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Thread: Samskara

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    Samskara

    Namaste,

    How are Samskaras (mental impressions) formed and how does one relieve them? I think i may have many negative ones, and just formed another recently. And can someone provide detailed, easy to understand information on exactly what they are and how they function?

    Om Gam Ganapataye Namah!

  2. #2

    Re: Samskara

    om gurave namaḥ


    Namaste catnip,

    A very reasonable question indeed! Best we first ascertain just what they are these mental impressions.

    The mental impressions are the filters through which we perceive the world, they affect our very direction in life, upacaya or growth, the flow of time; yet rather than relieve them, it is be better to think of training them, to have no thought you must first be dead; like training a plant to climb a stem, as one does with tomatoes or runner beans, or better, a young sapling.

    Vritti are patterns of growth which flow and can be broken but they always exist, not only in our thought but also in and out of the materiel world. One should learn to guide them be harmonious with them; else they become spirals, which can be very hard to stop or even see through (remember these are filters); either up or down.
    This is in part how the mind attaches to the subtitle body, as such it is also very relevant to our health, simple cause and effect but that is on another level.

    Do you see what I mean?

    So if you are making rapidly repeating spirals, you might try to think of them as a flow and then to see just what it is that is creating the turbulence. Meditate upon the cause and effects of this vritti, then direct it towards something positive.

    The physical practise of meditating is a vritti, a positive one ...


    Kind regards.
    Last edited by Mana; 31 July 2013 at 07:00 AM.

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    Re: Samskara

    Quote Originally Posted by catnip View Post
    Namaste,

    How are Samskaras (mental impressions) formed and how does one relieve them? I think i may have many negative ones, and just formed another recently. And can someone provide detailed, easy to understand information on exactly what they are and how they function?

    Om Gam Ganapataye Namah!
    Namaste.

    How I learned about this (it may help you).

    http://www.sivanandaonline.org/publi...section_id=871

    I learned about it long before I read that (years ago)...it was all explained to me by my 10th Form Yoga Teacher in more simple terms, like: Manas = Mind-Ocean, Vritti = Wave, Samskara = Impression on sandy beach.

    *in one of my meditation/relaxation awareness techniques, I'll sometimes use that beach as mental imagery....keeping the above in mind, as I watch thoughts crash on the beach and allowing Self to set sail.

    Anyway, I also learned the more scientific approach according to Patanjali and I could find the Patanjali Sutras if needed...but that article above should help explain it all.

    Oh, I just found this too and it can also help:

    http://veda.wikidot.com/chitta

    Witnessing Chitta
    A good way to cultivate the witnessing of chitta is to simply be aware of the streams of thoughts, emotions, images, and impressions that arise in front of manas (on which manas may or may not act). Notice how the stream of thoughts comes from somewhere, and then recedes back into that same place. This place is chitta.
    Yeah, that is the first step in my meditation, usually.

    Aum Namah Shivaya
    Last edited by Necromancer; 31 July 2013 at 04:41 AM.

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    Re: Samskara

    Part 2 - What you could do?

    Witnessing Chitta is pretty awesome there...for a while.

    Then, it becomes like watching the same-old TV station over and over....same boring shows, same boring 'commercial breaks'.

    *I also do a TV/Movie theater meditation too.

    Anyway, that rush quickly passes into nothingness...but not the Absolute, as there are still subconscious thoughts and desires beneath that Ocean, or in the Real Life of that Actor (the progression of thought).

    So, you go sailing around and around in circles, actually getting caught up in that whirlpool yourself.....like those storm-chaser people who get up close and personal with tornadoes...anyhow, I digress.

    When this starts to happen, when you have reached full awareness of Chitta, just bring your awareness back on your breath. It should be pretty deep, abdominal and even by now, but when I say 'become aware of your breath', I mean to concentrate on that very point where the Prana touches those first delicate cilia within your nostrils.

    The very point at which you take it inside...focus everything on that....let thoughts just come and go, just like the waves.

    This is the 'tip of your nose'. The Brow Chakra is also awakened by continued practice of Dhyan and Pranayama.

    Aum Namah Shivaya

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    Re: Samskara

    Quote Originally Posted by catnip View Post
    Namaste,

    How are Samskaras (mental impressions) formed and how does one relieve them? I think i may have many negative ones, and just formed another recently. And can someone provide detailed, easy to understand information on exactly what they are and how they function?

