Welcome to May
I am amazed by how quickly 2021 is flying by. The sun is starting to come up earlier in the morning which always makes me a happy girl. I love waking up early to the sound of the chickens and the other birds. Gazing towards the Eastern horizon to greet the new day, feel the cool morning breeze on my skin, and deeply breathing in the jasmine that grows on the side of our house is just bliss. I hope you are getting out to enjoy the beautiful mornings because these days are numbered here in Arizona.
Did you enjoy learning about the purusharthas we explored the first four months of this year? If you missed this series on the four aims of life, I invite you to review some of the previous newsletters.
I want to take the next several months to explore the way we experience the world we live in. We take in information and cognize our environment via the 5 senses and the sense organs. This is why building a relationship with our senses and how to care for the sense organs is a very important part of living an Ayurvedic lifestyle.
Therefore, first, control the senses, O excellent among Bharataas, and with force,
definitely kill this destroyer of knowledge and wisdom. 3:41
It is said that the senses are superior (than the body), the mind is superior than the senses, the intellect is superior than the mind, and that (the eternal essence) is superior than the intellect. 3:42
In this way, having known the eternal essence to be superior than the intellect, and having strengthened oneself by oneself, O mighty-armed, slay the insurmountable enemy in the form of desire. 3:43
I love these verses of the Bhagavad Gita regarding the importance of having the ability to control our sense organs rather than having the senses control us. The lesson teaches us that if we are guided by our higher mind, we will have the ability to control the senses rather than being dragged by our senses like wild horses. The metaphor in the picture above illustrates this beautifully. The chariot represents the physical body.
Krishna, the charioteer, is the intellect or the higher mind. The passenger is Arjuna who portrays the individual soul of you and me. The reins symbolize the mind, and the horses are the five senses. Our mind is directly connected to the senses and can “drive” our senses.
Now, imagine if the horses were running wild with no reins to direct them and dragging the chariot behind it. The chariot, aka our body, would be dragged into rocks and flipped to its side, kind of how we feel when our senses and ego run the show.
We live in a world that richly feeds our senses. Just as we can decide to feed ourselves healthy food to build strong tissues, create a calm mind and be beneficial to our well-being, it is the same for our senses. We can look at nature, taste amazing fresh food, listen to the birds, and feel the earth under our feet. In contrast, we can choose an artificial life existing in front of screens, walking on AstroTurf, only listening to sound from speakers, and eating processed foods. Do not get me wrong there is a lot of good that comes from technology. I appreciate how technology can support and connect us. But when we live in an overly manufactured world, we become so disconnected from nature that the disease process sets in.
Each of the five elements that make up the world we live in, earth, water fire, air, and ether/space correlate to one of the five senses. We are literally made of these five elements. Our physical bodies, bones, skin, hair, nail, tendons, ligaments, etc. are made from the earth element. The Earth element is related to the nose and the sense of smell. The water element, the liquid part of us is our sweat, tears, synovial, and cerebrospinal fluid. Water drives the sense of taste and is related to the tongue. The fire element is present in anything that has to do with heat and transformation. Digestive enzymes, hormones, and “hot” organs in the body, heart, liver, and eyes, and the sense of sight are related to the fire element. The air element is related to our breath, movement, the central nervous system and it is what animates us. The air element is related to the skin and the sense of touch. Space is the stage for all the other elements to perform. The womb, thorax, hollow organs, space in the joints, holes in the body, nose, ears, anus, and vagina are all examples of where we would find an abundance of space/ether. Ether element is related to the ears and the sense of hearing.
Luckily, Ayurveda offers specific practices we can implement into our lives to help us to clean, purify and gain control of our sense organs. I look forward to taking the journey through the senses with you over the next five months. We will explore how to clean, control, and guide our senses. The goal is to fully experience the nature that we are and the nature we live in.
From: May 2021 Newsletter