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Accumulation of good samskaras [1]

Human life is full of various samskaras. Innumerable actions are being continually done by us; there is really no end to them. Even if we take a superficial look and count the activities done during twenty four hours a day – eating, drinking, sitting, walking, working, writing, speaking, reading – they would make a long list. Besides these, in the life there are various dreams, sentiments, and perceptions like love and hate, honour and insult, joy and sorrow. All these make their impact on the mind and shape a man’s personality and behavior. Therefore, if somebody asks me to define life, I would say that this means as aggregate of accumulated samskaras.

Samskaras are good as well as bad, and both of them influence human life. We hardly remember our childhood days. Samskaras from the former births are so completely erased that one wonders whether one had any previous birth at all. When we cannot remember even the childhood days, why talk of previous births? Let us, therefore, leave them aside and think only of this birth. Here also it is not that only those actions which we remember had taken place. Countless activities and the acquisition of information and know-how of a great many things are continually taking place. In the end, most of them get erased leaving behind only a few Samskaras. If we try to recollect at the bed-time all that we did during the day, we fail to do so. Only the most prominent incidents come back before the mind’s eye. For example, if we had a serious quarrel, we remember only that at night. That quarrel is the only thing in the day that is carried forward from that day in the account book of our life. Important and conspicuous events leave strong impressions; the rest fade away. When we write a diary, we note therein only a few important things. When we review the week, we note even less. While reviewing a month, only the most important happenings during the month are remembered. Many of those happenings too are omitted while reviewing the year. Thus very few things remain in memory, and they form the Samskaras. Most of the innumerable actions and much of what we know ultimately fade away leaving only a small residue in the mind. Those actions and the information and know-how do their work and disappear. Only a few Samskaras remain, and these Samskaras are our capital. That is our net gain from the business of living. A trader keeps daily, monthly and annual accounts of income and expenditure and arrives at the figure of profit or loss. It is exactly the same with life. Addition and deletion of Samskaras goes on throughout the life, resulting finally in a small net balance. When the end of life comes near, the self begins to think of the gains in life. Looking back, it finds that these gains are few. This does not mean that all that one did and all that one came to know have proved to be futile. That has certainly done its work. There could be thousands of transactions in a trader’s business, but a single final figure of either profit or loss is the net result. If there is loss, his heart sinks. If there is profit, he is happy.

We too are in a similar position. If at the time of death mind craves for food, it is clear indication of having spent the entire life in indulging the palate. Craving for food is then the only ‘achievement’ in life; it is the only capital that has been accumulated in this life. If a mother thinks of her child at the time of death, it shows that her attachment to her child is the strongest samskara she has acquired in her life; whatever else she did was secondary. In arithmetic there are problems of fractions where addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of big figures ultimately results in small figure or even zero. Like wise, the entire life of a man is an arithmetical exercise wherein addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of numerous Samskaras goes on continuously and finally one strong Samskara remains. That is the final answer of the equation of life. The thought that arises at the last moment in this life is the essence of the whole of one’s life; it signifies what has been gained in life.

This essence should be sweet; the last moment should be happy. A person should be happy. A person should experience inner peace and fulfillment at the time of death. It is for this that one should endeavour throughout one’s life. All is well that ends well. We should fix the mind on this final answer while solving the problem of life. We should plan the life with this aim in view. In a mathematical exercise, we have to keep the problem in mind and employ the appropriate method to solve it. Our life should be oriented in such a way that we will have the Samskara that we want at the last moment. Day and night, our whole attention should be turned in that direction.

[Reproduced with kind permission of Paramdham Publication, Pavnar from   Chapter 8 of ‘Talks on The Gita’ by Sant Vinoba Bhave, 16th edition (Jan 2005)]

Notes:

[1]   Samskaras mean the imprints of actions, associations and experiences that remain
indelibly engraved on our mind and mould our behaviour, our personality and our world-view.

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