By vāsanās one is bound to saṃsāra; there is no other cause

Vāsanās — latent impressions, subconscious tendencies, seeds of past experience — are the mechanism Vasiṣṭha holds responsible for the continuation of saṃsāra. Patañjali calls them saṃskāras; Buddhism calls them saṅkhāras. They are the organism’s undeclared memory: you do not remember experiences, you repeat them. Every automatic reaction, every emotional pattern, every preference that seems “natural” is a vāsanā operating. And each vāsanā reinforces the conviction that the world is as you experience it, closing the loop.