Hidden Vasanas

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

Hidden Vasanas
There is an experience. The experience may be in the form of a perception. You smell
something, touch something, taste something, or experience a combination of so many things, and
immediately just as a groove is created out of a sound in a gramophone plate, so also an impression
is put in the mind. This impression is called Samskara, an impression got out of a perceptional
experience in the mind. What is the nature of Samskaras? Is it like a furrow made on the ground or
the grooves in the gramophone record? No. It is dynamic, and a number of such experiences making
grooves upon the human mind makes that impression deep and vital. It becomes active, it begins to
be a dynamic factor in the man’s life, i.e., it becomes a dynamic tendency in the person’s character,
and when it comes to this stage, the repeated taking in of a particular impression makes it take the
form of a vital or living force in the person’s character. It becomes a trait in the Sadhaka’s character.
It is called Vasana. That means the being always tends to move in that direction, and always tends to
behave according to that urge. So Samskaras when repeated become Vasanas, and these Vasanas
always keep the mind a state of agitation, and they always go on producing ripples in the mind-lake,
which are called Vrittis.