If someone performs meritorious deeds, acts of merit, and thereby pleases someone, do their samskaras decrease or not? Samskaras do not decrease, but one gains the strength to reduce them. Samskaras do not decrease on their own. Whether one pleases a great Purush Purush 1) An akshar-mukta selected by Akshar-Brahm to ‘impregnate’ Prakruti for the creation process, from which countless pairs of Pradhãn and Purush are formed for the creation and sustenance of each brahmãnd. 2) Purush half of the Pradhãn-Purush pair, ‘conceived’ by Mul-Purush and Mul-Prakruti for the creation and sustenance of each brahmãnd. 3) Taken to be masculine in nature, Purush is the controller of Prakruti, and is also distinct from her. He is indivisible, without a beginning, and without an end. He is self-luminous, omniscient, imperishable, satya, kshetragna, and the cause of all the activities that possess a form. He also has a divya body. 4) Also called Mahã-Purush, Mul-Purush or Akshar- Purush. Tap to open in glossary → the samskaras are not burnt away. But one receives the strength to fight against those samskaras. So the work gets done quickly. If they are not giving way in some matter, then if one has pleased all of them, it gets resolved very quickly. But doing this remains up to oneself. Even if the great Purush Purush 1) An akshar-mukta selected by Akshar-Brahm to ‘impregnate’ Prakruti for the creation process, from which countless pairs of Pradhãn and Purush are formed for the creation and sustenance of each brahmãnd. 2) Purush half of the Pradhãn-Purush pair, ‘conceived’ by Mul-Purush and Mul-Prakruti for the creation and sustenance of each brahmãnd. 3) Taken to be masculine in nature, Purush is the controller of Prakruti, and is also distinct from her. He is indivisible, without a beginning, and without an end. He is self-luminous, omniscient, imperishable, satya, kshetragna, and the cause of all the activities that possess a form. He also has a divya body. 4) Also called Mahã-Purush, Mul-Purush or Akshar- Purush. Tap to open in glossary → still, to eradicate one's own swabhavas... God does not eradicate them. If pleasing meant they would be eradicated by that pleasure alone, then God would have eradicated them. God wills that, 'Since this poor soul is like this, let him develop vairagya.' Developing vairagya means that he receives the strength to eradicate those swabhavas. Vairagya is the strength to eradicate swabhavas. So, he receives the strength to develop vairagya. If he gets strength, he can fight against the swabhavas and quickly uproot the swabhavas from his jiva. That much happens. But by pleasing, or by performing many meritorious deeds, or by gaining pleasure, the swabhavas do not get uprooted automatically. Like that. Through merit, perhaps that sin is automatically uprooted. But the swabhavas do not get uprooted. It is said that if one performs merit, sin is pushed away. It is not said that if one performs merit, swabhavas are pushed away. And in that, it is said that if one repents while still alive, then those sins are reduced. If one feels remorse in the mind and performs physical penance, then his sins are pushed away. But his samskaras are not pushed away. Once samskaras are formed, once they are imprinted, they remain imprinted. So if one performs merit, then meritorious samskaras are formed. That does happen. If one pleases, then samskaras of pleasing are formed. But strength comes into his jiva, and he gains the capacity to fight against weak samskaras; that much is attained. 'Atyanta kopah katuka cha vani...' (Extreme anger and harsh speech...) In the talks of Gunatitanand Swami, some such point is mentioned. That even if God is pleased, still, the need for atma-nistha remains. Even if God is pleased and the murti murti 1) Sacred idol of Bhagvãn used to offer worship. There are eight types of murtis that can be worshipped: stone, wood, metal, earth, engraved or drawn, sand, gems, and mental. 2) The form of Bhagvãn. Tap to open in glossary → So, without practicing negation, swabhavas do not subside. If someone else practices negation, they do not subside. If one identifies and negates one's own swabhavas oneself, then they subside. If God is pleased, one gets strength. That is true. So if one only cultivates good samskaras and does not negate the weak ones, do the weak ones automatically get cancelled out? No, then they remain as they are. If these samskaras do not get a chance, they remain dormant. They do not show themselves. But when they get the time, they wake up again. All these historical examples mean just that. Naradji for so many years, for up to seven manvantaras, Saubhari Rishi for 60,000 years—all of them performed austerities, and when they got the platform, they woke up instantly. So they woke up instantly. And when King Janak got the platform, still they did not wake up, which means he had practiced the samadhi of negation. There is a samadhi of negation. He has intensely negated his swabhavas. He has intensely negated those lust, anger, etc., in his jiva. He has practiced it and has firmly resolved it in his jiva. Therefore, even if they get the platform, they cannot wake up. He gets the platform. Since he was a king, he would have all the enjoyments. And even if he gets the platform, still those samskaras of his cannot wake up, and all of them became neutralized. Negation... does negation mean dislike? Negation means to stop. Negation means to stop. 