Vasana

vasana: tendency or desire

Whether you believe in reincarnation or not, you will probably agree that people tend to be endowed with very different character traits, likes and dislikes. If you have children you will observe that from early days they come attached with completely different personality traits. I admit, it's kind of obvious, but for me this idea that we all have to live with our individual vasana has hit me only recently. We have to develop these vasanas and live them out in most cases, and have to suppress them in some cases, just as we choose.

I started thinking about this theme when I read Neale Walsch's Conversations with God. In it, God explained the process of spiritual self-discovery with the colors of the rainbow. As the intersection of the basic colors give you the color white, you have to literally live through and express all rainbow colors, i.e. everything God is not, in order to discover Him. Just imagine what this implies, you pretty much have to throw all moral standards out of the window. You just don't know what is wrong or right; what you have to ask is whether a particular action is useful for your development or not. Obviously, only your own soul can provide you with this answer.

Consider 3 historic figures, Alexander the Great, Napoleon and Hitler. Only Alexander succeeded with his mission in life to conquer the world. At the end of his short life he had accomplished and seen everything. The world as was known then was pretty much his. I am sure that at the end of his life he was just fed up with the whole conquering business. Napoleon on the other hand tortured himself for the rest of his life in exile. Allegedly his last two words when he died were France ... Grand Army. How sad! Quite frankly, I don't even want to know what went on in Hitler's brain in the hours before he shot himself in the dark bunker. Alexander was done with his rainbow color, Napoleon & Hitler weren't.

Take another example, sex. I re-read Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer for this blog and was surprised to see how boring these sexual episodes were. Already at the age of 40, he apparently was bored to tears with sex. I am pretty sure when he died at the age of 90, he had other things on his mind than sex. This rainbow color was done as well.

Unfortunately, I can't tell you what this all means for you personally. If you conquer the world, sexually exploit others, or aggressively climb the ranks of a corporation you may satisfy your vasana, but you also create bad karma which you have to deal with eventually. Still, if your longing is planted deep in your soul you might not have another choice. Just get it done with once and for all. Go all the way in whatever you do Sadhguru says (Mystic's Musings). Don't judge others and search your soul for your mission in life.