What are "Vasanas" ?

dear chitra madam,
i came across this article with chinmaya so am presenting it here, the vasana they say is about the carrying the habits and urge of the previous birth and not thought alone, though i posted the link here as per the rule it has been removed so am presenting a few lines from his chapters for your perusal...
sunkan




Chapter 11: Vasanas
Innate urges and habits of our previous births are vasanas! Their effects colour our minds and our actions in the present existence. To live vibrantly in the present, one must exhaust these vasanas! Unless we do that we are NOT free!

Ego-Centred Actions:
Eliminating vasanas is very simple, so simple, that it escapes our recognition!
Vasanas are our unmanifest tendencies or urges. Once they manifest, they become our personality. When vasanas become manifest in our mind, they appear as thoughts .. these thoughts are desires! Desires made manifest are our actions... in other words, our vasanas create our very lives!
No vasanas... no desires. No desires... no desire prompted activities! Once we reach the desire-less state, we awaken into the plane of pure Consciousness... here we realise our identity with our own higher Self!
Vasanas are created during the contact of our body-mind-intellect equipment with the world field! They can be ended during contacts with the same world too! One does not have to hide in the caves of the Himalayas in order to lose contact with the world.
We can either suffer from the continued suppression of our urges or we can exhaust the vasanas where we developed them! Disciplining the body-mind-intellect equipment through wise disciplines is the way to exhaust the existing vasanas.
Whenever we act in the outer world, in the outer world with egocentric desires, the activities leave their footprints in our minds ... these then propel us to repeat the action again and again... they are our habits!
An act by itself cannot leave any impressions in us.. but ego-centred acts, prompted by desires, generate a new set of habits, which become our future vasanas!
When we become attached (sanga) to our actions, it begets the desire (kama) to possess the object of our desire. When a desire is thwarted, it turns to anger (krodha). When angry clouds gather in our mind, they cloud our reason and logic ...the result is delusion (moha of attachment). Under the spell of moha, we see things not as they really are, but in vague estimates of wild uncontrolled actions, which now rule our lives!
From this delusion comes loss of memory of who we really are! With the loss of memory comes the loss of discrimination (buddhi). Here is a perfect example of how a simple stream of sensuous thoughts, moves through stages of mood swings... each gathering momentum and force through kama, krodha, lobha or mohaa, until there is total lack of self-control!
In contrast, whenever we undertake an action centred in a higher goal, an ideal... one becomes ideal centred. Then our contacts with the outer world become a source for exhausting our vasanas. When the vasanas are exhausted, the mind becomes automatically quiet. The quieter the mind, the greater the peace and happiness experienced in it!

Karma Yoga:
The secret of purging the vasanas is Karma yoga or the Path of Action! If we just fixed our vision high but in a spirit of surrender, we would be able to serve the outer world with dedication! Once this mind becomes purified by such actions...the vasanas exhaust themselves!

The Message:
Work! Just keep working! Just work with a changed mental attitude of dedication for the beloved Universe.. the "body" of this Great Being! It too has a Mind and Intellect and a Will to serve each one of us mortals! Let us will our actions to align those of the Mighty Universe!
The wise tell us to control the senses (indriyas) from sense indulgences (they do not tell us to have a good time, just in moderation... only then can a mind become quiet!
If we can now give this mind a brighter and idealistic field to work in roam about, we can become more and more identified to higher goals and ideals for this Universe, community, politics scientist, or whoever one wishes to become!
Controlling the senses (not denying) is the best way to conserve Energy...once this energy has been found, direct it wisely into one's favourite idealistic field of activity. The only precaution is: Act without attachment and personal desires.. may the act be for a higher good! A mind plastered with attachments gathers upon itself more vasanas.

