If all senses were shut off - contemplation

[Mz Hyde]

During meditation session the other day my mind got into contemplative mode and started toying with this idea. It started very subtly by thinking about what it would look like if I didn't have one of all the senses (first sight, then hearing and so on). Then I started to dwell on each sense individually and combine it with each other one by one, imagining what it would be like if all the sensations of those senses simply disappeared. After adding the third sense into the game it became pretty deep, but I kept going. Finally I tried to imagine what it would be like to totally shut off every sense (not only physical, but emotions too). I realized that not only would I not be able to communicate with others or do anything, but that I would no longer be sure what I was or whether I even existed. But I guess it wouldn't even matter to me anymore at that point. Would I still be thinking? Would I even have anything to think about if I didn't feel anything at all? Can thoughts exist without feelings? Since the self concept is just a system of thoughts, would it be affected in some way and if so how? Would the self just disappear? Would only pure consciousness remain?

What are your thoughts on this?

[Etherial Cat]

Experiment it for yourself...

Get into a sensory deprivation tank. 

[Mz Hyde]

@Etherial Cat But I'd still have vestibular and kinesthetic sensations in my body, taste in my mouth, smell, feelings as well...

[Moksha]

It's said that the wise learn to withdraw their senses, as a tortoise draws in its limbs. The senses threaten to flood us from the spiritual path, but in stillness we discover the pure awareness that we are.

The way to enlightenment is learning to remain aware, while reengaging with the phenomenal world. We are in it, and able to enjoy it, while realizing that we are not of it.

[Breakingthewall]

imagine that a wire is cut in your brain, and all of your senses are suddenly disconnected. where would you be? would there be time? How would you measure it? By preserving your memory, you would continue to think of words, images from the past, ideas. but in that emptiness they would be useless. one moment would be the same as another. the thoughts would dilute, and after 10, 20, 30 years, you would be in total silence, like a fetus before birth. your mind would lose its limitations and would become infinite. You would be empty of content, but full of you, in the no time. what you always were

[Mz Hyde]

3 minutes ago, Moksha said:

It's said that the wise learn to withdraw their senses, as a tortoise draws in its limbs.

How the one does this?

3 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

imagine that a wire is cut in your brain, and all of your senses are suddenly disconnected.

That's exactly what I did.

4 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

the thoughts would dilute, and after 10, 20, 30 years, you would be in total silence, like a fetus before birth. your mind would lose its limitations and would become infinite. You would be empty of content, but full of you, in the no time. what you always were

Why do you think that would happen? Why do you think that nothingness exhausts thoughts?

[Breakingthewall]

well, obviously it's just hypothetical, but I imagine that after many years without any stimulation, without sensory information or perception of where or when, the thoughts will gradually cease until they disappear. thoughts are to contrast some things with others. If there is nothing to contrast, the thoughts should disappear

Edited October 22, 2021 by Breakingthewall

[Moksha]

8 minutes ago, Mz Hyde said:

How the one does this?

Through meditation, not by thinking what it would be like to withdraw the senses, but by letting go of thoughts entirely, and abiding in the silence of the Self.

[Etherial Cat]

@Mz Hyde

It's designed to make you forget your body. From what I can recall, there is no smell and the taste in your mouth is by default so familiar you don't pay attention to it in daily life. Except if you do the fatal mistake to bite into some raw onion.  

Feelings are not a sense, just like thoughts aren't a sense. They are both part of mind and what creates a sense of self through identification.

As a human being, you can't ever expect to stop having feelings or thoughts. But as far as I know, thoughts can be drastically diminished by doing serious spiritual work or via enlightenment.

24 minutes ago, Mz Hyde said:

Can thoughts exist without feelings?

Both are tied to one another. A thought should be linked to its corresponding feeling. The reason most of us do not experience this is because the average human nowadays is so emotionally repressed and fragmented.

29 minutes ago, Mz Hyde said:

Since the self concept is just a system of thoughts, would it be affected in some way and if so how? Would the self just disappear? Would only pure consciousness remain?

Nope. Nothing would have been done to stop the mind from the level you're talking. To do this, it's meditation, psychadelics or death.  

[Dazgwny]

Funny as I spent a couple of days the other week with similar at the top of my contemplations. I was thinking about having more senses than what we have as humans. What other type of senses there might be that I can’t even comprehend. And wondered if I had all possible senses simultaneously, infinite senses, that I would just be completely infinite without being able to distinguish any particular one, therefore all cancelling each other out, so simultaneously having no senses at all. So I concluded that withdrawing all senses would be exactly the same as having all senses. I would be completely infinite in both cases as both are exactly the same. Which made total sense to me of the notion of God, the infinite, being both everything and nothing simultaneously. It was really the perfect strange loop how I grasped it.

Our senses are our limitations. But in a peculiar way the less senses you have, the more limited you become, until you actually reach zero, then you become infinite. The more you have the less limited you become, until that point where not one can be distinguished from another and you’ve come completely full circle and ended up at the exact same place, infinite.

There seems truly to be no way to escape infinity. No matter which direction you head in. Ya just come full circle and it’s absolutely fucking astonishing when you really think about it. Totally understandable why God limits itself, why it has to, to experience anything at all, as in itself.

[Fearless_Bum]

@Mz Hyde there is no pure consciousness, this is your warm blanket to keep you safe from annihilation. 

All that's there is ........

That's it. 

