As children, we learnt about our five senses viz. Sight, Hearing, Taste, Smell and Touch. We learnt that we need all five senses to function in our day to day lives. But as children, we were never taught about our sixth sense – the inner sense or the inner world which exists within each one of us. A world, where our five senses are not required!

The Zen masters say, “ln sleep, we discard the five flowers.” The five flowers refer to our five senses, which we don’t use and don’t need during sleep, as also in death. So, in a sense, we ‘die’ (to our senses) every night. We spend about eight out of every twenty-four hours in sleep i.e.one-third of our entire life. However, while the five senses don’t work during sleep, your heart, lungs and all your vital organs continue to function. Your food gets digested, your skin perspires and your hair and nails continue to grow. And all this, in spite of no interference from your five senses.

How does this happen? It happens because, besides our five senses, we have an inner sense, belonging to our inner-world, called the sixth sense which works around the spirit rather than the physical reality. All ancient spiritual scriptures say that we must go towards this inner-world. In one of his dohas (couplets), Kabirji urges us to go within daily, refering to the inner world. Meerabai’s bhajans (songs of devotion) substantiated the same thought when she sang, “Ghunghat ke patt khol re, Tohey piya milengey.”

As human beings, we all want to be happy and seek happiness through our five senses, outside of ourselves, forgetting the centre, the master, the seat of our sensations – that is, the inner world.

There are so many ways of visiting this inner-world. One of the meditation techniques includes closing the seven openings of the head with your hands. This meditation is very basic and meant for ordinary people like us who are still in the kindergarten of spirituality but who have a desire to enjoy life beyond the mere five senses, by exploring the inner world and experiencing inner-reality. One just has to close the eyes, ears, nose and mouth. The moment these are closed, your consciousness, which is usually flowing out, will be stopped and you’ll ‘go’ within.

Each time you do this meditation, you’ll have a different experience until you reach a point of higher-state, in which you’ll be able to differentiate between the ‘known’ and the ‘knower’, e.g., when you taste a mango, who actually tastes it? ls it you? No. Is it your mouth? No. Is it your tongue? No. Actually, it is your inner-consciousness, your centre, the master, your inner world which controls all your five senses. However, we’re so conditioned that we never think about this. And this is true of all the senses… sound, smell, hearing, touch, and sight.

Now let’s continue the meditation. Once all the seven openings of the face are closed, experiences of those organs cannot distract you because you can’t hear, see, smell, taste or touch. At that very moment, it will create a space between your two eyes called the ‘third-eye’ (eye of intuition), which is your door to the inner world.

The moment you experience this ‘door’ and walk within, you’ve experienced everything there is to know because, with your third eye, you’ll ‘see’ the infinite, which is beyond the five senses. Our physical eyes can only see matter but the real world (of energy, sounds, frequencies etc.) can be seen only with the third eye. This technique is a tool for centring your consciousness. Once the outward flow is halted, the concentration will open the door to the inner world.

In ‘Vigyan Bhairav Tantra’, it said that the third eye is just a space and not part of the physical body or its senses. If you walk in through this space, you’ve known the Universe and there’s nothing more to know or experience. You won’t fear death because you’ve touched the deathless. You’ll experience supreme bliss after being transported into a different state of spiritual consciousness because you’ll be in union with your inner self and with everything else in the Universe. You’ll realise that there’s only one Universal – energy, connecting everyone and everything. We are all one! So welcome to the inner world!!