Levels of Wisdom – Tripura Rahasya

These are the latent impressions or subconscious mental footprints left by past experiences, thoughts, and actions. They are the deepest layer of pre-disposition. They drive a person's immediate reactions, desires, and habitual behaviour, creating a cyclical pattern of action and experience. Overcoming these Vasana is essential for liberation.
Pre-dispositions acquired by Past Karma -
The pre-dispositions are roughly classified into three groups – Aparadha (Fault), Karma (Action) and Kama (Desire). The first group is diffidence towards the teachings of the Guru and the holy books. Persons of such group have illusion; for how can knowledge make a person help his emancipations? They have many doubts and wrong notions. The second group – victims of past actions, unable to enter the stage of contemplation necessary for annihilating the vasanas. Their minds are too much cramped with the predispositions to be susceptible to subtle truths. The third group is the most common, consisting of the victims of desire who are obsessed with the sense of duty (i.e. the desire to work for some ends). Desires are too numerous to count, since they rise up endlessly like waves in the ocean. Each desire is too vast to be satisfied, because it is insatiable; too strong to be resisted; and too subtle to be eluded. That person who is shielded by desirelessness (dispassion) and safe from the wiles of the monster of desire, can alone rise to happiness. A person affected by one or more of the aforesaid three dispositions cannot get at the truth although it is self-evident.
The first of them (i.e. fault) comes to an end on respectfully placing one’s faith in holy books and the Master. The second (i.e. action) may be ended only by divine grace, which may descend on the person in this birth or in any later incarnation. There is no other hope for it. The third must be gradually dealt with by dispassion, discrimination, worship of God, study of holy scriptures, learning from the wise, investigation into the Self and so on.
Those are best who are free from all of the vasanas, and particularly from the least trace of that of action. If free from the fault of mistrust of the teachings of the Master, the Vasana due to desire, which is not a very serious obstruction to realisation, is destroyed by the practice of contemplation. Disposition need not be very marked in this case. Such people need not repeatedly engage in the study of the scriptures or the receiving of instructions from the Master, but straightaway pass into meditation and fall into Samadhi, the consummation of highest good. They live evermore as Jivanmuktas (emancipated even while alive).
Sages with subtle and clear intellect have not considered it worthwhile to eradicate their desire, etc. by forcing other thoughts to take place, because desires do not obstruct realisations.
A man only slightly affected by the two vasanas – mind clings to the ignorance of the necessity of work and person who has the fault of marked indifference to or misunderstanding of the teachings, and much more so by desires or ambitions, will by repeated hearing of the holy truth, discussion of the same, and contemplation on it, surely reach the goal, though only with considerable difficulty and after a long lapse of time.
The last class and the least among Sages are those whose practice and discipline are not perfect enough to destroy mental predispositions. Their minds are still active and the Sages are said to be associated with their minds. They are barely Jnanis and not Jivanmuktas as are the other two classes. They appear to share the pleasures and pains of life like any other man and will continue to do so till the end of their lives. They will be emancipated after death.

Desire for Emancipation –
The most important of the qualifications is the desire for emancipation. The desire must be strong and abiding, in order that it may bear fruit. Aspirant must run after emancipation to the exclusion of all other pursuits. Such an effort is fruitful and is preceded by indifference to all other attainments.
Association with the wise, divine grace and dispassion are the prime factors for attaining the highest aim of life. The aspirant’s accumulated merits, reinforced by association with the wise and by divine grace, make him persist in the course, and gradually take him step by step to the highest pinnacle of happiness.
Steps to attain Emancipation –
Proportionately slight effort is enough for erasing slight vasanas. He whose mind has been made pure by good deeds in successive past incarnations, gain supreme results quite out of proportion to the little effort he may make (as with Janaka). Person with dense vasanas accumulated in past incarnations, does not suffice to override one’s deep-rooted ignorance. Such a one is obliged to practice nidhidhyasana or control of mind and contemplation in successive births for effective and final realisation.

Differences in quality of mind –
The mind is the soil in which the seed, namely Parabdha, sprouts into pleasures and pains of life.

1. Durvasa – He is said to be of the aspect of Shiva and reputed to be exceedingly irritable.
2. Chandra (the moon) – He is of the aspect of Brahma and reputed to be the husband of the twenty-seven constellations who are in their turn daughters of Daksha.
3. Dattatreya – He was of the aspect of Shriman Narayana of Vishnu, reputed to be the ideal of saints, roaming nude in the forests, etc.
4. Vasishta – He was one of the greatest rishis, as well known as the family preceptor of the Solar line of kings. He never fails in the strictest adherence to duty as prescribed by the scriptures.
5. Sanaka, Sananda, Sanatsujata and Sanatkumara – They were four sons born of Brahma’s volition and instructed by Narada. They are types of ascetics totally indifferent to any action, including religious rites.
6. Narada – He is the ideal of bhakti (devotion to God).
7. Bhargava (Shukra) – He is the well-known preceptor of Asuras, who incessantly fight against the gods and supports the enemies of the gods.
8. Brihaspati - He is the preceptor of gods and supports the gods against their enemies.
9. Vyasa – He was ever busy in codifying the Vedas, and in propagating their truth in the shape of the Mahabharata, the Purana and the Up puranas.
10. Janaka – He was famous as the ascetic-king.
11. Jadabharata – He looked like an idiot.