The Paradox of Vāsanās: Why We Suffer

From the Archives of Swami Jyotirmayananda

You sit on a comfortable bed, yet feel only prickly thoughts. You possess abundant resources, yet experience no enjoyment. This paradox, as Sri Swami Jyotirmayananda explains in his discourse on the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha, reveals the allegorical meaning of hell—not a distant realm of fire, but the daily experience of being unable to enjoy life despite favorable circumstances.

The cause? Vāsanās—subtle impressions operating through your subconscious mind that determine your experience of reality more powerfully than your external conditions.

The Nature of Vāsanās: Seeds Waiting to Germinate

Sri Swami Jyotirmayananda, the last living direct disciple of Swami Sivananda, describes vāsanās as impressions created by every experience you undergo. Like seeds in a forest, some germinate immediately while others lie dormant in the unconscious, waiting years before manifesting. These impressions form the foundation of your current personality through what yogic philosophy calls prārabdha karma—the fructifying portion of your accumulated karmic storehouse.

The Yoga Vāsiṣṭha, one of Vedānta’s most comprehensive philosophical texts, teaches that prārabdha determines three fundamental aspects of your life: jāti (where and into what circumstances you are born), āyu (your lifespan), and bhoga (your experiences of pleasure and pain). Yet this ancient scripture offers profound hope: while prārabdha creates a general framework, your puruṣārtha (present effort) possesses the power to transform even predetermined challenging situations into opportunities for spiritual progress.

The Five Kleśas: Root Causes of Mental Bondage

The discourse reveals that vāsanās divide into two categories: śubha-vāsanā (pure impressions) and aśubha-vāsanā (impure impressions). Impure vāsanās feed five fundamental afflictions known as kleśas, which Swamiji explains with remarkable clarity.

Avidyā: Ignorance of Your True Self

First among these is avidyā—ignorance of your true spiritual nature. This ignorance perpetuates itself when you avoid opportunities to receive spiritual knowledge or remain insensitive to life’s constant teachings. As Swamiji poetically describes, every sunrise carries a message about darkness yielding to light, yet ignorance prevents recognition of this daily satsaṅga offered by nature itself.

Asmitā: The Cancerous Ego

Second comes asmitā—egoism, described as a “cancerous ego” that views all attainments through the distorting lens of “I have done this” while conveniently ignoring troubles also created by that same “I.” This ego-based vision prevents recognition of divine grace operating through all accomplishments.

Rāga and Dveṣa: Attachment and Hatred

Third and fourth are rāga and dveṣa—attachment and hatred. These twin forces generate the gross impurities of anger, greed, jealousy, and hate that disturb mental peace. Behind every negative emotion, Swamiji teaches, stand only these two fundamental drives.

Abhiniveśa: The Fear of Death

The fifth kleśa, abhiniveśa, represents fear of death—the inability to imagine existence without bodily identification. Paradoxically, this fear actually stems from the soul’s intuitive knowledge of its own immortality, though the understanding has become distorted through identification with the temporary body-mind complex.

The Four Divine Attitudes: Antidotes to Mental Afflictions

The Yoga Vāsiṣṭha prescribes four transformative attitudes for cultivating śubha-vāsanās: maitrī (friendliness), karuṇā (compassion), muditā (cheerfulness), and upekṣā (equanimity). These practices, also found in Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras, form the foundation for mental purification.

Maitrī: Universal Friendliness

Maitrī means developing spontaneous friendliness toward all beings—not based on personal connection or benefit, but recognizing all souls as rays emanating from the same divine source. This universal friendliness extends beyond human beings to encompass all life struggling toward evolution.

Karuṇā: Unconditional Compassion

Karuṇā, or compassion, must operate beyond egoistic preferences. Swamiji uses the powerful analogy of viewing wrongdoers as family members caught by a virus—you take practical precautions while maintaining inner compassion for their suffering, never developing animosity at the heart level. This compassion extends equally to yourself, viewing your own mistakes with understanding rather than harsh self-punishment.

Muditā: Joy in Others’ Success

Muditā represents cheerfulness toward those more advanced or successful than yourself. The ordinary mind struggles with jealousy when others progress, yet genuine spiritual development requires celebrating all advancement toward truth. This attitude frees you from the mental stress of comparing, competing, and resenting others’ good fortune.

