Sensitivity and Emotionality

When a child is born, it is in its most natural state of mind, like a ‘tabula rasa’ or blank slate, as Locke, a famous German philosopher pointed out. It instantly reacts to any change that occurs in its body or surroundings; it shivers at any loud noise and cries at any small pain sensation in the body. However, gradually as a child grows old, it is trained to deliberately ignore and overcome the sensitivity towards the body and the physical world. A newborn’s natural tendency to be attentive towards the surroundings begins to lull. We gradually train kids to take more interest in the artificially created sounds and sights which they are exposed to in order to learn about the surroundings they lives in. They are consciously trained to begin requiring a medium for everything they sense be it telephones, TV, radio, loud speakers, e-mails, or web cameras to connect with people. A child is unnaturally taught and hence perilously  dumbfounded and blindfolded by the influx of enormous information about the world ! Hence a child barraged with information, but is bereft of his/her inner ability to connect with the nature in a very natural way; s(he) turns deaf to several natural sounds coming from the environment like chirping of birds, rustle of wind, smell of a flower, ripples in the water etc. We call it ‘adjustment to the environment’, a progress of humanity!

By the time a child grows into an adult it becomes so ‘insensitive to the nature’ but ‘informative about the world around’. One is taught to become emotional and react at everything from one’s own point of view. And we become opinioned, passionate and emotional but our sensitivity fades away. We loose that sense of awe and surprise which we used to experience as an innocent child. Simple things like colorful butterflies wandering on flowers, ants creeping in a line carrying food, fragrance of a rose (when did you last smell a rose BTW) doest not excite us any more. We ignore simple natural beauty of the world and move on. We become less an observer and more a mechanical receiver and processor of information.

Hardly do we realize what especial abilities and powers have been bestowed on us as human beings. However, a truly spiritual person has the ability to catch unusual frequencies spread in the world without any medium. He can have all the information about the world without any physical medium. A yogi or a soul engineer enhances his sensitivity of senses like sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste to its highest point. The extreme sensitivity of one’s senses is about making the maximum use of each of them and enhancing their ability to experience the subtleties of the world. Our body is like a machine. It has senses which can be used as adaptive and absorbable mechanics to receive and send minutest information to the brain; the senses are able to catch most minute message or information if we make the maximum use of them. This is all possible if one can develop one’s senses. Our mind it self is a very strong medium. It has immense power. As we have scattered the power of our consciousness in thousands of thoughts and objects, it has lost its sheen, its force and patina. It is like any other five senses for a yogi. It can catch frequencies if one focuses in one direction. It can sense these frequencies and interpret it in the right context.

In common parlance it may not be very easy to differentiate between the two notions of sensitivity and emotionality. We tend to use them as synonymous words. We presume that a sensitive person would be emotional as well. However, for a yogi these two words have an entirely different connotation. Emotionality is related to our gross sensations. Emotions either hurt or please our sensations. Emotions are grounded in bodily sensations of pleasure and pain. Although an infant is certainly more sensitive but emotionality is from birth while sensitivity has to be cultivated through meditation. It has to be inculcated by practice or sadhna. It has to be earned. As a worldly wise person can easily read others facial expression and understand how one is feeling, so does a true saint become sensitive to all the souls around him, their thoughts, sankalp and vikalp as he gains the ability to see subtle things which common human mind cannot even think of.

Another difference between emotionality and sensitivity is that emotionality is most of the time associated with a central point the self or ego who experiences the emotion of love, hate, anger, compassion etc. Emotionality somewhere is about associating things with oneself. It assumes a self. It is ‘I’ who feels, sympathizes and reacts to a particular person or situation. It is a human disposition. But a truly sensitive person, who understands the call of his /her inner voice, does not see and listen to it with his own ego or vantage point. He listens to these calls with indifference, as a seeker of truth. The closer he moves towards the nature, the more virtuosity dawns on him and the more loving, compassionate and tolerant one becomes. And this affinity with nature also teaches one to control one’s emotions better. Becoming more sensitive is about becoming less emotional, as it’s a sign of egoist and weak soul who attaches positive and negative feelings with things and people around. A sensitive person may not get easily moved but knows what would be the best ‘ordained’ action for him in any and every situation.

