By Sage ViGo
Table of Contents
Why habits continue despite knowing
Many people live with a variety of habits or addictions, often struggling to break a habit or overcome an addiction. Advice, warnings, or explanations rarely work, because deep down, people already know what they are doing and its effects. Any addiction or habit cannot be solved by advice. Whatever advice you give, they know it already.
If someone smokes, and you tell them, ‘Please don’t smoke, it’s not good for your health,’ they already know. The same with those who use drugs or sleep too long. They know they are missing life or wasting time; all this awareness is present, yet the habit continues.
Why does this happen? Every habit or addiction is a manifestation of their own conditionings, their own Karmas, their own imprints expressed through them.
That is why Yogis have no habits, it is very strange when you observe it, they don’t miss anything. One sign that you are on the path of Yoga is that you no longer depend on any habit. Imagine drinking chai every day: if for ten days you don’t get chai, you won’t even remember it.
An addiction or a habit continues only because of the imprinted program, which manifests as that addiction. Nobody comes out of it by advice or force.
The key is freshness. Don’t condemn, criticise, advise, or explain the consequences, they are already known. What is needed is something totally different, something fresh.
Steps to bring freshness into life:
- Stop the repetitive cycle and simply be nothing for a moment
- Allow space for the old to dissolve naturally
- Instead of condemning or criticising; do something fresh, playful
- Bring new, positive experiences
Bringing freshness in relationships
For example, consider the relationship between a parent and a child. Suppose there is constant conflict. Both are upset, the parents upset with the child, the child upset with the parents. When they are apart, they are happy; once together, the arguments resume. Each is addicted to their own way of life, fully attached to “my way.”
Now, imagine the child decides: “I will give freshness to my parents.” How? By becoming a person they have never experienced, always happy, no matter what the parents do. Do not react to their control or attempts to create struggle. Whatever your parents do or try to implement or control, just be happy. Suddenly, the parents see a new child, someone who is independently happy. That freshness brings change.
For instance, you enter the house while your parents are murmuring. You say: “Mama, papa, I make a nice coffee for you!” The parents are shocked: until now, whenever they murmured, their child would murmur back or get angry. Suddenly, the parents are simply happy and there is no space for grumpiness. This moment of freshness created a shift in the entire dynamic.
Freshness for addicted persons
The same principle applies to any addicted person, whether it is drugs, smoking, or alcohol. It is a shift, addiction confines expression; it is like being trapped on a train. Whatever advice you give, it will not work unless you bring them out of that train. To de-addict someone, you have to substitute their old memories with new ones. Old memories must leave, and new memories must come in.
Every person enters addiction for some reason: environment, friends, parents, or seeking something in life. Many people are trying to find life in their addictions. Bringing freshness tailored to that reason will help. Memory seeks expression; it needs a space to enact. Just as a skilled actor wants to enact a role again and again, a person filled with an imprint will express that role. To transform them, bring a new imprint, fresh, positive, and alive. What you bring manifests. That new memory allows a shift to happen. This methodology can bring complete change when applied attentively.
Bringing freshness to yourself
How can you bring freshness to your own addictions?
The first step is to stop and create a gap. Stop the rolling of the repetitive cycle and simply be nothing. In that emptiness, a delink happens from the old imprint. This space is where something new can enter.
Understand the nature of imprints. These programs are not created consciously,they arise from parentage, society, education, past experiences, even past lives. They are like seeds carrying the potential to manifest. A seed becomes a tree because it carries the program to be a tree. In the same way, addictions and habits manifest because of the imprints we carry.
Every expression, anger, sadness, celebration, jealousy, insecurity, addiction is a manifestation of a program we carry. The whole of creation is a continuous program of manifestation. Even in the mother’s womb, a single cell manifests into a body according to the program. Life constantly expresses itself according to the program it carries.
To create a new program, first make space. If a glass is full of water and you want juice, you must empty it. When the mind and life are full of repetitive patterns, no new program can enter. But when you stop and become nothing, life has room to bring a new imprint, a fresh experience.
Without this pause, the cycle continues endlessly. Out of the mind, concepts and theories keep moving in the same repetitive way. If you want to end your own addiction, first bring that space. That is the first step towards change.
Meditation and the flow of freshness
When you create that space and become nothing, life responds. This is how one can stop bad habits naturally. Creation is never empty, something will always be there. With awareness, the beauty of meditation comes forward: you bring your pure presence. In that space, divinity enters, and life manifests in a new way. Freshness appears and an inner revolution begins. Inner revolution leads to revelations, and revelations lead to transformation. Transformation brings evolution, and evolution brings everything.
The journey starts from being able to be nothing. From nothing, everything emerges. Stopping, being empty, loosening the grip of old patterns, this is how life naturally brings a new imprint. Then the old habits lose their strength, and freshness takes over. This creates the possibility for transformation. Only then are habits or addictions shifted through freshness.
Closing reflection
Breaking free from habit or addiction does not come through advice, force, or criticism. It comes through freshness, space, and the ability to be nothing. This is the essence of habit change with awareness and the path to inner freedom. When we give space, life naturally responds with freshness. In that freshness, habits and addictions lose their power, and a natural freedom arises.
