इन्द्रिय

Indriya (इन्द्रिय) means the instruments through which we know the world and act in it: eye, ear, skin, tongue, nose, and organs of action such as the hands, feet and speech. The word occurs in many places in the Gita.

The most direct occurrences for this topic are verses 3.40 to 3.42. Verse 3.40 says that the senses, the mind and the intellect are the seat of desire; from there it covers knowledge and deludes the embodied one. Verse 3.41 begins the remedy: first govern the senses. And 3.42 calls the senses higher than the gross body, the mind higher than the senses, the intellect higher than the mind, and the self beyond them.

Why govern the senses first? Because among the enemy's three houses they are the outermost and most concrete. What was seen, what was heard, what the hand picked up and what the tongue said can most easily be noticed and stopped.

Common misreading: taking the governing of the senses to mean suppressing them, or to be the whole of the practice.

Better sense: the first rung. After it comes the understanding of the mind, the intellect and the levels beyond them (3.42–43).

To read more, see the topic "The Enemy Called Desire".