Vasanas or core issues are the greatest obstacle to our enlightenment
Sri Ramana defined vasanas as “latent tendencies”:
“Only one who is free from all the latent tendencies (vasanas) is a Sage. That being so how can the tendencies of karma affect him who is entirely unattached to activity?” (1)
Vasanas (2) are habitual reaction patterns, triggered by some remembred impulse. They remove us from reality and drag us into our memories.
They remove us from the center, where the door to interdimensionality – the heart – is to be found and launch us into the extremes where the impulses of the heart are overwhelmed.
You’ve watched me, since Dec. 25, 2025, wrestle what we would have called, years ago, a “stack attack” – a whole stack of vasanas going off when first I was defrauded and then had my identity stolen and used to my detriment. I was a wreck before long.
Once we’re free of their grip, however, and this is the reason I come in here today, we often find that the skills we developed while run by them remain.
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My favorite example is a friend whose family lived on top of a mountain. His father would go to work in the morning and, from that time till he returned, the family was stranded.
As a result, my friend became a consummate networker, helping other families and becoming close-knit so that, if he needed a lift into town, it was always available.
But much of his behavior was automatic. He was “on rails.” And what he found was that, when he gradually dissolved the vasana through awareness, he was left with his skills. He was still a consummate networker, but no longer automatic, on rails.
We used to say that he was a networker now out of personally causing it rather than automatically becoming an effect of it; for short, being “at cause” rather than being “at effect” with it.
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What’s the use of all this? Well, for me, vasanas are the main obstacle to enlightenment. When triggered or activated, as you saw mine were, they are what remove us from the center and blast us into the extremes, where all good things and all goodwill get destroyed. And we also add to the pile of regrets we’re already lugging around.
The archangel we work with can remove them. Michael once acknowledged that he had empowered me on one occasion when I wanted to forget about the (non-sexual) harm Dad did when I was young. He saw that I meant it. It was not another ruse and so he empowered it. (3)
But for the most part they’re removed because we sit with them, allow them to happen, learn from them by observing, and allow them to be and to leave on their own time. The vasana or core issue loosens up and finally leaves.
If we do that instead of blowing up or being mean, it lifts over time. We become the person we want to be and (mistakenly) think of ourselves as being.
When. our major vasanas subside, our life ceases being a battleground and becomes a fertile field.
Now if we substitute for chasing after our vasanas all day a focus on the well-being of ourselves and those around us, the car is not merely clean and gassed up, but it’s in motion. We are moving forward now, at last.
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Not all vasanas are bad. If I had a hearing this morning, the vasana that has me get up out of bed and get down to the office is a helpful one. The army runs on creating vasanas. Even if I “hear” my boss in my head yelling at me, or my wife insisting I get out of bed, the vasana is still helpful.
And it’s certainly helpful as a motivator behind (particularly) lifeskills learning. Remove the outer wrapping (the fear that caused us to create the vasana’s habits in the first place) and we have a work of art rather than a nattering old fool, a spiritual ballerina rather than a Beefeater.
My hope in using the word “vasanas” was twofold. First it was to hitch up western psychology with eastern spirituality. Vedantists recognize vasanas as the major obstacle to enlightenment.
Vasanas remove us from the center, from the heart, and launch us into the extremes where all useful things are torn down or otherwise destroyed.
We spend the rest of our lives acting out what our childhood trauma induced us to feel and do. Finally when we make real progress and are no longer going from trigger to trigger. we are an open space for peace and love to show up. I mean “peace” and “love” as consciousness states, not just a cessation of hostilities and a warmth towards others. Real peace and real love.
Such as only comes from enlightenment, Self-Realization, knowing who we are.
Footnotes
(1) Sri Ramana Maharshi, Spiritual Instruction of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi. Eighth Edition. Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasramam, 1974, Chapter 2, Question 26.
(2) See Vasanas: Preparing For Ascension by Clearing Old Issues at https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Vasanas-Preparing-for-Ascension-R16.pdf
(3) See “System Restore.”