Getting rid of vasanas

 

How to get rid of vasanas (impressions)? This is a question for all those who want to come out of habits. You want to get rid of habits because they give you pain and restrict you. The nature of a vasana is to bother you - bind you - and wanting to be free is the nature of life. When a soul does not know how to be free, it wanders lifetimes craving freedom. The way to come out of habits is vows. A vow should be time-bound. 

For example, suppose someone says, "I will quit smoking" but cannot do it. He can take a time-bound vow not to smoke for five days. If someone is used to cursing and swearing, he can take a vow not to use bad language for 10 days. Don't take a vow for a lifetime - you will break it immediately. If you happen to break it anyway, don't worry, just begin again. When you fulfil your vow, pick a new starting time and renew it again. 

Slowly increase the length of your vow until it becomes your very nature. This is sanyama. Everybody is endowed with a little sanyama. When the mind falls back into its old patterns, two possibilities can happen. One is, you feel discouraged, you blame yourself, and you feel you have not made any progress. The second possibility is that you see it as an opportunity for sanyama and feel happy about it. Bad habits will clog you and drain your life energy. Without sanyama, life will not be happy and disease free. 

For example, you know you should not eat three servings of ice cream or eat ice cream every day. If you do, you will get sick. Just give a positive direction to your life energy and you can rise above any habit through sanyama. All those habits that bother you, bind them in vows, in sanyama. Take a time-bound vow today and make a note of it. 

If you break a vow, make a note of it and share the time and date at the next satsang. Continue it again. Tie those habits which bring you pain in sanyama. Your inability to break a habit, causes a pinch and when you are deeply pained by something, the pain will rid you of that habit. If you are pained by your shortcomings, then you are a sadhak - a seeker. Pain takes you out of addiction.

Senses create different types of fire

 

The senses are like fire. Whatever you put into your senses burns in this fire. A fire of toxic material creates pollution and bad smell. But if you burn sandalwood, it creates fragrance. The same fire that supports life can also destroy. A fire can heat your home or burn it down. 

Celebration happens around a bonfire. Grief happens around the fire of cremation. A burning tire creates toxic fumes. A ghee lamp lights your way and purifies the surroundings. Does your fire create smoke and pollution - or are you like a camphor flame that creates light and fragrance? 

A saint creates light and the fragrance of love. He is the friend of life. A fire that creates light and warmth is of high quality. A fire that creates light and a little smoke is of medium quality. The fire that creates smoke and darkness is of low quality. 

Learn to distinguish these different fires. When your senses are engaged in goodness, then you will create light and fragrance, when engaged in impurity, you create smoke and darkness. It is sanyama that transforms the quality of fire in you.

Feeling at home, everywhere and with everyone

 

Feeling at home, wherever and with whomsoever you are is what I would call the true evolution of human beings. For that, we need to take a look within ourselves. Thirty years ago, there was so much prejudice towards spirituality and wisdom. People would want to keep it at arm’s length and believed that it was not for them. Today, there is acceptance. People are willing to try it and once they see that it benefits them, they are less prejudiced.

Life comes to us like a gift, a very charming gift, but we seldom open it. It’s all about opening ourselves and being open. Life is a gift wrapped in golden paper, which is waiting for each one of us to unwrap. Many of us are too formal, but such an atmosphere is not conducive to knowledge.

We need to be in an informal atmosphere to know something about ourselves and gain deep wisdom. When you meet somebody, you ask, “How are you?” Now I have a question for you. Did you really greet the person or did you do it as a formality? Most of the time we exchange pleasantries, we really don’t mean it.

But, if the same words come to you from your grandmother, they carry some energy, some vibrations, and some presence. Life becomes so dry and the world becomes charmless when we relate at a superficial level. In the coming decades, the biggest challenge in the world will be mental depression. Belongingness can create a better atmosphere and environment around us. It is for us to create that environment.

Can you feel at home with everyone? Then you can truly say you have evolved. For that, we need to go within. A baby smiles 400 times a day, a teenager only smiles 17 times, and an adult hardly smiles. We don’t smile from our hearts.

Why is that? It is the stress and the tension that we carry. Meditation can help you get back to your nature, which is pure innocence. Then a smile comes from deep within, that nobody can snatch from you. We should all dream of a stress-free and violence-free world, one where there is total belongingness. 

Fulfil your desires - by surrendering them

 

As long as some desires linger in your mind, you cannot be at total rest. Every desire or ambition is like a sand particle in the eye! You cannot shut your eyes nor keep them open with a sand particle inside — it is uncomfortable either way. Dispassion is removing this sand particle so you can open and shut your eyes freely! The other way is to expand your desire, or make it so big — then also it will not bother you. It is a tiny sand particle that irritates your eyes — a big rock can never get into your eyes!

If you have a desire coming into your mind right now, at this very moment what do you do? You work to fulfill that desire. After it gets fulfilled, do you know where you will be? It will lead you to the very same place where you were before the desire rose in you.

So let us understand, what is this quest all about. A teenage girl sees an expensive dress and immediately falls in love with it. But like all beautiful things, this one is too expensive for her to buy. She tries to convince her father to let her buy the dress and tries every possible way to make him understand that the dress is worth the price and maybe even more. The father refuses despite of everything. The young girl gets so upset that every party and function she goes to, she feels incomplete without the dress. Each time she sees the dress in the window sill of the showroom, her heart tugs from inside. After a lot of tears, bickering and ranting, the father finally gives in, and buys her the dress. The girl is delighted. She wears it to every possible party and function, but after two years, the same dress lies in a heap of clothes that are being discarded. So you see desire taking a life form and finally being turned into nothing.

How to deal with desires? Just do not give too much weight to the fulfilment of desires. Don’t fight it off. You have no control over them. Desires come up. Instead of holding on to them, or daydreaming, just surrender. What is surrender? It simply means that when a desire arises, just offer it to the divine or higher power and say: “If it is good for me, let it happen.” And then let go of it. When you offer everything, then nothing can take you away from your centre.

Life teaches you the art of letting go in every event. The more you have learnt to let go, the happier you are and as you start being joyful, more will be given to you. Taking a good look at desires and realising that they are futile, is maturity or discrimination.

But surrender doesn’t mean the absence of action. Don’t just make an affirmation and say “Okay, I shall have a good job” and let go of it and do nothing about it. You need to do whatever is necessary. Act, surrender and be free.

With dispassion, you can enjoy the world freely and relax. Dispassion can bring so much joy in your life. Do not think that dispassion is a state of apathy. Dispassion is full of enthusiasm — it brings all joy to your life and allows you to rest so well.