Technique: Find whether you live with the senses or the mind?

This is a beautiful technique Swamiji gave during the Shiva Sutras discourse, ‘From Logic to Love’:

“This is a technique for those people who are living intensely with the senses. I want all of you to understand we do not normally live with senses. We live with the mind. Let me tell you how to find out whether we are living with senses or the mind. For example, let us say you have your fantasy or visualization about some ecstasy or experience or joy, maybe about drinking or smoking or physical pleasure or lust or some food. If you have a fantasy about how it is going to be, then when you actually enjoy it, just ask yourself ‘Is this actual experience deeper than my fantasy?’

If the actual experience is stronger than the fantasy about it, then you are living with the senses. When you are enjoying, if the actual experience is less intense than the fantasy about it, you are living in the mind.

Fantasy is mind, experience is senses. You yourself can find out whether you are living in the mind or in the senses. If you are living in the senses, enlightenment is easy for you. Unfortunately, we do not live in the senses. We have stopped living naturally because of so much of advertisement for almost anything! Ads for the food make your fantasies about food too big and experiences too small.

We have lost connection with the senses. We are living in the mind, cerebral layer. Our life is now centered in the cerebral layer. For a person who is centered on the senses, enlightenment or experiencing the reality, truth is lot easier.”