Upekṣā: Strategic Equanimity

Upekṣā means equanimity or withdrawal from those so entrenched in negativity that attempting to help them would only entangle you in their patterns. Like a wall that neither absorbs nor reflects, this attitude protects your mental purity while avoiding judgment.

From Purification to Liberation: The Path to Unobstructed Consciousness

The ultimate teaching of this Yoga Vāsiṣṭha section points beyond even pure vāsanās to complete liberation. Initially, spiritual practice requires effort—constantly reminding yourself that the world is illusory, practicing discrimination, cultivating divine attitudes. But through sustained practice, a stage arrives when these realizations become effortless and spontaneous.

Swamiji describes this through the metaphor of clouds and sun. Impure vāsanās act like black clouds obscuring the sun of your true Self. Pure vāsanās become like soft white clouds that not only fail to obstruct the sunlight but actually enhance its beauty through coloration. Finally, even these dissolve, revealing the sun alone—your eternal nature as pure consciousness.

Essential Practices for Transformation

The discourse emphasizes three essential practices for this transformation: śravaṇa (listening to spiritual teachings), manana (reflection and assimilation), and nididhyāsana (profound meditation). Swamiji extends the meaning of śravaṇa beyond formal study to include everything you allow into your consciousness throughout the day and, equally importantly, what you make others listen to through your own speech.

For those who complete this inner transformation, enlightenment remains secure regardless of external circumstances. Whether a sage appears active in the world or remains in silence, whether the body experiences health or disease—these external factors reveal nothing about the inner state of liberation. The enlightened one has transcended dependence on spiritual practices themselves, though such practices may continue as spontaneous expression rather than effortful striving.

The Practical Path Forward: Embracing Your Birthright of Peace

This teaching offers more than philosophical consolation—it provides a practical roadmap for transforming your daily mental experience. Every interaction becomes an opportunity to practice maitrī, every challenge a chance to develop karuṇā, every encounter with success (yours or others’) a training ground for muditā, and every potential entanglement a moment to exercise upekṣā.

The allegorical hell of “prickly thoughts” on a “velvety bed” need not be your permanent residence. Through understanding vāsanās and systematically replacing impure impressions with pure ones, you can move from mental suffering toward the profound peace that is your birthright.

As Sri Swami Jyotirmayananda concludes, this path leads ultimately to the recognition: “I am That, I am Brahman”—the healthiest state of the soul, where the sun of consciousness shines unobstructed by any clouds of mental conditioning.

Scholar’s Corner: Scriptural Foundations

This discourse draws primarily from the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha, Sthiti Prakaraṇa, Section 57. Additional scriptural foundations include:

• Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras on the five kleśas (II.3-9) and the four divine attitudes (I.33)
• Bhagavad Gītā references to the three guṇas and karma yoga
• Upanishadic teachings on the nature of Ātman and Brahman
• The Śānti Mantra from the Īśa Upaniṣad (Oṃ pūrṇamadaḥ pūrṇamidaṃ)

Glossary

Asmitā

Egoism; the second of the five kleśas; identification with the limited ego-self

Avidyā

Ignorance; the root cause of all suffering; misidentification with the non-eternal

Āyu

Lifespan; one of three factors determined by prārabdha karma

Bhoga

Experience of pleasure and pain; one of three factors determined by prārabdha

Jāti

Birth circumstances; family, location, and hereditary factors

Karuṇā

Compassion; one of the four divine attitudes

Kleśas

The five fundamental afflictions: avidyā, asmitā, rāga, dveṣa, abhiniveśa

Maitrī

Universal friendliness; one of the four divine attitudes

Muditā

Cheerfulness, especially toward others’ success; one of the four divine attitudes

Prārabdha

Fructifying karma; the portion of accumulated karma that manifests in the present life

Puruṣārtha

Personal effort; the power to modify karmic outcomes through present action

Sādhana

Spiritual practice undertaken with effort by the seeker

Saṃskāras

Deep impressions stored in the unconscious mind

Śubha-vāsanā

Pure mental impressions that support spiritual growth

Upekṣā

Equanimity; strategic withdrawal; one of the four divine attitudes

Vāsanās

Subtle mental impressions operating through the subconscious; tendencies

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