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I am the Soul Punya and that which flows in through bad feelings is Papa. Asrava occurs when passions mix with the yogas of the mind, speech and body.
The Bhagwants who laid down the scriptures have explained Asrava with a simple example. It is akin to a lake that remains filled in spite of water being drawn from it for use. The reason is there are a couple of perennial springs at the lake-bottom. In the same way, in the lake-like Atma, senses and mind act as the springs through which the karmas keep flowing in. As a result, although this Atma has been suffering the karmas from infinite time, it is not yet free from them.
All those countless karmas which the jiva has suffered in the infinite past have risen, given their result and been destroyed, separated from the atma. In spite of this the jiva has not become free from karmas, for as the process of suffering karmas continues, the process of bondage in karma also does.
In a lake there may be a couple of springs but here all of five streams are flowing in continuously carrying a drop at a time. The droplets of water in the mountains flow down together in the form of springs and go on to take the shape of a mighty river in which millions of cusecs of water flows.
Brothers! Ask this Soul! How many good-bad feelings it expresses with every passing moment? And how many karmas does it bind with those feelings flowing through five streams? What should be done? Simple, stop that stream! How do we do it? It is not a fluid which can be stopped with a cement dam.
If you want to empty the lake, first plug the springs at the bottom, and then either let the water out or allow it to dry under the Sun. Ah! Even if you use up the water, the lake is bound to dry up. Well, in just the same way, the Asrava which is flowing onto the Atma in the form of punya-papa, comes through the feelings. So, this should be the approach to stop that. In fact, you need a stronger resolve and that is called Samvar.
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