Samskaras
Samskaras are ingrained thought patterns that compel you to behave in certain ways. The thought patterns can be negative or positive, self serving or self defeating. They are formed by your intentions, when you know what the outcomes of your actions will be.
Samskaras can be carried with karma into your future lives. You probably don't recall past lives and events (some people do) but the seeds from your past thoughts and actions are laying dormant in your unconsciousness. All the memories from this life are laying dormant in your mind and can be remembered when triggered by the right stimuli.
Like a barren field you are born with a clean slate but the field is scattered with seeds. When the field is watered the seeds germinate and the seeds that are cultivated grow strongly while the seeds that aren't fed wither and die. If the good seeds of love, kindness and compassion of our thoughts and actions are nurtured, a kind, loving, well meaning person will grow. Nurturing the bad seeds of hatred, greed, and envy will grow an arrogant, unkind and unhappy person.
It is possible to change your thought patterns, or samskaras, and so change the blue print for this life and your next life. You can change your karma and change your fate by changing your thoughts and behaviour.
It is not that easy to change old habits. It takes will power, dedication and perseverance. In yoga, it is called Tapas and Svadhyaya, the burning devotion to spiritual study to improve one's self.
Tapas can burn up the bad seeds so they can no longer germinate.
A bad habit will be reduced to ashes and the drive will no longer have to the pull to force us to behave in a certain way.
Thought Patterns
“Yoga Chitta Vritti Nirodha” is one of the beginning sutras from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. ”Chitta vritti” is the Sanskrit term for ‘Mind chatter’. When you throw a pebble into a clear lake it causes ripples that prevent you from seeing the bottom of the lake. Thoughts, or vrittis are like the ripples; but when they become still we can see through our mind to inner consciousness. This is the aim of yoga. Patanjali says that yoga calms chitta, rather than destroying it. Yoga results in the experience of the vortices of feeling — whirlpools of desire and attachment — as a calm ocean of feeling. This stills the mind and allows one to perceive God. In the body, chitta is centered in the heart.
Patanjali described 5 vritti to understand how mind experience a thought pattern & modify it according to the buddhi (Intellect).
Thought patterns are called vrittis.
The vrittis or thought patterns are coloured by the klishta process:
Klishta: coloured,impure, unpositive / Aklishta: unclouded, pure, positive
Painful / Not painful
Not useful / Useful
Afflicted / Not afflicted
Impure / Pure
Troubled / Not troubled
Negative / Positive
Vice / Virtue
Away from Enlightenment / Towards Enlightenment
Resulting in Bondage / Resulting in Freedom
Samskaras can be carried with karma into your future lives. You probably don't recall past lives and events (some people do) but the seeds from your past thoughts and actions are laying dormant in your unconsciousness. All the memories from this life are laying dormant in your mind and can be remembered when triggered by the right stimuli.
Like a barren field you are born with a clean slate but the field is scattered with seeds. When the field is watered the seeds germinate and the seeds that are cultivated grow strongly while the seeds that aren't fed wither and die. If the good seeds of love, kindness and compassion of our thoughts and actions are nurtured, a kind, loving, well meaning person will grow. Nurturing the bad seeds of hatred, greed, and envy will grow an arrogant, unkind and unhappy person.
It is possible to change your thought patterns, or samskaras, and so change the blue print for this life and your next life. You can change your karma and change your fate by changing your thoughts and behaviour.
It is not that easy to change old habits. It takes will power, dedication and perseverance. In yoga, it is called Tapas and Svadhyaya, the burning devotion to spiritual study to improve one's self.
Tapas can burn up the bad seeds so they can no longer germinate.
A bad habit will be reduced to ashes and the drive will no longer have to the pull to force us to behave in a certain way.
Thought Patterns
“Yoga Chitta Vritti Nirodha” is one of the beginning sutras from Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. ”Chitta vritti” is the Sanskrit term for ‘Mind chatter’. When you throw a pebble into a clear lake it causes ripples that prevent you from seeing the bottom of the lake. Thoughts, or vrittis are like the ripples; but when they become still we can see through our mind to inner consciousness. This is the aim of yoga. Patanjali says that yoga calms chitta, rather than destroying it. Yoga results in the experience of the vortices of feeling — whirlpools of desire and attachment — as a calm ocean of feeling. This stills the mind and allows one to perceive God. In the body, chitta is centered in the heart.
Patanjali described 5 vritti to understand how mind experience a thought pattern & modify it according to the buddhi (Intellect).
Thought patterns are called vrittis.
- Right - Pramana
- Wrong - Viparyaya
- Imagined - Vikalpa
- Deep Sleep - Nidra
- Memory - Smriti
The vrittis or thought patterns are coloured by the klishta process:
Klishta: coloured,impure, unpositive / Aklishta: unclouded, pure, positive
Painful / Not painful
Not useful / Useful
Afflicted / Not afflicted
Impure / Pure
Troubled / Not troubled
Negative / Positive
Vice / Virtue
Away from Enlightenment / Towards Enlightenment
Resulting in Bondage / Resulting in Freedom