THE ARRANGEMENT ”SENSE OF SELF” ? FLOW

“Shun ignorance, and likewise shun illusion. Avert thy face from world deceptions; mistrust thy senses, they are false. But within thy body — the shrine of thy sensations—seek in the Impersonal for the “eternal man” (7); and having sought him out, look inward: thou art Buddha (8).

Thy body is not self, thy self is in itself without a body, and either praise or blame affects it not.

Unless thou hearest, thou canst not see.
Unless thou seest thou canst not hear.

When the disciple sees and hears, and when he smells and tastes, eyes closed, ears shut, with mouth and nostrils stopped; when the four senses blend and ready are to pass into the fifth, that of the inner touch
—then into stage the fourth he hath passed on.

And in the fifth, O slayer of thy thoughts, all these again have to be killed beyond reanimation (36).

Withhold thy mind from all external objects, all external sights. Withhold internal images, lest on thy Soul-light a dark shadow they should cast.

THE VOICE OF SILENCE —1889