Samskara, Vasanas, Vritti And The Rational Mind

In India the word “Sanskar” comes often and is widely used in TV serials especially family dramas. In these soaps, often it represents the habits that the newly wed bride entering a joint family house has been cultivating from her parent’s home- thus the word “sanskari bahu” (translated as very well bought up daughter-in-law). From these serials, gist of sanskar is the values a parents inculcate in children while bringing them up. The above example speaks of sanskar of bride (soap bias) but sanskar applies equally to male and females and the way a child is brought up irrespective of whether child is male or female. 

Every single moment event in each one’s life has the potential of making an impression. However not all events make an impression. Many are just forgotten. Each human being has the capacity for feelings and emotions. Every event that is felt deeply or touches one’s emotional corner make an impression. The impression is made on what is called as chitta (part of mind that is like hard disk storage). However not all impressions are regularly made. For eg: the mother caring for the child makes a deep impression and it is regular. When same impression is made regularly, they form a groove in the chitta. That’s how child learns to recognise the lady as mother and as different from other ladies. In Hindu philosophy, such repeated impressions are labelled as samskaras. Similarly, the child comes to know it’s own name and differentiates itself from other children due to that regular impression of own name by parents, near and dear ones. These are examples of purposefully cultivated impressions. However, bulk of the impressions that form a groove for the child are usually not purposeful. Samskaras can be equated with habits and it includes value system adopted by an individual but it is more broader (i.e. what he cultivates due to parents as well as what he develops consciously or unconsciously from other strong surrounding influences). Parents have a guiding and important role in cultivating some samskaras, while some are cultivated from the society influences around, however some samskaras gained by an individual are shaped by the individual’s “vasana” (Explained later).  

For example, a child may be used to seeing a road policeman getting respect from everyone and wielding power. This event by itself need not create an impression. However, let’s take a scenario 1 where this specific child happens to have an incident.  The child is bullied and about to be pushed by other kids into a gutter when the policeman comes and stops all the kids. He even thrashes one or two bullies to give them a lesson. This mental trauma incident represents a strong first impression on the child. In later days, he may see the same policeman frequently crossing his path. Due to the previous strong impression, the recognition is immediate and as he starts observing he notices that the policeman is always wielding power over others due to the uniform. With such repeated and casual interactions, this forms a samskara in his mind field that could lead him to grow and be a policeman. It is the repeated play of image of power in the child’s head that becomes a “samskara” urging him to become a policeman.   

“Vasanas” happen to be the individual proclivities. It is slightly different from Samskaras. In above example, let’s go back to the moment where the child is getting saved from bullying by the policeman. In this situation, let us take a scenario 2 where this specific child is sensitive and hence gets emotionally wrung by police action of thrashing meted out to the bullies. In this case, while an impression is recorded, the tendency of the child is different. Due to that, the child will go out of way to avoid dealing with policeman in future by refusing to recognize him or by avoiding to look at his direction if he is around. This is known as “Vasana” or an individual tendency. While impressions are made regularly, the groove is of a different kind creating a different “samskara” than one observed previously. Due to a personal “Vasana”, in the presence of same impression input, the child may never contemplate being a policeman or may avoid dealing with a policeman in his entire life.

Let us move on to the fascinating topic of “Vritti”. Vrittis are the action specific component of the vasanas and samskara. Vasanas and samskaras by itself remain inactive and as potential in the “mind-space” called chitta. It is the vrittis that begin to act upon the vasanas producing the chain of cause and effect. Vrittis are mind patterns that compel a specific kind of action from the owner of samskaras and vasanas. Patanjali categorizes all actions into five categories of vrittis. Let us again look at above example – child has had a impactful experience (saved by policeman) that has definitely made an impression and has the potential of becoming a samskaras due to repetition. Repetition in mind is what makes the samskara.

“Pramana” – the first vritti represents proof or right knowledge that as per Patanjali Sutra can come from either direct experience, inference or from holy books. Now in above instance the child has a direct experience. He may choose to validate his becoming a policeman or avoiding all policeman based on proof registered in own mind. In scenario one the impression is proof (of power) for the child to become a policeman, however in scenario 2 the same impression represents proof (of violence) for the child to avoid all policemen.

