Spiritual Message for the Day – Samskaras – the In-built Impressions by Sri Swami Chidananda

Baba Times Digest© | 1 November 2014 15.12 EST | New York Edition

Samskaras – the In-built Impressions

Divine Life Society Publication: Essentials of The Higher Values of Life by Sri Swami Chidananda

Samskaras, the Root-Cause of the Problem: No other being except man has the problem because only man has a thinking mind. He has the ability to interpret a meaning out of every sense perception. Everything a man sees, hears, touches, tastes or smells evokes different kinds of psychological and emotional reaction in the fields of desires and sentiments. Had there been no such reaction, there would not have been any problem. But he does evoke reactions, and the problem begins. A man is in bondage only because there are desires in the mind, because there are cravings in the mind, because there are attachments in the mind, because the mind is never content. The main reason for this is our samskaras, the mechanism of impressions of such sense experiences, such sense enjoyments in the past, and the vasanas, the propensity to such experiences and enjoyments, and inclination for repeating them in the present and in the future.

Samskaras are the in-built impressions in the mind like the grooves of different sounds on a gramophone record. What is its nature? What happens if you put your thumb on an ink-pad and then press it on a paper? Exactly the same impression has been reproduced and will remain intact even after a thousand years. But it is inert; it does not reproduce by itself more impressions and has no other effect. But the impressions in the mind are different; they are not inert, they are living impressions, they remain alive in the chitta, the mind-stuff. They have an effect, they exercise pressure for repeating the experience. They are living impressions and have the potential of generating desires. They create a desire for exactly the same sense experience as one had it previously. There may be shubha-samskaras which are good for you or ashubha-samskaras which are not good for you.

When you play a gramophone record it reproduces the song exactly as it was recorded. But it cannot produce the voice that produced it. It only plays back. But what is the nature of the samskara? When a particular sense-experience is repeated over a prolonged period, it not only creates a latent dormant tendency and a desire in that direction, but that tendency becomes a vasana. Vasana may be shubha-vasanas or ashubha-vasanas, auspicious and positive or inauspicious and negative.

The samskaras are living and dynamic impressions. So when you are put in a similar type of situation, they become active and powerful and you are impelled to go after the same sense experience. They are so circumventing to temptations that they compel you to that experience. They are also called seed impressions as they are like seeds produced by previous experience and are capable to reproduce that experience like a seed producing a tree similar to the one from which it has originated. So long a seed is lying in isolation, in an unfavourable ground, it remains inert. But if you give it a favourable ground beneath the fertile earth and water it regularly, it starts growing; it becomes a little seedling and then comes out a sprout with a few leaves also; and if the favourable circumstances continues it ultimately becomes a big tree similar to that from which that seed was produced. The new tree produces more seeds and every seed has a potential to produce the same type of tree again and again. Such continuous chain reaction is the nature of samskara.

The human mind, with its imagination, has potential of completely reproducing the same condition or the psychological state of being. This impels the mind to go and indulge in that sense experience and enjoyment. It is because of these samskaras and vasanas that a man is propelled towards the sense objects, get attached to them, craves for them, wants to indulge in them, possess them, keep them, snatch them away from others.

The mind has four-fold aspects:

1) In the form of reasoning intellect,

2) In the form of imagining, remembering and desiring mind,

3) In the form of feeling mind having emotions and sentiments,

4) In the form of the assertive ego. Once a desire arises, it is the ego principle which asserts: ‘I want it, I will obtain it, I will enjoy it, I will do this, I will do that.’ It now propels the body into activity. The root cause of all the actions is ego.

All these different modifications of the psychological level of the human nature are totally outward-going and make you a part and parcel of the outward world. So you are enslaved by the desires for the outer objects and forget your own real nature, your own real identity completely. You undergo all sort of emotions, elevation, depression, satisfaction, dissatisfaction, fulfilment, disappointment, etc. All these positive and negative experiences are due to your propelling yourself outside through four aspects of your interior psyche. This has created for you a big range of a net spread by your desires to catch the birds of sense pleasures.

Dva suparnaa sayujaa sakhaayaa 
Samaanam vriksham parishasvajaate; 
Tayoranyah pippalam svadvattyan- 
Ashnann-anyo abhichaakasheeti.

[Two birds that are ever associated and have similar names, reside on the same tree. Of these, one eats the fruit of divergent tastes, and the other looks on without eating. Mundaka Upanishad 3-1-1.] Why the second bird is caught in the net of karmas and their fruits? Sankaracharya says, it is due to avidya-kama-karma-vasana-aashraya-lingopadhi; it is due to delusion, passion or desire, activities, craving on account of clinging to the adjunct of the body. So you become full of raga, dvesha, klesha, kalaha, passion, desire, anger, envy, jealousy, intense craving, dejection, despair, disappointment. One moment you are up, one moment you are down. Now you are constantly in the wide range of outward propelling desires and that keeps you in a state of flux and confusion. This causes the problem.

Excerpts from: Samskaras – The Root-Cause of the Problem - Essentials of The Higher Values of Life by Sri Swami Chidananda

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