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You are online searching for a pair of running shoes.  You do your research.  Flat foot vs. high arch.  Wide feet vs. narrow.  You read all the reviews and decide on the pair you want.  You find the ones you want in the color you want and the price you are willing to pay for them.  Add to cart.  Check out.  Process Order.  And you are done!  You purchased your running shoes.

Next day you are online reading an email from a friend you haven't heard from in quite some time.  As you are fully engaged in reading your friend's words, off to the side of your email begin to flash before you images of running shoes.  Advertisements of running shoes from the very same retailer you already made a purchase from.  Ads demanding your attention, beckoning you to take the bait and click on the ad to browse for More shoes. 

And here you thought you were done.  You searched for something, found it  and purchased it.  So now where did these ads pop up from? Why can’t you just move on to bigger and better things?

The technical answer is of course something along the lines of Web Browser Cookies.  Anytime we visit a website, a small piece of data is sent from the website planting itself in our browser.  Its as if the website leaves an imprint in our browser by which it recognizes us and remembers our previous activity.

Why can't we move on to bigger and better things??  The answer as per the teachings of Yoga is something coincidentally very similar to Web Browsing Cookies.  Samskaras (self browsing cookies!) are imprints left inside of us with each thought, word or deed we engage in.  They are footprints of our previous activities.   Samskaras mark a disposition within us and have a similiar power to lure us into repeating previous actions by which we form habits, patterns, or what we begin to regard as our personality.  

It is said that cookies can record our browser activity dating back months and even years.  While Samskaras are said to record our mental, verbal and physical activities dating back lifetimes.  Footprints we follow lifetime after lifetime. *

Further Reading:

*Samskara-saksat-karanat-purva-jati-jnanam. 

Yoga Sutras III:18

By bringing unconscious drives into conscious light one knows the existence of previous lives.