While attachment and emotionality is based on feeling which arise due to our sense organs, sensitivity is acquired by using mind as another sense. That is where the common phrase ‘sixth sense’ comes from. A true seer can use his mind itself as an additional sense organ by focusing and gathering the power of one’s inner hidden soul. We can change the direction of these sensations by using them more sharply by meditation. With more sensitivity one moves from phenomena to noumena, from the physical to the subtle. This journey from physical to subtle or non-physical awareness is very gradual for a yogi. One becomes more alert and more receptive to the surroundings. One is always aware of what is going on around you. We have so much within ourselves to please sensations of hearing. We can listen to our inner music, the sounds coming straight from the heart. Hence, while emotionality is within the limits of mind, the sensitivity dawns when one goes beyond the limits of one’s mind.

One who knows one’s soul knows not only the secret of his body but also the secret of nature. Sun, moon, earth and sky reveal their secrets to him. The power of his senses grows manifold. A person gradually acquires the ability to hear far and mystical, extra terrestrial music within his body, and can perceive minute scenes. This revelation of the grandeur of the nature is so overwhelming that after this diving revelation, one’s general inclination towards the worldly pleasure begins diminishing. The attraction towards the divine is so tremendous that a seeker’s adoration of the divine grows by leaps and bounds. This in turn lessens his attraction and interest in the material world and its affairs. Such a person’s senses are easily able to sense the positive and negative vibes of the environment.

Usually in our day today life our center is elsewhere. We are so lost in the mundane affairs that we loose connection with ourselves. For instance, I decide to go for a super bowl final. I am very excited about it since morning. I buy the ticket online, I get ready, call friends and take a ride with them to go. Throughout the way I discuss the expected winners of the match. During the game also I am super thrilled; completely engrossed in the game, I watch each and every move of the game, and nothing goes unnoticed from my sight. But where is myself in all this? Didn’t I lose connection with my inner self in this worldly affair? I saw emotional upheavals with my favorite team, I attached my entire awareness with my team members for the whole day, but I completely lost connection with myself. I was in my body but my mind was not with me at all. It was with the ball, the game, the players and the trophy. My emotional self was alive but my sensitive self completely lost connection with myself. Here meditation can help. By meditation we can begin returning to ourselves, from mentally absent to mentally present. More sensitivity and awareness means returning to our center. Attachment means you fix your center to something other than you, something mundane and external to you.

One can enhance one’s awareness and alertness through meditation. As you increase the sensitivity of your senses, you will see magical changes in your life. You will be able to smell, hear, perceive and feel unusual things, which might not be noticed by a common person. One major change which occurs in a seeker who has enhanced the level of his sensitivity is that he becomes more and more detached to the mundane things in life. Sensitivity and detachment are directly proportional. The more is the sensitivity in a person the more detached is a person from the world around himself. This is because becoming more sensitive is about knowing ‘things in themselves, as they are’ rather than ‘how they feel to me or how it fairs in my views’. This neutral view point towards things makes a seeker more detached to the world. The reason is that we do not involve our egos in sensing them. You become sensitive towards the miniscule things. Attachment is physical while sensitivity is a subtle trait. You become competent to sense and catch minutest feels and changes in the surroundings or nature. Its an ability which you can work on develop.

However, if we want to enhance our sensitivity, we need to work on it. We can develop our sensitivity through meditation, which helps us to go beyond our usual chain of worldly thoughts and reach the core of our soul. We can get back our inherent trait sensitivity through meditation. We need to enhance the level of our alertness to this extent that we could see what is going on within, become more aware and thus more sensitive. Human have hidden secret power. The more one concentrates the more inherent power one gathers by more alertness. Immense power lies in the consciousness our soul as a precious gemstone. But we have spread it in thousands of external things instead of focusing it only our inner source of knowledge. Bring your entire consciousness together, become more sensitive towards your inner core and you can win the entire universe!