Letting Go of the Past - Dr. Kavita A Sharma

Introduction

What is the ‘past’ and what is the meaning of ‘letting go’ of it? The past literally refers to a period of time that has elapsed or gone by. In ordinary parlance, it refers to the earlier part of a person’s life but influences from the past come from even before a person’s birth in terms of heredity and the customs and conventions of the family and community into which he is born, that is, from the collective unconscious. At any given point of time an individual has the experiences of the past to draw upon. His thoughts and actions are influenced both by his own experiences and by the norms of the collective. He can either react against the past or attempt to break free of it or he may be helplessly in the grip of what has gone by. Either way, the past influences his psyche and personality and thereby his actions in the present that has repercussions for the future.

Past and the Mind

All experiences of the past are stored in our minds, which according to Sri Aurobindo consists of four layers. The first is the citta or the store house of memory. It is as Sri Aurobindo tells us the "reservoir of past mental impressions," "the foundation on which all other layers stand. All experience lies within us as passive or potential memory; active memory selects and takes what it requires from that storehouse."1 Then there are the ‘Manas’, the ‘Buddhi’ and the ‘Higher Intellect’ but the citta affects all our actions because the mind motivates us to act being "that part of nature which has to do with cognition and intelligence, with ideas, with mental or thought perceptions, the reactions of thought to things, with the truly mental movements and formations, mental visions and will, etc., that are part of his intelligence."2 It is only after thought has been processed through the mind that action takes place and must obviously then be affected by the citta.

References

1. Mental Education, Course Booklet 3, Compiled by Ritika Goyal and Aditi, The Gnostic Centre, 2000, p.5.
2. Ibid.

© "The Awakening Ray" (Jan./Feb. 2002) published by The Gnostic Centre, H-401, Som Vihar Apartments, Sangam Marg, New Delhi 110 022. Website: www.gnosticcentre.com. Reprinted with permission.

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