Sensitivity; The Good Kind and the Bad Kind.

We all know someone who’s too easily hurt. It’s the kind of person who’s oversensitive and easily offended. Paramahansa Yogananda described this kind of person as “touchy.” When feeling offended, he or she tends to either bite back or sulk. Although the tendency stems from an inferiority complex, it ultimately lay rooted in an uncontrolled ego. Oversensitive people make themselves and everyone around them suffer needlessly.

So, then, why do Yogis constantly tell us we need to become “more sensitive?”

Because, you might say, there’s the good kind and the bad kind.

The bad kind, as found in the problem of touchiness, comes in the cargo bag of an untamed ego. Anything untamed is naturally lacking many refinements. In this case, sensitivity presents itself as an egoic perception. And perception is just that: perception. In this case, it is perception that is entirely lacking in the wisdom to see other people’s pain, as well as the many possible reasons behind their seemingly offensive behavior or words.

The good kind has to do with with what we refer to in Yoga as intuition. It is associated with the sixth energy center, appropriately called “the third eye,” since when open, it engenders a more pervasive view into the subtler aspects of existence. Downgraded in the Age of Enlightenment, through its dualistic opposition with reason—that most prized of human attributes—it was relegated to the sidelines and has been little understood in the west.

But, symbolized by the tilak markings and the bindi dots on the foreheads of the wandering holy seekers in India, it is looked upon there, as the seat of heightened awareness. Associated with the pituitary gland, it is the master control tower of the brain itself.  Rather than sitting in dualistic opposition to left-brained, rational function, it supersedes duality altogether. In its containment of all, it is the awakening of this eye that awakens the ability to see the unseen. It is what all the spiritual teachers mean when they assure you that you’ll know what to do. You can call it intuition, but you can also call it the “good kind of sensitive.”