Freeing the senses

WE need to be more aware of our duty to take care of our senses. We

need to educate them, train them according to what is truly good for

human dignity. We just cannot allow them to move and behave by

themselves.

Yes, our eyes, ears, nose and our sense of touch and the accompanying

feelings, emotions and passions, plus the imagination and memory that

they create, need to be put on the right track. They need to be reined

in, rather than left to follow their immediate, raw and unprocessed

impulses and urges.

In theory, they need to be attached and directed by our higher

faculties of intelligence and will, and even by a more fundamental

principle which is none other than the theological virtues of faith,

hope and charity, that connect us to our ultimate origin and goal,

God.

In practice, however, this is hardly the case. Most of the time,

people just follow what to their thinking “comes naturally.” That is

to say, precisely just what their senses and feelings tell them to

think, desire, speak and do.

This is like letting barbarians to lead the development of

civilization. If ever there is some growth and improvement of culture

attained in this way, it is purely by accident and at a very great

cost, a Pyrrhic victory that involves more losses than gains.

Educating and reining in our senses and feelings in no way means

enslaving them or taking away their freedom, much less violating their

nature. It only means freeing them of their usual error to be on their

own when they in fact need to be guided and directed.

Educating and reining in our senses and feelings, including our

imagination and memory, means purifying them of their usual

limitations that can easily invite errors and deformations, and

empowering them to serve the true good of man.

When this happens, the senses and feelings and their accompanying

components actually enjoy a sublime, exquisite joy and sense of

beauty, a lot more, in fact, incomparably more than the stolen and

illicit pleasure one can derive when he just lets his senses be by

themselves.

When this happens, the senses and feelings actually sing and dance,

completely unburdened by any load of concern even as they continue to

be mindful of the reality of things that surely include negative

elements. But they would know how to deal with them, living a certain

kind detachment and abandonment so indispensable in our life.

Unfortunately this sublime joy and beauty experienced when the senses

relish their true freedom, and not the bogus one, is hardly known by

many people nowadays. It will take some massive and heroic effort to

reverse and correct the situation.

That’s why great attention has to be given in forming the young

children in the right use of their senses, feelings, imagination and

memory. It is necessary that this aspect be taken care of, since these

elements enter into the building up of their character that more or

less, defines their whole life.

How truly nice it would be if the children grow up remaining childlike

in their character even as they get exposed to more and more things in

life—challenges, trials, failures, successes, etc.—and knowing how to

deal with them as a child.

I suppose this is part of the aim of education. It’s paradoxical, of

course, to associate being like a child with human and Christian

maturity. But that’s just how the cookie crumbles.

Christ himself teaches us as much. “Be wise as serpents and simple as

doves.” (Mt 10,16) The reference to doves can easily be the image for

a childlike character. More significantly, Christ says: ‘Unless you be

converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the

kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 18,3)

We have to understand that growing up does not necessarily meaning

leaving behind our childhood. In like manner, becoming an adult with

the accompanying accumulation of knowledge and experience if not

wisdom does not necessarily mean we have to be all serious and discard

the use of the senses and feelings.

While it’s true that there is a distinction between a child and an

adult, and between our senses and our intellect and will, we need to

understand that these pairs need to be blended in some mutual relation

that works for the true good of our humanity as defined by natural law

and ultimately by our faith in God.

We have to overcome the dichotomy between the two elements. We have to

work toward truly freeing our senses to let them serve our authentic

dignity.