'I do not want to do this.' Maharaj has spoken of making a firm resolution, in the 20th Vachanamrut of Vartal, He spoke of making a firm resolution. Just as we take up small things, taking vows, that 'I will not eat sweets, I will not eat sweets during Chaturmas.' This does not mean that his desire to eat sweets has subsided. But even if the desire arises, I will not eat. But we can stop that, but we cannot stop this. When thoughts of lust, anger, etc., arise, thoughts of greed arise, thoughts of taste arise, we cannot stop them. So, those can also be stopped. Because the thoughts that arise, arise from samskaras. The samskaras of attachment that are formed, from them the production of thoughts occurs. So, if one stops the thoughts, that is called negation. And that can also be done. And the strength to do that comes from the upasana of God, that is, from pleasing God. That is why it is said in the Upanishads, 'Nayam atma balahinena labhyah'. Those who lack strength cannot attain this Atma, meaning Paramatma, because the samskaras have become like a dominant horse over them and will not let them move. So, Maharaj has also stated the way to gain that strength in the Vachanamrut, that if one wants to gain extreme strength, one gains it like this. In the 63rd Vachanamrut of Sarangpur, He said this. What is the way to gain extreme strength? If one does it this way, one gains extreme strength. So negation means prohibition. To stop. To stop when desire arises. To stop even when the platform presents itself, to renounce it—that is called negation. And without practicing negation, swabhavas do not subside. Even if God is pleased. Even if God is pleased, or if someone performs much merit, still, without practicing negation, swabhavas do not subside. One must practice negation in one's own jiva oneself, that 'I do not want to do this.' Are reflecting on the consequences of a flaw and stopping it considered the same, or are they slightly different? To bring out its weak consequences. To observe them. That is called reflecting on the consequences of a flaw. If someone has consumed poison, to closely watch and analyze what its consequence is. Once, after we finished that shibir, right? We came to Ahmedabad, and a devotee gulped down medicine. But if outsiders see the state he is in, then they would never dare to do it. Later, even he would have lost courage. After having drunk it. People commit suicide; they do it in a fit of impulse. But when only half the suicide is done, even they start screaming in terror. But then it is no longer in their hands. To reverse that suicide is then no longer in their hands. So, but outsiders see that, and some would not even mention it. They suffer such pain. So that is its consequence. It is the consequence of consuming poison. We might see the consequence of consuming poison in a moment, but when people have consumed the poison of all those inner enemies and are suffering, it uproots and throws away the foundations of even the greatest of men. Just as a banyan tree gets its roots turned up and its branches turned down, it uproots the roots of even the greatest personalities. Maharaj has given these very examples, hasn't He? So those examples have gone very far, but if one takes current examples, then one gets some lesson from them. That even the greatest get uprooted. So, based on that, one derives a moral for oneself that, 'I never want to do such a thing in my life. Even if I die, I do not want to do it.' And then one remains cautious. So... That is called reflecting on the consequences of a flaw. One must feel repulsed. The meaning of 'sed' is repulsion. One must feel repulsed by the activities of the flaw; one must see that repulsion. Then... AI translation of the Gujarati transcript above, produced in the same pass that transcribed the audio, one English segment per Gujarati segment. Devotional and technical terms with no precise English equivalent (kirtan, satsang, vasana, samskara, and similar) are kept as their plain transliteration rather than force-translated. Not human-proofread., AI-translated, unverified · Source details