Ultimately, it is not introversion or extroversion that is important, but how you use and extend the faculty of perception at gross levels of awareness and at high levels of consciousness. It is this faculty of perception that energizes and stimulates the mind.

Awareness is one activity of perception, memory is another activity of perception. You can remember what you don’t perceive, what you have just thought, or things you have come across, but you don’t know what they are. Perception is always something that you know, experience and retain. It is the nature of the senses to create a picture all the time.

A particular sound which you are hearing will always be identified as the chirping of a bird, not as the roar of a lion, as that image is imprinted in your brain. You hear a barking noise and know, ‘That is the bark of a dog’, as the sound is clearly imprinted.

Even though you may not see, touch, feel or taste, just the sound, through previously created impressions, will give you the knowledge of what is taking place. Sitting here you hear a boom. For somebody who does not recognize the noise, it may be a firecracker, but for somebody who knows and recognizes the pitch and everything, it is a bomb.

There is a fine line of awareness there. Something extra is added to your perception, which makes you know that this is not a firecracker, but a bomb. What is that?

The same thing happens with all other sense impressions, whether visual, tactile, or other. Anything that is seen can be recreated in the mind. Anything that you touch, can be recreated, again felt and experienced.

All the senses are conduits of the impressions in your consciousness, and these impressions are known as pratyaya.

8 November 2016, Ganga Darshan Vishwa Yogapeeth

From the book “Kriya Yoga Yatra 1, Understanding Pratyahara Kriyas,” pg.23, Sw Niranjanananda Saraswati