculiarly adapted to their own special
work. The organs of sense, including their special nervous systems, may be
compared to a delicate instrument that the mind has fashioned for itself,
that it may investigate, examine and obtain reports from the outside world.
We have become so accustomed to the workings of the senses that we take
them as a “matter of course,” and fail to recognize them as the delicate and
wonderful instruments that they are—designed and perfected by the mind
for its own use. If we will think of the soul as designing, manufacturing and
using these instruments, we may begin to understand their true relations to
our lives, and, accordingly treat them with more respect and consideration.
We are in the habit of thinking that we are aware of all the sensations
received by our mind. But this is very far from being correct. The unconscious
regions of the mind are incomparably larger than the small conscious area
that we generally think of when we say “my mind.” In future lessons we
shall proceed to consider this wonderful area, and examine what is to be
found there. Taine has well said, “There is going on within us a subterranean
process of infinite extent; its products alone are known to us, and are only
known to us in the mass. As to elements, and their elements, consciousness