Spiritual Portal

As a psychologist, I'm aware that the repetitive behavior students exhibit during yoga class originated long before they stepped onto the mat; the classroom is simply the arena in which we can witness our deeply ingrained habits in all their glory. According to yogic philosophy, we're born with a karmic inheritance of mental and emotional patterns—known as samskaras—through which we cycle over and over again during our lives.
 
The word samskara comes from the Sanskrit sam (complete or joined together) and kara (action, cause, or doing). In addition to being generalized patterns, samskaras are individual impressions, ideas, or actions; taken together, our samskaras make up our conditioning. Repeating samskaras reinforces them, creating a groove that is difficult to resist. Samskaras can be positive—imagine the selfless acts of Mother Theresa. They can also be negative, as in the self-lacerating mental patterns that underlie low self-esteem and self-destructive relationships. The negative samskaras are what hinder our positive evolution.

Taken from a Yoga Journal
 

Nomaste and anyone interested: I believe it is much easier as a close friend to recognize samskaras in us then we ourselves. Perhaps it is hearing it and being reminded of it by someone close that hits home. But no one else sees us like others.

Hinduism & Buddhism :  a mental conformation or latent karmic tendency shaping one's present life.
Often we meet people from past lives that have certain similarities to us vibrationally speaking . This
is because of certain samskaras shared with them. It is often perceived as painful to break such connections
if we find it necessary.

What I noticed recently is that I come in contact with a lot of people that like to put me into a box-so to speak-of their own. They try to define me into their personal reality. When I break out of that box, or do things outside of the box they are threatened or a bit perturbed that they can't control my behavior. I have to ask myself why do I attract such things perhaps maybe I put people in the box??? Good question?

We share certain samskaras or seed tendencies with others. What is the meaning of the word ’samskara’?

Q: What is the definition of the word ‘samskara’? Is it the karma which is earned from the past life?

A: Well, the word ‘samskara’ can be translated in English as ‘deep impressions’. It does come from our past life experiences and it is also what we are gaining in this life. In our childhood and even today, when we interact with people, our indriyas or sense organs are receiving so many stimuli, the conditionings, the deeper impressions which remain as residue in our subconscious can be called ‘samskaras.



I think u r just trying to put a concept that has been around for mellnea into scientific terms.

Steve, congratulations for the pertinent use of the term 'tiranny'. You starting to like it as well!

At one time in the past I remember people blaming each other for everything that happens to them. More and more, in life , we are understanding that we create our own reality. With this understanding we begin to understand that the 'tyranny' we percieve around us originates in our own attitudes. The reason we recognize it so well is that it is because there is a counter - balancing portion of tyranny in our own ideas and attitudes.

And yes, it is tyranny, not tiranny. My bad.

Nomaste Eric your question brought my thoughts back to this thread. I think u r just trying to put a concept that has been around for millennia  into scientific terms. Science is a relatively new discipline in history compared to the vedas and the concept of samskaras. But samskaras are a pattern of thought that permeates our consciousness. They are like lenses we see our reality thru them. Science is surely one of them. I would put your statement a little differently. Neural pathways are similar to samskaras.

 Thanks for resurrecting this thread. I was having trouble finding it from my phone last night.

Yes thanks.. I believe that part of samskaras are our political differences. They are based on past life as well as this lifes experiences. We may come up with entirely different world views because of our own experiences from the past. In this way we are not even able to completely depend on our experiences because they seem true to us. Yet may not be to another. However when we live together and two different realities emerge we must somehow understand the patterns and thoughts of others and how they arrived at their present conclusions.

This material creation is based on contrast. Without it there can be no show. But when we witness the show we are no longer attached to our temporary roles. Rather we become observers like the director from above..it is all unfolding as it was meant to be we just have to get in tune with the role that we were meant to play...not one of our own making.

I am used to be more certain about  differences in relationships and friendships. However, as we get older we realize that the experiences of one individual from another, over many life times, are much different so we come to one another with these different samskaras.