Do you know that memory is the source of all good things and bad things?
In the 11th verse of Patanjali Yoga Sutra, he said that recalling of mental impressions of past events from the subconscious mind is memory. Memory is responsible for what you are, how you behave, and the way you live. The difference between you and another person, a doctor and a lawyer, a yogi and a man, is only memory. Memory is also responsible for both your remembrance and forgetfulness.
There are people who have a large quantity of memory but they can’t retrieve it with a sharp quality. There are people who have a sharp quality of retrieving memory, but they don’t have access to a large quantity of memory. Only those who are able to access a large storehouse of memory and retrieve precisely what they need, they become a leader. A leader is a person who can handle a large quantity of memory with a very sharp quality of remembrance.
In the outer world, when you handle more and more memories, intelligence and power will start happening in you. All scientific research can happen only based on memory, we need a memory to process all the analysis and achieve the result, then continue to do further R&D based on the results. This applies in all the fields such as medicine, construction, aviation, administration and execution, memory is the base material. However, in the inner world, the more you are relaxed from memories, the more energy of spontaneity will start happening in you.
If memory is used properly, retrieved properly, lived properly, memory brings so much joy and comfort. If it is not used properly, it can become a source of the greatest suffering for you. All your diseases and disturbances have sources in memory, this includes your physical problems because most of your physical disorders are from psychosomatic problems. Even these happen because you are unable to handle the memory. When it comes to outer world, you need to know how to handle more and more memory, whereas when it comes to the inner world, you need to know how to unclutch more and more from memory.
Not knowing how to handle memory not only creates problem at the young age, it creates very complicated problem in the old age like the old folks who can’t stop talking about their past or they just develop mental disorder like Alzheimer. You need to know that Alzheimer is very closely connected with a strong subconscious decision to forget certain memories due to pain and suffering.
So learning to handle memory in the correct way is the formula for a successful inner-world and outer-world life. Only the grace of an enlightened master can shower us with such sacred knowledge.
Paramahamsa Nithyananda, a living incarnation (fondly known as Swamiji) gave a powerful truth and technique. He said that only a person who feels completely secure can unclutch from his memory. Only a person who can unclutch from his memory can feel completely secure. He said that whenever you unclutch from memory, wherever you go, whatever you do, a tremendous feeling of security happening inside you and radiating around you. You radiate Mahima (grace) when you have unclutched from memory.
When you are not able to unclutch from memory, you will be constantly preparing your speech – what you should say, how you should say in response etc. You would have prepared at least 30 statements in your mind with the so-called ‘right response’ but the moment you meet the person, she just changes her third statement, and you are at a loss! Being too dependent on memory makes you dead, boring, lifeless. The truth is our schools and society teach us how to gather more and more memory, but they don’t teach us how to unclutch from them when we don’t need it and how to handle it correctly when you really need it. That knowledge was not taught to humanity, so much of memory is put inside our system such that it becomes a slow poison. We don’t know how to retrieve the information when we want it and sometimes we are overcrowded by it when we don’t want it.
One more important truth – when you learn the technique of unclutching, the quantity of memory available to you and the capacity to retrieve them – both just explode a few hundred times, without disturbing you. When you are clutched to certain memory with emotions, it is like having high-resolution pictures which take too much of your inner space. Unclutching is like converting the high-resolution files to word document so that retrieving the information becomes fast and easy. In addition, you will have more inner space for more information. Speaking from my own experience – I notice that the more I unclutch from the memory, the more capacity I have to handle more memory.
In essence, the secret to handle memory is to keep on unclutching from the memory so that you stop converting memory into high resolution files which crowd your inner space. Relaxing from memory brings you tremendous joy and peace. Namaste 😀
Source: 108 truth of Yoga of Enlightenment by Paramahamsa Nithyananda