Hridaya Kshetram

Vasanaksaya, Karma, and Sadhana: First Know the Self

September 15 2025

Question: Is getting rid of vasanas a precondition for Realisation?
AMMA: Not exactly a precondition, but yes, it is needed for abiding in the Self without hindrance. If vasanas are strong, you cannot abide as the Self. They will cover your True Nature. In that sense, yes. Even if realisation comes, strong vasanas will veil it. But realisation itself will lead to vasanakshaya. There is no other way. Both cannot coexist. So glimpses of the Self will naturally dissolve vasanas over time. Only then can it be complete. Otherwise there will be doubts, ups and downs. Stability will not be there.

Question: Then is there a method to get rid of vasanas?
AMMA: First know yourself — vasanas will go by themselves. How does vasanakshaya happen? By knowing who you are, you willingly drop vasanas, or grace removes them. Self-enquiry and satsang are for this. When ego arises, if you are conscious of it, it leaves you. If you are unconscious, it stays.
Not all tendencies are bad. Coming for satsang is a tendency. Self-enquiry is a tendency. Good habits take you to the goal. Bhagavan said to divide tendencies: good and bad. Replace bad with good until good leads you beyond. As long as tendencies are mostly shubham (auspicious), they help you turn inward.

Question: What is the change I should be feeling if I do girivalam?
AMMA: Who wants to know it? And who is recognising it? Sadhana should be like that - that you don’t recognise it. You just do it. If you sit and not know what is happening, that is good. Taking ownership of the sadhana is the problem. The best sadhana is when things happen without you knowing.

Question: What is the relationship between karma and vasanas?
AMMA: Karma is a general term — prarabdha, agami, sanchita — are actions that are due. Vasanas are patterns, conditionings. A vasana you can repeat a thousand times but vasanas can be removed. Karma is fixed — it plays out. But vasanas can generate more karma if unchecked. What you do today can fix tomorrow’s karma.
There is a saying: the last thing to appear on the tree is fruit. So is sadhana. At the beginning, you don’t know what is happening. Step by step it goes, and in the end the fruit comes. Nothing is wasted. Sometimes there is clarity, sometimes none, but still it moves. As long as you don’t deviate, the path is never fruitless. Progress is only in the relative plane, not for the Self.
So I don’t like engaging much in talk of karma and vasana — it invites what is not needed. You are none of this. Even when you do sadhana, know you are not a sadhaka. When you are devoted, know you are not a devotee. When you seek, know you are not a seeker. All are limited identities.
The truth is simple. Right now you are conscious of consciousness. That is your true nature — beyond past, future, vasana, karma, even beyond Realisation. Consciousness does not need to be caught. It is not yours or mine. It exists, free, independent, not bound to body, place, or time. That alone remains.
If you recognise and abide as That, it is the Supreme sadhana. Not adding, not removing. Simply being.