Steps of Awareness – Dissolving the Vasana

Devotee: What are the obstacles which hinder realisation of the Self?
Sri Ramana Maharshi: They are habits of mind (vasanas)

Vasanas Part 1 helped you to identify your main Vasanas, what feeds them, how they are expressed and the resultant negative patterns in your life.

Vasanas Part 2, helped you to contemplate on your Vasanas as an addiction. It revealed how by using this analogy Vasanas can be treated using methods that have successfully helped addicts. In particular, using an adaptation to the twelve-step programme used by Alcoholics Anonymous. (AA).

In this final and concluding part, you are given particular mindful steps to help dissolve even the most hardened and solid Vasana Patterns. Awareness is the tool. Awareness sheds light on the Vasana Patterns binding you. Find your attachments and desires. There is only one useful desire and this is the desire for Awareness. Let all others go.

With Awareness you dissolve what is Unreal. When you dissolve what is unreal, you find strength in Reality. In Reality, you have the clarity to psychologically, emotionally, physically and spiritually live happily and healthily. With Awareness, you have the clarity to live and die in either relative or total freedom. These steps will help to give you the Awareness you need, to know what you are doing and why, rather than mindlessly journeying through life entrapped by a web of mind, body and psycho-spiritual patterns. Rather than walking around in a fog.

The steps given here are like stepping stones positioned over a fast flowing river of Maya and its consequences. They are a clear walkway over a river that if fallen into, drowns the Truth of you and carries you away into ever increasing illusion. Here, step by step, you are saved from drowning in the Maya

The best way to learn is through example. I have chosen a quite common Vasana Pattern that you can hopefully relate to, if not now, at some point in your life. I will go through each step and show you how they can be understood and help dissolve your Patterns, through the laser beam of rationality and insight; through Awareness.

The Vasana Pattern used has been kindly offered by someone who suffered and worked through their pattern. Through working through the Steps, they experienced an increased awareness of how they were being bound and limited by their Repetative Thought Pattern. Through this Awareness, they were able to change their patterning, their responses and expectations. They were able to change their mind, subconsciously and consciously, to change their actions and reactions… and change. Their mind changed and their life changed. Gratitude to Awareness.

I strongly recommend that each time you work with this series of steps that you to write down the steps and your answers to each one. This relieves the burden of your mind from trying to remember and becomes a readable statement that is less easy to forget. We have many Vasanas. Work on each one as it presents itself to you in your life.

My Vasana Pattern

Step 1. Repetitive Thought Pattern
(Identification of a Vasana which harms you).

Consider a recurring action and reaction you have in your life:

Here, it is:

People don’t like me, they are not kind to me and this upsets me.

Now, consider what is the repetitive thought pattern you have underlying this.

Here, it is:

I feel isolated, unloved and alone

And so “I feel isolated, unloved and alone.” is the identification for Step 1

Identification is a great healer even though initially facing your underlying thought/belief/assumption is a challenge. Here, the addiction to the pattern is found. Even though painful and unpleasant, it is a driving force in the mind until it is made conscious and released. Once you identify the pattern you are addicted to, you can now move to Step 2.

Step 2: Your Attachment
(Identification of your attachment to the Pattern).

For a pattern to recur again and again – to be a Vasana, there needs to be an attachment to that pattern itself. This can be subconscious and conscious. Look at what this attachment is for you. This is different from your desire. The attachment is highly reflective of the pattern and binds you to it. Here, the attachment surely is to being attached to feeling isolated, unloved and alone? And so, we can identify Step 2 by saying:

I am attached to feeling isolated, unloved and alone

Our attachment imprisons us to the Vasana. It is what we believe, what we are accustomed to, what we expect and what we empower to happen, again and again. Identifying the attachment is a big breakthrough for you. Sometimes, this very identification can burst your Vasana bubble and the Vasana in question has no longer the same power over you.

Now we can move on to Step 3

Step 3: My Desire
(Identify Your Desire Connected to the Pattern)

Here, it is:

I desire people to befriend me, to love me and to include me.

