Any cognition you make out of unawareness, which comes back to you
again and again in some form or the other, is a pattern or samskara. A
cognition is any idea, perception, understanding, opinion or statements
you create inside yourself.
If you look in, you will see that your life is nothing but a bunch of patterns.
From waking up in the morning to working in office to meeting people to
going to sleep, most of your actions are pre-programmed ! There is very
little space for Life to happen to you spontaneously, because you start
defining the boundaries of your life with your patterns.
For example, if you feel you lose your patience very quickly, that is a
pattern. If you feel you have stage fear, that is also a pattern. If you feel
you always fail in everything you do, that is also a pattern. Anything that
stops you from expanding and making progress in the inner world or
the outer world, is a pattern.
ACTIVITY :
Tonight, before you go to bed, take a few minutes to make a list of all the patterns
with which you have responded to life today - where your immediate response to a
situation or an event was unconscious and coming from a pattern. For example,
when you wake up in the morning, you want to sleep an extra hour! Or when
you are under stress, you feel angry or tired.
Repeat the process tomorrow night. When you do this for three or four days, you
will start becoming aware of the patterns defining your life.