(Concluded from Part 1, yesterday.)
One place the dual and the non-dual intersect is in their agreement on what stands between us and our growth or enlightenment: Vasanas.
Call them resentments, unfinished business, old baggage, records, files, core issues – the name matters not.
They are file folders containing the memories of earlier traumas that have shaped our thinking, feeling, and behaving.
Living obedient to them, we erect a constructed self, an image, a mask, which we sell to others as if it’s our real self.
In my opinion, our lack of congruence confuses us and denies us the kind of devotional determination and calm discernment that enables growth and enlightenment to occur.
My vasanas are so strong I barely see them. I allow them to overmaster me and plow into the ground more regularly than I’d like to admit. So long as I’m committed to following their lead, I remain in the dark, literally.
There’s nothing for it, for me, but a patient working away at them – getting to the bottom of them, experiencing what I refused to experience way back when, and healing the wound.
The Buddha said do only wholesome action, refrain from unwholesome action, and purify the mind. Completing the experience of our vasanas is purifying the mind.