The self has an unlimited capacity to sense, being sat-cit-ananda. These sensations are limited or defined by the body being inhabited. For example, the human body senses light energies across a spectrum that we interpret as red orange yellow green blue indigo violet. Above violet in energy, is ultraviolet, which is not detected by the human eye. Similarly, energies below this light spectrum include infra-red, which again is not visually sensed. Yet we know that these energies are there, because higher authorities have informed us. Thus, the body zeroes in on certain energies, and responds only to those which have been selected by the in-born hardware, the human eye, nerves, and processor called the brain.
We hear sound from roughly 50 cycles per second up to roughly 20, 000. In many cases, the capacity to hear higher-pitch tones diminishes as we age. Yet, if we put a hearing aid into the ear, the extra gain in amplitude enables us to again hear those frequencies. The point being, the capacity to hear remains, but the body’s ability to deliver the sensation may change. The experiencer, the self, continues to have the capacity, and does not change, even if the body cannot deliver adequate stimulation to the sensory capacities. Thus, we are not actually the sensations which we experience, but we are the experiencer. The body provides information, but it is partial, imperfect, and interpreted according to the idea of who is the self.
A new-born child also has the capacity to hear and learn to speak, as an inborn commodity. Given a series of ear infections, the sound signals necessary to stimulate development of language skills may not be experienced by the formative brain. With appropriate treatment, the child will hear, and speech and language can develop. This demonstrates that the self has natural capacities which may or may not be fulfilled by the physical structure, but the capacity to sense and be aware is an integral part of the self, separate from the body, which merely delivers, or not, the sensations to the body and thence to the receptive self.
Thus, the senses are limited and imperfect, as the human body is limited and imperfect. One who identifies fully with the body becomes trapped in a sea of imperfect sensory data and limited processing capacity to make sense of these sensations.
For example, please try the following experiment; touch something around you made of cloth. Next, touch something around you made of metal. Does the metal feel colder than the cloth? Most will say yes. In reality, the objects around you all have exactly the same temperature! The human fingers sense energy transfer, not temperature! The dense metal atoms draw heat readily, while cloth does not transfer heat quickly, so we experience the cloth as warmer, and the metal as colder. This is an instance of misunderstanding the senses, due to a poor fund of knowledge.
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