Who Are You, and What Are You?

“Each experience you hold onto defines your expression in life.  In Yoga/Hinduism it is called ‘samskara;’ the belief that each thought, feeling and emotion leaves one impression on each cell within the body.  Your expression is the sum total of these expressions.  Yoga and mantra are designed to cleanse these impressions, as they often obstruct one from perceiving their true essence.  This is the journey of life, to clear these impressions and perceive ones true nature.”–Yogi Baba Prem

Thanks to the Yogi Baba for permission to reprint the above. English doesn’t (yet) have a word for this sense of samskara, but that knowledge is emerging from neurology, psychology and other disciplines, especially Gestalt. Ergo, the human being is a multi-media recording recording device that runs 24/7 from before birth until after death. The undeveloped person is a raw expression of all those experiences. If you don’t process and organize those experiences consciously, you are the victim of everything that has ever happened to you. As a perhaps humorous example, if somebody smacked you with a fly swatter when you were two, you’ll always have a “thing” about fly swatters. You just need to get over it. Worst of all, you’ll never discover your own depths and your self-nature until you begin healing and growing from your samskara.

The yogi and I travel parallel paths of inner development. His is Hinduism, mine is Zen. Both are paths of healing, growth, and discovery. We both know that discovering your own self-nature is the path to persistent joy and enlightening experiences.