Although the desire may be strong, it cannot fulfil itself if the attachment to the Vasana is stronger. The attachment to this particular Vasana is to feeling isolated, unloved and alone. No matter how much you want to be loved and included, subconscious and unconscious promptings and motivations will propel you to choose situations that propel you towards being unloved and alone.

Now, we go to Step 4 and we find out what happens when our desires are thwarted or unfulfilled.

Step 4: My Anger
(Identify the Anger that Arises in You when Your Desire is Thwarted or Unfulfilled).

Here it is:

I feel upset and angry when people don’t include me, when they are not kind to me. I can’t be ambivalent and ignore it, it goes on and on in my mind. I am devastated and isolated. I want to hurt the people who are doing this to me. Sometimes I want to hurt myself. I am self-destructive and not nice to be around

Our anger is our armour. But your armour here is your obscuration of self. When you can make your anger and its repercussions conscious, when you see its repercussions in black and white, you can be free of the limitations of your negative self. You can feel and you can HEAL

Step 5: My Delusion/Myth
(In relation to Your Vasana Pattern).

In what way are you deluding yourself, are you out of reality through the way you are thinking and acting? For example, do you believe that there is no inclusion in your life, ever with others? Does everyone ignore you always? Or just sometimes? Are you deluded in thinking that people should always include you and cherish you? Is this not too much to expect? Is it a delusion to anchor your happiness and unhappiness on such expectations?

Here, it is:

I am in delusion when I think people are never kind, when I think that they never include me. It’s not always true. I am in delusion when I think that it’s always going to be bad and sad for me. When I expect it to be… How do I know? I am in delusion when I am so needy for others. When I don’t value myself and take care of myself happily and when I expect my happiness to be dependent on others and how they are with me. I am in delusion when I don’t go beyond myself to even think of someone else.

Now we can move on to Step 6

Step 6: My Loss of/Distortion of Memory
(when I am Caught in the Pattern)

When your mind focusses on the negative rather than the positive in your life, you discount what is potentially positive and cling to the negative. You constantly re-write or distort your history and live in a belief of your own making. At the very least, you warp your vision about what has happened, what is happening and what can happen.

Here, it is:

When I get caught up in all this, I forget that I am free to walk away and to be with people who are kinder and who do include me. I forget all the times I have been loved or have been happy. I get so caught up with what I am not getting or how I am not loved rather than when I have been. I get caught in the grief and cannot see anything else other than the negative. I forget I have any choice and I get caught in being a miserable victim. I forget who I truly am, that I am more than this…

Now move to Step 7.

Step 7: My Loss of discrimination/of judgement

It is relatively easy to lose a grip on what’s really happening within you and external to you when you are upset. It’s very easy to get things out of proportion. To make wrong choices, to see things around you in a confused way. To not see in reality or realistically

Here, it is:

I lose reality and get caught up in the situation. Sometimes, it’s a small happening, not so important, but when I get caught in my reaction it becomes huge… so huge that it affects everything for me and I can plummet into distress and sadness. I forget about me and how I don’t need to be like this. I forget to care for me. I judge the others around me as all-powerful. I give them all my power. I give the situation all my power and I become powerless. I am helpless and I don’t need to do this. I forget God. I forget my Path, I forget that everything including me is temporary and I forget to hold onto what is permanent. I forget love and that I am loved. I forget to love.

When you identify this step you have the opportunity to wake up from the pain and to see how you don’t need to do this, that you don’t need to think this, that you don’t need to be like this. Identifying, naming, claiming, feeling, enables you to ultimately let go.

Now you are ready to move to step 8

Step 8: My Suffering
(Related to this Vasana).

Here, it is:

When I feel helpless and hopeless, I don’t like myself. I reject those around me first, in case they reject me. I expect to be sad. I can’t find gratitude or happiness even in small things. I don’t like being me. I alienate myself as much as anyone else. I get depressed and unhappy. Everything is about me not being included, not being loved enough and I have no capacity to give love when I am like this. I suffer so much in my self-isolation and it’s just all about me.

Identifying your suffering, bringing this into conscious awareness, helps you to want to break the pattern. Why suffer when you don’t need to? This leads us to Step 9. Positive hope is inherent here.

