Never for a single moment think that your physical senses are as they should be —they are not. They have been trained. You see things if your society allows to see them. You hear things if your society allows you to hear them. You touch things if your society allows you to touch things.

Man has lost many of his senses — for example, smell. Man has almost lost smell. Just see a dog and his capacity to smell — how sensitive is his nose! Man seems to be very poor. What has happened to man’s nose? Why can’t he smell as deeply as a dog or a horse? The horse can smell for miles. The dog has an immense memory of smells. Man has no memory. Something is blocking his nose.

Those who have been working deep into these layers say that it is because of the repression of sex that smell is lost. Physically man is as sensitive as any other animal, but psychologically his nose has been corrupted. Smell is one of the most sexual doors into your body. It is though smell that animals start feeling whether a male is in tune with the female or not. The smell is a subtle hint. When the female is ready to make love to the male she releases a certain kind of smell. Only through that smell does the male understand that he is acceptable. If that smell is not released by the feminine sexual organism, the male moves away; he is not accepted.

Man has destroyed smell because it will be difficult to create a so-called cultured society if your sense of smell remains natural. You are going along the road and a woman starts smelling and gives you a hint of acceptance. She is somebody else’s wife; her husband is with her. The signal is there that you are acceptable. What will you do? It will be awkward, embarrassing! …

You don’t see people eye to eye; or, if you do see them, it is only for a few seconds. You don’t see people really; you go on avoiding. If you look, it is thought to be offensive. Just remember, do you really see people? Or do you go on avoiding their eyes? — because if you don’t avoid them then you may be able to see a few things which the person is not willing to show. It is not good manners to see something that he is not willing to show, so it is better to avoid. We listen to the words, we don’t see the face — because many times the words and the face are contradictory. A man is saying one thing and he is showing another. Gradually we have completely lost the sense of seeing the face, the eyes, the gestures. We only listen to the words. Just watch this and you will be surprised how people go on saying one thing and showing another.  And nobody detects it because you have been trained not to look directly into the face. Or, even if you look, the look is not that of awareness, not that of attention. It is empty; it is almost as if you are not looking.

We hear sounds by choice. We don’t hear all kinds of sounds — we choose. Whatsoever is useful we hear. And to different societies and different countries, different things are valuable. A man who lives in a primitive world, in a forest, in a jungle, has a different kind of receptivity for sounds. He has to be continuously alert and aware of the animals. His life is in danger. You need not be alert. You live in a cultured world where animals don’t exist anymore and there is no fear. Your survival is not at stake. Your ears don’t function perfectly because there is no need….

People don’t touch each other, they don’t hold hands, they don’t hug each other.  And when you hold somebody’s hand, you feel embarrassed, he feels embarrassed.  Even if you hug somebody, it feels as if something wrong is happening.  And you are in a hurry to get away from the other’s body, because the other’s body can open you. Even children are not allowed to hug their parents. There is great fear, and all fear is basically, deep down, rooted in the fear of sex. There is a taboo against sex. A mother cannot hug her son because the son may get sexually aroused — that is the fear. A father cannot hug his daughter — he is afraid he may get physically aroused. Warmth has its own way of working. Nothing is wrong in being physically aroused or sexually aroused. It is simply a sign that one is alive, that one is immensely alive. But the fear, the sex taboo, says keep away, keep a distance….

That is the whole effort of Yoga: to make your body alive, sensitive, young again, to give your senses their maximum functioning. Then one functions with no taboos around; then lucidity, grace, beauty flow. Warmth arises again, openness — and growth happens. One is constantly new, young, and is always on an adventure. The body becomes orgasmic. Joy surrounds you. Through joy the first corruption disappears; hence my insistence to be joyous, to be celebrating, to enjoy life, to accept the body. Not only to accept it, but to feel grateful that God has given you such a beautiful body, such a sensitive body, with so many doors to relate to reality: eyes and ears and nose and touch. Open all these windows and let life’s breezes flow in, let life’s sun shine in. Learn to be more sensitive. Use every opportunity to be sensitive so that the first filter is dropped….

TECHNIQUE TO ACTIVATE PHYSICAL SENSES

When you are sitting on the grass, close your eyes, become the grass — be grassy. Feel that you are the grass, feel the greenness of the grass, feel the wetness of the grass. Feel the subtle smell that goes on being released by the grass. Feel the dewdrops on the grass — that they are on you. Feel the sunrays playing on the grass. For a moment be lost in it, and you will have new sense of your body. And do it in all kinds of situations: in a river, in a swimming pool, lying on the beach in the sunrays, looking at the moon in the night, lying down with closed eyes on the sand and feeling the sand. Millions of opportunities are there to make your body alive again. And only you can do it. Society has done its work of corruption, you will have to undo it. And once you start hearing, seeing, touching, smelling through joy, then you hear the reality, then you see the reality, then you smell the reality.”