    Om Gam Ganapataye Namah!
    Namaste catnip,
    There are many meditations to get rid of Samskaras but the most potent one is Buddhist meditation especially Vipassana and Satipatthana. When you observe the reality manifesting momentarily without reacting to it in anyway in due time Samskaras will be eliminated. If you are interested you can attend Vipassana meditation 10-day course near to your place.

    http://www.dhamma.org/

    Necromance - nice link!
    ॐ महेश्वराय नमः

    || Om Namo Bhagavate Rudraya ||

    Hara Hara Mahadeva Shambo Shankara

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    Re: Samskara

    Quote Originally Posted by realdemigod View Post
    Namaste catnip,
    There are many meditations to get rid of Samskaras but the most potent one is Buddhist meditation especially Vipassana and Satipatthana. When you observe the reality manifesting momentarily without reacting to it in anyway in due time Samskaras will be eliminated. If you are interested you can attend Vipassana meditation 10-day course near to your place.

    http://www.dhamma.org/

    Necromance - nice link!
    Namaste and thank you, my friend.

    Praise H.H. Sri Swami Shivanada Saraswati Maharaj! Ki Jai!!!

    Aum Namah Shivaya

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    Re: Samskara

    Namaste
    Quote Originally Posted by catnip View Post
    How are Samskaras (mental impressions) formed and how does one relieve them? I think i may have many negative ones, and just formed another recently. And can someone provide detailed, easy to understand information on exactly what they are and how they function?
    Word saṃskāra means "the faculty of memory, mental impression or recollection, impression on the mind of acts done in a former state of existence".
    So impressions that we have on the mind we have formed by performing acts in the past. This is called karma. Thus saṃskāras are the result of our karmas or activities we have done in this life and in previous lives.

    By performing various sensory activities such as seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, moving about, enjoying senses etc, we perform acts or karma. All this leaves some impressions (saṃskāras) in our mind or will bring about saṃskāras in the future as a result of our karmas.
    It is said that the activities are performed with the body, words and mind. Thus we can go somewhereby walking, doing something with hands or we can talk or think. By doing all this we create karma.
    In Bhagavad-gītā 3.5 (http://vedabase.net/bg/3/5/en) it is said that "no one can refrain from doing something, not even for a moment".
    So even when we lie down to sleep we are not doing anything with body and words, but our mental activity does not stop. The mind's activities are thinking, feeling and willing. Even during the sleep thinking, feeling and willing continues. Thus saṃskāras are manifesting during our waking state and during sleep.

    Bad saṃskāras can manifest during our waking state and during sleep in the form of bad dreams. To ask "how does one relieve them?" is like to ask "How to relieve of material existence?" or "How to attain liberation or stop the sufferings of repeated birth and death?".
    If we want to be saved from the sufferings of repeated birth and death, bad saṃskāras etc, we have to refrain from materialistic activities of sense enjoyment (renunciation) and take refuge in the Lord.
    Lord Krishna says in Bhagavad-gītā 9.27-28 (http://vedabase.net/bg/9/27/en) :

    "Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer or give away, and whatever austerities you perform do that, O son of Kuntī, as an offering to Me.

    In this way you will be freed from bondage to work and its auspicious and inauspicious results. With your mind fixed on Me in this principle of renunciation, you will be liberated and come to Me."

    Lord Krishna says in Bhagavad-gītā 9.34 (http://vedabase.net/bg/9/34/en) :

    "Engage your mind always in thinking of Me, become My devotee, offer obeisances to Me and worship Me. Being completely absorbed in Me, surely you will come to Me."

    Now, you can tell "Who knows when I will attain liberation. I am suffering from bad saṃskāras right now and here. What should I do with it?"
    You can try with yoga, but more or less the only thing you can do is to tolerate. To tolerate means to live with it and do not give much attention to it, but to continue with the spiritual effort.

    Our whole material existence, repeated birth and death, our bad saṃskāras, karma etc, can be destroyed by the fire of spiritual knowledge or spiritual effort. This is explained in Bhagavad-gītā 4.37 (http://vedabase.net/bg/4/37/en) :

    "As a blazing fire turns firewood to ashes, O Arjuna, so does the fire of knowledge burn to ashes all reactions to material activities."

    Spiritual life is compared with blazing fire which can completely destroy or burn to ashes our whole material existence of repeated birth and death, our bad saṃskāras, karma etc.
    We are pure spirit souls, but in this material world we live in a material body, we have the material mind which becomes disturbed with material impressions or saṃskāras, we suffer the results of material activities or karma. All these material things are considered various types of material impurities the pure spirit soul lives with in this material world.
    The practice of spiritual life is compared to a fire, while the spiritual soul is compared with gold that should be purified from impurities to get pure gold. Refining with flame is one of the oldest methods of refining gold.

    Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 3.28.10 (http://vedabase.net/sb/3/28/10/) :

    "The yogīs who practice such breathing exercises are very soon freed from all mental disturbances, just as gold, when put into fire and fanned with air, becomes free from all impurities."

    Lord Krishna explains bhakti yoga in Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 11.14.25 (http://vedabase.net/sb/11/14/25/en) :

    "Just as gold, when smelted in fire, gives up its impurities and returns to its pure brilliant state, similarly, the spirit soul, absorbed in the fire of bhakti-yoga, is purified of all contamination caused by previous fruitive activities and returns to its original position of serving Me in the spiritual world."

    regards

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