Step 9: This increased Awareness Leads me to want to…

Here it is:

…Choose more positively. I want to catch myself when I start to think these thoughts and when I start to go down the rabbit-hole and getting lost or caught in situations or people or attitudes where I am feeling or being isolated or unloved. I would like to become part of something where I can give rather than where I am thinking all the time that I am not being given to. It makes me think I could look at where I can do some voluntary work of some kind that I would like. More than anything I want to stop choosing to do this to myself.

 

Following are the steps without my comments. The difficulties and suffering can now be seen clearly.

Step 1. My Repetitive Thought Pattern

I feel I am isolated, unloved and alone

Step 2: My Attachment to the Pattern.

I am attached to feeling isolated, unloved and alone

Step 3: My Desires

I desire people to befriend me, to love me and to include me.

Step 4: My Anger

I feel upset and angry when people don’t include me, when they are not kind to me. I can’t be ambivalent and ignore it, it goes on and on in my mind. I am devastated and isolated. I want to hurt the people who are doing this to me. Sometimes I want to hurt myself. I am self-destructive and not nice to be around

Step 5: My Delusion/Myth

I am in delusion when I think people are never kind, when I think that they never include me. It’s not always true. I am in delusion when I think that it’s always going to be bad and sad for me. When I expect it to be… How do I know? I am in delusion when I am so needy for others. When I don’t value myself and take care of myself happily and when I expect my happiness to be dependent on others and how they are with me. I am in delusion when I don’t go beyond myself to even think of someone else.

Step 6: My Loss of/Distortion of Memory

When I get caught up in all this, I forget that I am free to walk away and to be with people who are kinder and who do include me. I forget all the times I have been loved or have been happy. I get so caught up with what I am not getting or how I am not loved rather than when I have been. I get caught in the grief and cannot see anything else other than the negative. I forget I have any choice and I get caught in being a miserable victim. I forget who I truly am, that I am more than this…

Step 7: My Loss of discrimination/of judgement

I lose reality and get caught up in the situation. Sometimes, it’s a small happening, not so important, but when I get caught in my reaction it becomes huge… so huge that it affects everything for me and I can plummet into distress and sadness. I forget about me and how I don’t need to be like this. I forget to care for me. I judge the others around me as all-powerful. I give them all my power. I give the situation all my power and I become powerless. I am helpless and I don’t need to do this. I forget God. I forget my Path, I forget that everything including me is temporary and I forget to hold onto what is permanent. I forget love and that I am loved. I forget to love.

Step 8: My Suffering

When I feel helpless and hopeless, I don’t like myself. I reject those around me first, in case they reject me. I expect to be sad. I can’t find gratitude or happiness even in small things. I don’t like being me. I alienate myself as much as anyone else. I get depressed and unhappy. Everything is about me not being included, not being loved enough and I have no capacity to give love when I am like this. I suffer so much in my self-isolation and it’s just all about me.

Step 9: This increased Awareness Leads me to Want to…

Choose more positively. I want to catch myself when I start to think these thoughts and when I start to go down the rabbit-hole and getting lost or caught in situations or people or attitudes where I am feeling or being isolated or unloved. I would like to become part of something where I can give rather than where I am thinking all the time that I am not being given to. It makes me think I could look at where I can do some voluntary work of some kind that I would like. More than anything I want to stop choosing to do this to myself.

May this example and reflection be helpful for you. May Parts 1 to 3 of Vasanas help you to identify the Patterns that imprison you and which make you a victim to unnecessary suffering and pain. You are more than this. You are more than your patterns. You are Divine and you are Free. You just need to know this Truth, to remember this Truth, to claim this Truth. Identification of your Vasanas, Scrutiny of your Vasanas, Reflection of your Vasanas will make them weak…. will disempower them and will enable them to be less solid and to dissolve… They are the obscurations to your Truth, to the Truth of you. To the beauty, the purity, the Divine sovereignty, the freedom of YOU.

Identify, name, claim, feel and let go.

Loving blessings

Mynavati