Note 24 — Chapter IV · WORSHIP OF ANCESTORS AND SAINTS.

Though at the time of a man’s death the faculties may hardly be sound, yet the vārsanā—the impressions—left on his mind by his past actions are in themselves good or bad enough to impress him so as to make his departing spirit assume a new form of life in keeping with them. For instance, a man following a particular profession becomes subject to dreams bearing on that profession. When the impression created by his actions in daily life is so deep as to induce dreams, his mind, even after death, leaves to his departing soul an inclination to be engaged in the subject of his mind’s last activities. This is vāsanā.24