Why We Are The Way We Are

Whichever way you have ‘become’,
you have only created and cultivated
a small part of it consciously.
A large part of you is unconscious because
most of what you perceive is not in
your awareness.
Sense perception is like that – everything
that goes in through your sense organs gets
established in your system to be remembered
forever. This is karma. Every impression
that the five sense organs take in is
stored. This is not against you; this information
is useful. If you clean up all this information,
you will not know how to handle
even the simplest aspects of life.
It is only because the information
is coming in such torrents, it is
so complex, and most of it goes into
you without your consciousness so
it has become a problem. How you
became the way you are is just a
tendency that you developed because
of the information you
gathered.
This tendency is traditionally
called vasana. It is like a smell. Whatever is
there in maximum quantity is the kind of
smell you experience. Because you produce
this kind of smell, a certain type of life
moves towards you, and you also tend to
move in that direction.
Now, you use perfume to cover the
smell. In the first meeting, people may get
deceived. The moment they notice the
stink, they are going to run away. Is that the
way to live?
So it doesn’t matter what impressions
you have gathered, what you make of it is in
your hands. An unpleasant experience is
carried by most like a badge, always talking
about it. “This happened; somebody did this
to me, that’s why i’m like this.” They try to
cover all their unpleasantness with this one
badge.
One basic symbolism in yoga and Indian
spirituality has always been a lotus. This is
essentially because a lotus grows best wherever
there is dirt. Either you can resist the
dirt; you can become the dirt, or transform it
into a wonderful blossom. It’s your choice.
If unpleasant things have happened to
you, it is all the more important that you
turn wiser and more beautiful as quick as
possible, because you know the pain of unpleasantness.
If unpleasant things have happened, all
you have to do is see how such
things do not happen again to you or
to those around you. Whatever you
are right now is your own creation,
perhaps an unconscious one.
Unconscious processing of your
impressions has landed you
where you are now. If you consciously
process the impressions,
you could turn them into something
else.
To drop your vasanas, and get released
from these tendencies is an endless work because
in the process you may end up creating
more karma. So, instead of trying to
erase the smell, you need to distance yourself
from the source.
Whatever the nature of karma, the recording
mechanisms are only two – your
body and mind. If you create little space between
you and your physical body and mental
structure, then whatever the karma, or
vasanas, they have no impact on you. Then,
they just die.
The choice is yours – you could be a victim,
a spectator, or the master of your life.

Discourse: Sadhguru

 link : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life/spirituality/speaking-tree/Why-we-are-the-way-we-are/articleshow/5620694.cms