Do We Have Subtle Sense Organs, Beyond the 5 Physical Senses We Recognise?

We are generally so fixated on the impressions we receive through the action of the five physical sense organs, that we fail to recognise that we frequently sense things without these senses providing any input. For instance, people can frequently sense when someone is staring at them, even when they have not seen nor otherwise experienced the presence of that individual. People sometimes experience fear, or horror in certain circumstances that have otherwise no visible cause for alarm. Sometimes people experience a sense of deep peace , or joy, or calm in a particular locale, such as an old growth forest which can be almost palpable, but is clearly a subtle response to the environment, not based on an external trigger of any of the physical senses.

We know that certain animals can pick up the sense of an imminent earthquake, or some other major event coming their way. The signals they pick up are clearly outside our range of perception, but potentially outside their range of perception, and picked up by a subtle sense of some sort, although, to be clear, many animals possess a sensory input range that exceeds, or at least vastly differs in perceptible frequency, from those of human beings generally.

Individuals who have gone on various types of vision quest frequently report seeing and experiencing things which were not physical manifestations, per se, but which gave them new understanding and insights. Some people report sensing coming events even about circumstances about which they had no prior knowledge or connection. Others report things such as experience of ghosts or vital entities that are somehow in contact with them.

It also seems, sometimes, that certain individuals can sense things that others cannot sense, using some “sixth sense” as it were. The Aboriginal people of Australia are especially noted for their skills in tracking or responding to subtle energies in their environs.

Many people report having visions which arise, not from physical impulses, but from other form of vibration, and which are thus picked up by some subtle sense.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “Not only are there physical realities which are supra-sensible, but, if evidence and experience are at all a test of truth, there are also senses which are supraphysical [n.b. Suksma indriya, subtle organs, existing in the subtle body (sukshma deha), and the means of subtle vision and experience (suksma drsti).] and can not only take cognisance of the realities of the material world without the aid of the corporeal sense-organs, but can bring us into contact with other realities, supraphysical and belonging to another world — included, that is to say, in an organisation of conscious experiences that are dependent on some other principle than the gross Matter of which our suns and earths seem to be made.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch.6 Hidden Worlds and Evolutionary Forces, pg.140