By Gurudevi Nirmalananda
Yoga says we have ten senses, not merely the five about which I learned in 7th grade science class. Your senses of sight, sound, smell, touch and taste are called the j~nanendriyas in Sanskrit. They are modes of perception. Your senses reach out to explore the world. Your mind follows them and you try to construct a sense of self out there. Unfortunately, you have lost your core being, what yoga calls your capital-S Self.
You have five more ways of getting lost, all of them mesmerizing capacities. These are the five modes of action, called karmendriyas: locomotion, handling, speaking, sexuality and excretion. They take up a tremendous amount of mind-space, especially if you’re having trouble in any of these areas in life.
Yoga says that you are the perceiver, not what you perceive. Whatever you are seeing or hearing, as well as what you are doing, you are the one who is experiencing it. You are the experiencer, not the experience. You are the doer, not the action or its results. Know who you are, even while you are perceiving and acting, and you are…
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