Satisfaction & Contentment:
We act in search of satisfaction and demand for a greater measure of contentment in life. Satisfaction and Contentment are the two wheels of our life-chariot. Goaded by this demand, we earn and save...hoard and spend.. all for ourselves! Yet, seldom have we found this satisfaction and contentment we seek!
In contrast, when we dedicate ourselves to selfless work, we gain an ever-increasing amount of inner poise and a deep satisfying inner calm. When such a calm mind, now single pointed in its contentment is brought to the meditation seat, the meditator gains the experience of transcending the limiting ego.
An expansion of oneself into the vast ego-less bliss overcomes the mortal... the experience is transcendental satisfaction and contentment! Now the mortal become a consummate karma yogi to re-experience the same bliss, over and over again!

Fruits of Action:
Wrong thinking is the real cause for all failures in life...failures can be traced to impoverished mental equanimity, created by un-intelligent entertainment of fears and possible failures!
Many refuse to take up projects for fear of failure... even those who take up the challenge of working are nervous before they finish the job.
Renunciation of attachment to the fruits of action is a guarantee of sure success in the commercial world...how much more so, it must be, in all nobler and subtler fields of our human endeavour! Let us act! Work to the best of our abilities, dedicating our efforts to a noble cause! This is the secret of work that always ends in brilliant success!
Tomorrow's harvest depends on today's ploughing and sowing. The past is dead...the future is yet to be born. If one is inefficient in the present, there cannot be hope for a greater future.
Action fulfils itself only in its reaction! Reaction is simply action of the present defined in a future moment. To worry about the results of our actions is to escape facing the present and to live in a future as yet not born!




source from chinmaya mission sivalaya, brought to u by sunkan

 

Dearest Chithra,
I was too very busy this morning, was sincerely praying to god to give me sometime to read ur culture post and he did show mercy to me and heeded to my Prayers...

So Vasanas..the desire to perform any action as per my understanding.To realise the self and overcome vasanas.....hmm..i will think it over....

Vasanas-scent...I remember my paati telling me that Husband and Wife do for sure share some poorva janma vasanas to be wedded in this janma...i dunt know if thats 100% true, but i beleive it to some extent.

Chith, in my reply to ur Atma post, i did make a mention that i have made a begining to realise all this values;hope you remember.

Now added to that i'm able to control my temper to a largest extent and think at that situation as to why the incident happened!!Am i a source for that?? I'm able to answer these questions now....Seems like i'm catching up with "the self- realisation" at times...

Again, a wonderful post on Vasanas...Thanks a ton!

 

Dear Chithra,

Loved this post.....one of my favourite topics is karma yoga ....and how we have to be unattached to the results, etc etc. Just yesterday i wastelling Rosh and we were discussing on this topic....and i get to read this today.....felt good. This was one topic i understood.Also your clear explanationon the role of Vasana was great. Understood many things abt the way i am in this life! thanks a ton ma'am.....and plz dont look at the percentage of ur reading audience.....jsut carry on , i am sure there are many like us who look fwd to thursdays and even if there is no fb, i am sure many read and gather some knowledge. So keep it on !:hatsoff

 

Dear Sundari,
Thanks for the added info on vasanas and karma yoga....it was really simple to understand and added on to what Chitra has already written. Thanks for taking time to post here.......i am sure many of us have benefitted.

 

Dear C

Many thanks for an extremely stimulating post. How commonly used term Vasana is and I now realise how less I knew about it. How many times we have heard our elders exclaim punarjenmathu vasanai when we come across a child musician prodigy for example. Re-reading the post makes it clear and solves many initial doubts that sprang.

Though exhaustion of vasanas lead to salvation, healthy vasanas seem to be good to have and help us exhaust the vasanas themselves. So, if we are karma yogis trying to exhaust vasanas, do we acquire good vasana in the process? Also, what is the stimulant/catalyst for the self effort required to modify the pattern of vasanas? Thanks again for providing lucid explanation to concepts that are hard to comprehend.

Thanks to Shan and Sundari for their additional input...And AC, is there an interesting story coming up this time???

-Gayathri.

 

Dear Mrs. C,

I loved this subject on vasanas. with meditation I am hoping to cure some of my bad vasanas by realizing self. Are you kidding. I am always looking forward for your post on thursdays.

 

Dear Sundari,

Thanks for posting information on vasanas.