“Viparya” – the second vritti that Patanjali enumerates represents opposite of right knowledge. In above example the growing child after having the first impression, happens to chance upon the policeman regularly. Let us take a 3rd scenario where he sees the policeman with other men equally tall and grown-up, yet in his mind the child infers that the policeman is stronger than others because he is the policeman. This is the result of a wrong inference. This also urges him to take up being policeman as a vocation. This is the viparya vritti in action propelling the child’s ambition.

The 3rd vritti as per Ptanjali is “Vikalpa” and represents imagination. Now in the 3rd scenario, for the child along with viparya vritti another vritti begins affecting that is vikalpa. The fertile mind starts imagining the policeman capable of beating stronger looking men and taking on 8-10 people at one time for fight like in films. All this adulation also urges him to work towards become a policeman once he grows.

When the child is not in doing any activity in the real world and this also applies to all of us as well, we still involve ourselves in the activity called sleep. This brings us to the 4th category of vritti called “Nidra” or sleep. It is a vritti because this is also the result of a mind pattern where the mind does not have any perception as support to the dream state. There is no “conscious will” following the mind activity. The mind is unconscious and where perception if any has no support is called sleep. During this state, the physical body gets rested and relaxed.  

The last vritti or mind pattern is called “Smriti” and represents the individual memory that records and stores information. Each memory is a potential and can trigger a set of action. The memory can be a samskara or it may be just an impression (not repeated multiple times). The single impression memory also has the potential to surface and compel actions if environment becomes conducive. For example in scenario 2, the sensitive child may have willingly ignored noticing the policeman and temporarily forgotten the incident as years passed. The child now all grown up and a family man has suddenly a necessity to go to police station and finds himself dilly dallying instead of purposefully going to the police station due to reason presented by circumstance. This happens due to the impression gained as a child that makes the now grown-up child resist any activity that involves policemen. He may either become aware of the “faint memory from past” or he may remain unaware, yet the resultant action is that he keeps procrastinating work that involves policemen.  Smriti represents all memory traces that were not let go from the mind. It may have been pushed to back of mind (like in the current example) but not let go by a measured observation of one’s own mind.

All our actions are compulsions that are fed by the vrittis. We may think ourselves to be rational human being however our actions are often contrary due to the vritti behind it. The vritti could be a pramana (Right knowledge), it could be viparya (opposite of right knowledge), or it could be vikalpa (imagination) or it could be smriti (past memory) or it could be a combination of one or more vrittis. It is the vritti or mind pattern during that very present moment that ends up compelling us to do an action that we regret ONLY on hindsight.

Vrittis can be painful or painless. That is where mindfulness practice is highly recommended to avoid pain. Unfortunately, mindfulness is easier said than done because it all depends on what impression, mindfulness has made on our inner makeup and whether activity of mindfulness has been cultivated to become a samskara.

In the end, it is all about practice (Patanjali calls this “Abhyaas” and this is one of the two antidote for vritti). More we keep practicing mindfulness (even when we keep failing), the more the chance of it making an impression and then becoming a samskara. The average Joe fails to make an impression in one’s own mind with mindfulness due to failures making a better impression. The impression on mind happens only when there is strong feelings and emotions. If one feels strongly for failures than the small success, the result is that impression in one’s mind will be that “I am not capable of being mindful”. It makes no sense in verbally announcing to the world or keep affirming that “I am mindful” if internally one keeps grumbling about being “incapable of mindfulness”.

Patanjali’s 2nd antidote for managing vritti is “Vairagyam” or detachment. Here detachment does not mean a state where one cuts off from the world instead it means learning to not get influenced by what is seen or what is heard.  We have a tendency of getting identified with what repeatedly happens with us. For example failing in the practice of mindfulness, the average Joe easily gets disheartened and identifies oneself with the failure which brings in more failure as an effect. Vairagyam is all about continuing with the practice without being influenced by the results even if it is a success. “Vairagyam” or detachment is best represented by Krishna’s message in Gita  “Don’t think of the fruit of your efforts, do your karma and leave the rest to me”.