So, what are samskaras?
Samskara is a Sanskrit term meaning “scar of the mind”.
Samskaras are the mental impressions left by all thoughts, actions, and intents that an individual has ever experienced. They can be thought of as psychological imprints. They are below the level of normal consciousness and are said to be the root of all impulses, as well as our innate dispositions.
Through practices, such as meditation, it is possible to look within and come into contact with one’s inner samskaras, below the threshold of consciousness.
In some ways, samskaras are like an addiction. But instead of being addicted to a substance, you get addicted to a particular emotional state that leads to suffering and pain. The samskaras have a familiarity to them and even though they lead to suffering, they are also how you experience your life. Their familiarity is also their temptation because the pattern is so well established and you are so attached to its righteousness that it actually hurts to let them go.
Each moment we have the possibility of being fresh and new, but very often we live of our lives from a habit pattern established in the past. Once these patterns are established, the flow of human consciousness gets organized into certain repetitive patterns. The Sanskrit word for these repetitive patterns is a samskara. These are essentially habit patterns of the mind that have been practiced so much so that they run on auto-pilot, unconsciously generating the same cyclical type of interactions you perform in the world, again and again.
An example of a samskara:
Now imagine that you have had an intense trauma when you were a young child. So intense that you have blocked it from your conscious memory. You may not have any conscious memory of the event, but the samskara remains hidden and active in your psyche, which pulls you one way or another in your emotions, beliefs, and the choices you make.
For example, if as a child a big dog gave you a fright when it barked and jumped on you, every time you saw a dog thereafter you would have the expectation it would jump on you and you would feel the same fear. The original event formed a samskara that conditions your thinking and emotions whenever you are near a barking dog. Whether or not the dog has ill intent towards you is not relevant, you experience the fear anyway. You can’t stop it, because it is a reflex action and every encounter with a dog from the original incident until now has reinforced your belief system.
Samskaras do not remain silent. They have to express themselves, either consciously or unconsciously. Whether you realize it or not, in the depth of yourself your samskaras are perpetually crying out. This is the same for all samskaras.
The IST process is about going back to the source of the reaction, re-experiencing the event from a different standpoint, and neutralising the emotional ‘charge’ held there. This can lead to profound states of peace and stillness, a cognising of your higher Self, beyond the ordinary mind.
An experience of yourself beyond time and space.
You can find a more in-depth exposition of the samskara process in Samuel Sagan’s book Regression: Past-Life Therapy for Here and Now Freedom, available from the Clairvision School website.