When the five senses receive any information from the outside and we feel attraction or repulsion toward what we perceive, the mind records this reaction on a kind of three-dimensional “film” called memory, which stores this information in the form of “impressions,” known in Sanskrit as Vasana.
These impressions can be either beneficial or non-beneficial. Beneficial impressions include meditation, the development of virtues, work done with love, awareness, and detachment, the practice of charity, compassion, and so on. These beneficial impressions help us in our spiritual development. On the other hand, negative tendencies such as greed, jealousy, envy, anger, lust, etc., are part of negative impressions and are responsible for decline on the spiritual path.
Positive impressions are used as a “thorn to remove a thorn”; however, even these can lead to attachment, which in turn will produce future births. Therefore, they too must eventually be abandoned if one wishes to reach the final goal: liberation.
Desires that arise in the mind are also considered impressions because they are based on the memory of previous perceptions. The one responsible for imprinting these impressions is the ego—the pseudo-agent or pseudo-author of actions. How do these impressions take place?
We (the subject) perceive a certain object that may or may not spark our interest. If there is interest, then a thought-desire arises in the ego toward the perceived object. When this thought-desire emerges, an impression is formed. Without this internal dynamic—this mental chatter about a particular object—impressions cannot exist.
For example, as children, none of us dreamed of being immortal, respected, or famous. As we grew, we realized that our body cannot last forever, and so the desire arose to achieve lasting fame, which is an indirect way of seeking eternal existence. Some people suffer or become enslaved by this kind of desire, feeling they must “accomplish something in life,” meaning something permanent.
Impressions are very subtle and reside deep within the human heart. Through the repetition of thought-desires, a residual imprint is left by past experiences. This imprint becomes a tendency that leads us to act in a mechanical, robotic way. This tendency is an even subtler type of impression and is called Samskara. Let’s consider a simple example:
When we see smoke in the distance, we immediately conclude that there must be fire somewhere. Our concept of fire arises due to our previous experience of fire being associated with smoke. This past experience has left a trace in our egoic consciousness, which is reactivated whenever we see smoke, allowing us to infer that where there is smoke, there must also be fire. It is this residual imprint, or samskara, that enables this inference. The same applies to all our other perceptions, which are inseparably linked to our memories of past perceptions.
The nature of our thoughts depends largely on impressions. The more we repeat certain behavior patterns out of habit, the deeper the roots of these impressions grow, making them harder to uproot. These impressions hide in the corners of the mind and, in a mysterious way, play tricks on us, changing shape like a chameleon.
When we engage in spiritual practice (sadhana), these impressions are suppressed for a time, but if one is not consistent in practice, they will return with even greater intensity. Therefore, continuous sadhana—through meditation, mantra-japa, pranayama, etc.—can reduce them to a minimum. However, the only way to eliminate them completely is through meditation or self-inquiry into the Self.
Sri Sathya Sai Baba advises in ( Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 16, Prashanti Nilayam – 6/5/1983):
“Every Sadhaka (spiritual aspirant) who aspires to achieve the expression and expansion of the Divine in him has therefore to earn mastery over the senses. That is the first step. The next one is the conquest of the mind, its elimination. The third is uprooting the Vasanas (innate tendencies), and the fourth, attainment of Jnana (spiritual wisdom). The branches are the senses; the trunk is the mind; the roots are the innate tendencies. All three have to be overcome and destroyed, so that the awareness of the Atmic (Divine) Reality can be gained.
In the waking state, the senses have free play. The gross body is most active then. In the dream stage, the senses subsist in their subtle form. The mind revels in its fancies then. In the dream, the subtle body is active. It creates many attractive and astounding scenes and incidents for its own edification. In the deep sleep state, the mind along with the subtle aspects of the senses are submerged in the ego or the causal body. This is the shunya (vacant) stage, according to Vedanthic terminology. It is vacant because there is no positive gain associated with it. It does not confer awareness of’ the Atma (Divine Self) and the Bliss of that Awareness. That can happen only in the fourth state after the sthula (gross), suhkshma (subtle), karana (causal). That state is named the Mahaa Karana (supercausal).
The waking state is the gross region of Brahma, the Creator, when activity abounds. It merges in the dream, the Vishnu region, when mere sthithi (existence) abounds. That too merges in deep sleep, when both dissolve and lose their identity in Laya (Rudra). The fact to remember is that every individual, every day, experiences Shrishti (Brahma, Creator), Sthithi (Vishnu, Maintenance) and Laya (Rudra, Dissolution). But he fails to recognize it and benefit by the experience. He mistakes birth as creation and death as dissolution. This is sheer ignorance. One has to transcend these three changes and establish himself in the stable unchanging Mahaa Karana, the Atma.
One has to be cautioned against believing that the victories over senses, mind, innate tendencies and the attainment of the Awareness can be won one at a time. Parallel efforts must be made in all four from the very beginning. You cannot place oil in one place, the lamp in another and the match in a third and hope for light. One has to succeed in mastering the senses, conquering the mind and eliminating the Vasanas all at the same time.” (Sri Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 16, Prashanti Nilayam – 6/5/1983)
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