I would challenge this idea of senses, are your senses even there right now?

 

[BipolarGrowth]

This is the conclusion of what your contemplation/intuition is leading you to IMO.  
 

Fruition (phala in Pali) is the fruit of all the meditator’s hard work, the first attainment of ultimate reality, emptiness, nirvana, nibbana, ultimate potential, or whatever extrapolative and relatively inaccurate name you wish to call something utterly non-sensate. In this non-state, there is absolutely no time, no space, no reference point, no experience, no mind, no consciousness, no awareness, no background, no foreground, no nothingness, no somethingness, no body, no this, no that, no unity, no duality, and no anything else. “Reality” stops cold and then reappears.

https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/30-the-progress-of-insight/15-fruition/

Please also note that, like Fruition, there is no experience at all during NS. There is no time, no space, no something, no nothing, not anything at all. Just as a desktop computer shuts down totally when you press the power button, so too with anything to do with experience in NS. I have friends who have talked about something they got into where they could still feel time passing, and that is definitely not it. NS is like the ultimate rest for the mind, something far beyond even deep sleep, as even a few seconds in it leaves one with a massive feeling of having gone extremely deep in a way nothing else can match.

 

https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-v-awakening/37-models-of-the-stages-of-awakening/the-cessation-of-perception-and-feeling-nirodha-samapatti/

[OneHandClap]

This is a good contemplation, and one that can lead to extremely profound states quickly. I've posted in other threads before, but an easy way to do this is to view each sensory field as "not me, not mine" and as a totally random happening that you cannot control. If you relax the need to modify the senses over and over, it will result in a loss of clinging, and subsequently a detachment from that sensory field. 

[sara373]

7 hours ago, Dazgwny said:

Funny as I spent a couple of days the other week with similar at the top of my contemplations. I was thinking about having more senses than what we have as humans. What other type of senses there might be that I can’t even comprehend. And wondered if I had all possible senses simultaneously, infinite senses, that I would just be completely infinite without being able to distinguish any particular one, therefore all cancelling each other out, so simultaneously having no senses at all. So I concluded that withdrawing all senses would be exactly the same as having all senses. I would be completely infinite in both cases as both are exactly the same. Which made total sense to me of the notion of God, the infinite, being both everything and nothing simultaneously. It was really the perfect strange loop how I grasped it.

Our senses are our limitations. But in a peculiar way the less senses you have, the more limited you become, until you actually reach zero, then you become infinite. The more you have the less limited you become, until that point where not one can be distinguished from another and you’ve come completely full circle and ended up at the exact same place, infinite.

There seems truly to be no way to escape infinity. No matter which direction you head in. Ya just come full circle and it’s absolutely fucking astonishing when you really think about it. Totally understandable why God limits itself, why it has to, to experience anything at all, as in itself.

yes but.. who is rhis God you speak of? Why is the term 'itself'?

[sara373]

6 hours ago, Fearless_Bum said:

@Mz Hyde there is no pure consciousness, this is your warm blanket to keep you safe from annihilation. 

All that's there is ........

That's it. 

I would challenge this idea of senses, are your senses even there right now?

 

you mean empty or nothingness? 

why isn't there pure consciousness?, also what do you mean annihilation? I have some questions..

[Mz Hyde]

9 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

thoughts are to contrast some things with others. If there is nothing to contrast, the thoughts should disappear

That's a good point, thanks!

9 hours ago, Moksha said:

Through meditation, not by thinking what it would be like to withdraw the senses, but by letting go of thoughts entirely, and abiding in the silence of the Self.

I'll keep trying..

9 hours ago, Etherial Cat said:

 

Feelings are not a sense, just like thoughts aren't a sense. They are both part of mind and what creates a sense of self through identification.

But feelings have physical component as well.

@Dazgwny That's very interesting, thank you for sharing!

9 hours ago, Dazgwny said:

There seems truly to be no way to escape infinity. No matter which direction you head in.

This is so well said.

@Fearless_Bum Questions that I had @sara373 already asked.

@BipolarGrowth Wow.. this is deep stuff. I'll have to examine it thoroughly later.

@OneHandClap Thanks for the advice, I'll try it!

 

One more question: Do senses partaken in creating self, or is it just the matter of thoughts?

[Fearless_Bum]

@sara373 @Mz Hyde pure consciousness implies that there is a state of pure consciousness that you might reach and that your consciousness right now is impure.

But your consciousness doesn't even exist. What's happening is we are using the word consciousness the same way we would use the word soul, spirit, etc. 

I mean think about how silly it is talking about my consciousness, your consciousness, etc. Like wtf are we really talking about, nothing lol. We may as well speak about our souls and say nice lofty things about them.

The raw ....... is all that's there, that's it and there is no consciousness there or you either. 

By annihilation, I mean the end of you, and the complete hijacking of the natural order. 

[Moksha]

10 hours ago, Mz Hyde said:

I'll keep trying..

Good. Meditation will prepare you, but enjoy the journey within, rather than holding your happiness hostage to an awakening state. Even a moment of true stillness is beautiful. Awakening is a gift, not an accomplishment, and usually it happens when there has been enough suffering to ripen you for the realization.

[Mz Hyde]

@Moksha I'm not chasing awakening or anything else. I meditate for the sake of it. Thanks for advice!

[Moksha]

@Mz Hyde Glad to hear that you have discovered the simple joy of it ?