One term at a time · first of the series
वासना vasana
The trace a desire leaves behind after the desire itself has gone.
These traces, and not our decisions, are what quietly shape a life.
The words for what your mind is already doing.
Vasana, samskara, viveka — an older psychology named these patterns with a precision English never developed. Fifty of them carry nearly all of the teaching. Four are filmed. The rest arrive as they are made, free.
One word, one film. We will not email you about anything else, and you can stop any time.
Two minutes, and then he says it himself.
The card carries the definition. Swamiji carries the rest — he almost never defines a term outright, he shows you one at work.
2 min 12 sec
Not a doctrine. A fragrance.
Something that wafts off a person whether they intend it or not.
Sri Swami Jyotirmayananda · The Raja Yoga Sutras, Lesson 14 · South Miami, June 2012 · at 41:24
He was explaining how karma is stored, and how it sprouts. Notice that he never defines the word. He hands you a smell and expects you to recognize it.
This one is where it starts.
Vasana is not a word to collect. It is the first step of an argument that runs through three more terms, and each of those has its own film.
-
वासना vasana
The trace a desire leaves behind after the desire itself has gone. These traces, and not our decisions, are what quietly shape a life.You are here
-
वैराग्य vairagya
What loosens its hold.
-
सत्सङ्ग satsanga
What decides whether it comes back.
-
विवेक viveka
What finally makes the letting go possible.
About seven hundred Sanskrit terms appear across our written study guides, but only about fifty come back again and again. Those fifty are the set, and they are what we are filming.