Inner World of Yoga – Day 23
What I have learned from my personal experiences thus far about the workings of the mind and body through study and practice, and of the mind and spirit through teachings and inner work, is there are two categories or structural functions we need to examine in depth to come to the place where criticism, judgment, guilt, remorse, fear, and all sorts of suffering can end. In yogic terminology these would be samskaras and vasanas.These two functions are essentially responsible for our mental conditioning, as together they form our personality, ego, sense of self, personal psychology and emotional constellation. They essentially have overlapping, analogous origin, and congruent, interdependent function, and much about them has been debated and interpreted over many millennium. What I aim to present here is primarily a more functional as opposed to critical or philosophical explanation of the two.
Vasanas can be briefly described as, the tendencies or dispositions, subtle desires or inclinations we bear, that come with us into this life and may rise to create ingrained patterns and habits in response to our perception of our experiences, i.e.in response to decisions we make that become our personal beliefs about what it takes to survive and therefore the foundation of our fundamental operating response system in this life.
They are not physical, genetic attributes, but are subtle energies that reside mainly below conscious awareness. They manifest as automatic, mechanical or habitual patterns of behavior, or the way we respond to situations in life. They can be positive or negative, they function deep within the mind’s structure and they persist, which make them the main obstacle to our well-being and happiness in life.
