It was through my dear friend Paresh Degaonkar that I had the privilege of meeting Divyanshu Ganatra — a remarkable soul, adventurer, and founder of Adventures Beyond Barriers Foundation (ABBF) https://divyanshuganatra.com. Blind since the age of 19, Divyanshu sees more clearly than most of us with sight. Our conversation left a deep imprint on me, challenging my understanding of perception and presence. In our conversation, he gently reminded me that there is a world beyond the eyes — one that cannot be seen, only felt. A world you must experience to truly realise. It is in this unseen world that silence speaks, stillness listens, and the ears — not the eyes — become our gateway to presence. That meeting stayed with me like a whisper in meditation and inspired me to share Osho’s reflection: Ears Are Meditative.
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Blind people become very, very perceptive. Because they are blind, they become very perceptive. Because their eyes are not functioning, the whole energy and the capacity to see moves to their ears. Their ears become substitutes for eyes.
And there is a difference between eyes and ears. Eyes are linear, they look only in one direction. Ears are not linear. The ears hear from all directions; the sound is caught from all directions. Ears are more total than eyes. Eyes just focus; eyes are more concentrated.
Ears are more meditative; hence all the meditators close the eyes, because with the eyes the mind becomes linear. It is easy to concentrate with the eyes; difficult to meditate.
Remember the difference: when you concentrate, you focus your mind exclusively on something, and everything else is excluded out of it. You include only the certain thing on which you are concentrating, and everything is excluded. You focus. But ears are more meditative. They include all, everything that happens around. If you are listening to me, you are also listening to the birds. It is simultaneously happening.
To the ears, existence is simultaneous; to the eyes it is linear, gradual. If I start looking from this side to that side, first I will see Amida, then Teertha, then somebody else, then somebody else — you are all here together. But eyes will create a linear procession which is a falsification of reality. You are not here in a queue, you are all here together. But if I listen with my ears, with closed eyes, to your breathing, your being — then you are all here together.
Ears are closer to existence than eyes, and it is a misfortune that ears have been neglected and eyes have become very predominant. Psychologists say that eighty per cent of human knowledge is gained through the eyes. Eighty per cent! It is too much. It has become almost dictatorial. The eyes have become the dictators. Ears are closer to the existence, to the diffused existence, to the togetherness of existence.
There are methods, particularly in Zen, where one simply sits and listens — listens to existence, not concentrating anywhere. It is easier for eyes to be closed; you can open them, you can close them. Your mind can manipulate your eyes, but your ears you cannot close. They are always open.
So if your emphasis moves from eyes to ears, you will become more open. The eyes can be manipulated more easily, the mind can play tricks with the eyes. With ears it is more difficult to play tricks.
If you have come across a blind man, you will see, it happens. He starts seeing by his ears. And he can see many subtle nuances which eyes cannot see. He becomes more perceptive. By the sound, by the tone, by small waverings in the tone, fluctuations, he starts seeing deeply into you. And because he is not part of the society — society belongs to those who have eyes — a blind man is almost an outcast, out of the society. So you don’t know how to deceive a blind man. You know how to deceive people who have eyes but you don’t know how to deceive a blind man. You have never practised it, it has never happened. Rarely do you come across a blind man.
He starts seeing many things. Even by your footsteps, by the sound of your footsteps, he starts recognising many things in you. Are you a man rooted in the earth? Grounded in the earth? A blind man can see just by your footsteps — he can hear whether you are grounded or not.
Every person moves in a different way, walks in a different way. If a Buddha walks he is tremendously grounded. His legs are almost like the roots of a tree. He is in deep contact with the earth. He is nourished by the earth, the earth is nourished by him. There is a continuous transfer of energy.
In fact, blind people are good singers for the simple reason that eighty percent of our body’s energy is used by our eyes, and when a man is blind, that eighty percent of his energy starts being distributed to the ears, to the nose, to the mouth – into the other four senses which ordinarily have to share only twenty percent of the energy. With eyes non-existent they enjoy one hundred percent of the energy amongst themselves. Hence the blind man has a very subtle way of hearing. You cannot hear what he hears. He remembers through hearing.,
I was traveling in a train in the middle of the night, and I entered the compartment which was reserved for me. It was a small, two-couch compartment. One, the upper one, was already occupied, the lower was reserved for me. As I sat on the lower bunk and gave the money to the porter, and gave instructions to the servant about when I would like to have tea in the morning, and when I would like to have my breakfast, I had no idea who was on the upper berth.
But the man said, ”Is that not you there, Osho?”
I looked up, I could not recognize the man. I said,” Yes, but who are you?”
He said,” Have you forgotten me? I am Sharnananda.”
He was a very famous Hindu sage; but he was blind. I had met him twelve years before. In those twelve years I must have met millions of people; it was impossible to remember him. How could he manage to remember me when he was blind, birth blind?
I said, ”Sharnananda, you are doing a miracle! You can’t see me, yet you recognize me. And I can see you but I could not recognize you.”
He said,” It is because of your eyes. I cannot see – I remember through my ears. Your sound, your way of speaking: those little things become part of my memory. And the meeting with you was so memorable, and the way you talked…. I could even hear the same way, the same sound, while you were talking to the servant, to the porter. I immediately recognized you. Nobody else talks like you.
” When you said to the servant, ‘Don’t wake me up because my morning begins when I wake, so let the tea wait. When I am awake, I will ring the bell, then you bring the tea.’ The moment you said, ‘My morning begins when I wake,’ I said this man cannot be anybody else. I don’t know anybody else in the whole world whose morning begins when he wakes up – the morning begins when it begins – but you can say that, only you can say that!”
A seer is one who is not groping in darkness, and just imagining things. Yes, a blind man’s imagination becomes very powerful because he cannot see; his whole energy is available inwards. Otherwise, the energy moves outside from the eyes, eyes are the doors opening outwards. When the eyes are closed, the energy moves inwards.
That’s why meditators close their eyes. It is a simple strategy: close the eyes and you lock the doors; the energy cannot move out, it moves in. So blind people become very imaginative. They can talk of color although they have never seen it. They can talk of light although they have never seen it. But still, howsoever beautiful their imagination, it is untrue, it is not real.
Osho: Dang Dang Doko Dang: Chapter #3: ‘As within, so without’ (excerpts)
Osho: From Personality to Individuality: CHAPTER 5. SANNYAS: THE ODYSSEY OF ALONENESS – A JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF YOUR BEING (excerpts)
आँख दिखावे एक ओर, मन को बाँधे रेख।
कान सुनें सब ओर से, साधे भीतर पेख॥
Aankh dikhāve ek or, man ko bāndhe rekh.
Kān sunen sab or se, sādhē bhītar pekh.
The eyes show in one direction, binding the mind in a line.
The ears hear from every side, guiding the gaze within.
Enjoy this Classic Romantic Hindi song Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se sung by Hemlata and written and composed by Ravindra Jain from super hit film “Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se” (1978)
“Ankhiyon ke jharokhon se maine dekha jo sanware
Tum door nazar aaye, badi door nazar aaye…”
The beloved seems far away when looked at through the window of the eyes.
“Band karke jharokhon ko zara baithee jo sochne
Man mein tumhi muskaaye…”
But when the eyes are closed — when the outer vision is shut — and one turns inward to reflect, the beloved smiles within. The presence is felt not outside, but deep inside the heart and mind.
Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se – Classic Romantic Song – Sachin & Ranjeeta – Old Hindi Songs