The Vasana Inventory
Identify your unconscious tendencies by observing what you attract and repel
Vasana is a yogic term meaning 'smell' or 'fragrance' -- the subtle emanation of your accumulated karmic tendencies that determines what situations, people, and experiences you attract or repel. Sadhguru uses this concept to explain why certain people consistently attract certain life circumstances: not through mystical magnetism but through the unconscious signals their accumulated tendencies broadcast to the world.
The Vasana Inventory is a practice of systematically identifying your tendencies by observing patterns of attraction and aversion in your life. What consistently draws your attention in a crowd? What situations do you repeatedly find yourself in? What do you instinctively move toward or away from? These patterns reveal the karmic fragrance you are emitting, which in turn shapes the life circumstances that gravitate toward you.
The practical power of this framework is that vasana can be consciously adjusted. Unlike the popular notion that you are stuck with your tendencies, Sadhguru teaches that with awareness, every human being can begin transforming habit into choice and compulsion into consciousness. The first step is simply identifying your vasanas through honest self-observation, then consciously choosing to stay away from compulsive attractions for brief periods to begin loosening their grip.
- Your accumulated tendencies emit a subtle fragrance that attracts matching life situations
- Attraction and aversion patterns reveal your deepest karmic programming
- Vasana can be consciously adjusted -- you are not permanently stuck with your tendencies
- Brief conscious pauses before engaging compulsions begin weakening their hold
- What you consistently notice, attract, and repel tells you more about yourself than about the world
- Map Your Attraction PatternsFor one week, observe without judgment what consistently draws your attention, interest, and energy. In social situations, notice which types of people you gravitate toward. In your environment, notice what captures your gaze. In your free time, notice what you reach for first. These patterns reveal your primary vasanas.
- Map Your Aversion PatternsEqually important is observing what you consistently avoid, dislike, or feel repelled by. Strong aversions carry as much karmic information as strong attractions. Notice which situations make you uncomfortable, which types of people you avoid, and which experiences you refuse to engage with.
- Practice Conscious WaitingSadhguru offers a specific sadhana: stay away from that which you most desire or consider most precious for a defined period. If food is your compulsion, wait a few minutes before eating. If it is a person, wait consciously before meeting them. This creates space between you and the vasana, gradually loosening its grip.
- Extend the Conscious GapGradually increase the waiting period. The two minutes before a meal could become two hours or an entire day. The goal is not deprivation but the deepening of experience. Sadhguru promises that food, love, and life generally become more profound through this practice.
- Consciously Adjust Your FragranceOnce you can clearly see your vasanas at work, begin consciously choosing which to strengthen and which to release. This is not suppression but informed adjustment. Like a gardener choosing which plants to cultivate and which weeds to remove, you begin curating the tendencies that shape your life.
A serial entrepreneur noticed that across three different ventures, she consistently attracted business partners who initially seemed brilliant but eventually became controlling and dishonest. Rather than blaming bad luck, she conducted a Vasana Inventory and discovered she was unconsciously drawn to dominant personalities because they reminded her of a parent she sought approval from. Her vasana for approval was attracting exactly the type of person who would exploit it.
Sadhguru introduces vasana through his personal experience with snakes, explaining how his lifelong affinity for cobras and other serpents represents an ancient yogic vasana he carries. He contrasts his attraction with his parents' terror when a cobra escaped from under his bed, demonstrating how the same stimulus produces radically different responses based on one's vasana. He then extends this to show how the concept applies to all human attractions, repulsions, and life patterns, offering a practical sadhana for beginning to work with one's tendencies.