Liberate Yourself from Memory - Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Memory makes you miserable or wise. Memories of events and experiences of the changing finite world, bind you but memory of your nature liberates you. Memories of the ever changing relatives — however good or bad — hanging self elevates awareness. Memories of past events and worldly concerns constrict the vastness of the Self. It is all a matter of where and what you are. If you are ignorant, it is because of your memory. If you are enlightened, it is because of your memory.

Forgetfulness of the infinite is misery. Forgetfulness of the trivial is ecstasy. How do we let go of unpleasant memories and limitations?

Know the impermanent nature of the world and events. Know that past events do not exist in the present. Accept the past as it was. Be dispassionate and centered. Do service to the noble. Increase prana — the vital breath, the force of life. Be in the presence of Divine company. Go to the moon.

When you are miserable, know that you have gone away from the Self. This is called ashaucha — becoming unclean. In India when someone dies, the close relatives are said to be ashaucha for 10 days because they are very sad. They are impure because they have moved away from the Self. After 10 days of just being with that experience and reading the Bhagavad Gita, being with the knowledge and pulling themselves back into the Self, they become shaucha. They have purged the impurities that arose during those events. This happens again and again in life. You become ashaucha and then you must get back to shaucha. Shaucha’s benefits are clarity in the intellect, a pleasing mind, focused awareness, control over the senses and eligibility to realize the Self.

Shaucha is disinterest in the tendencies of your own senses and a sense of non association with other people. Your attraction or craving can exist only as long as you think someone is `other’. When you think they are part of yourself, then the attraction dies out. That is why a husband or a wife may not be attracted to their partner but to someone else because their partner has already become a part of them. When you realize everyone is part of your Self, you enjoy the whole world without a sense of craving.

When you share your misery, it will not diminish. When you fail to share your joy, it diminishes. Share your problems only with the Divine, not with anyone else, as that will only increase the problems. Share your joy with everyone. How do we help people, who share their misery with us? Listen to others, yet do not listen. If your mind gets stuck in their problems, nor only are they miserable, but you also become miserable.

The self is subtle. To go from gross to subtle you must go through the finest level of the relative — the atom. To overcome aversion, hatred, jealousy, attraction or entanglements, you have to take yourself to the atom. Taking yourself to the atom means accepting a tiny bit of all of this.

It may be difficult to accept something you do not like but you can definitely accept a tiny bit of it — an atom. The moment you accept that one atom, you will see change happening. But this must be done in a mediative state. Suppose you love someone. You want more and more of them yet there is no fulfilment. In anu vrat — the vow of an atom — you take just one atom of that person and that is enough to bring fulfilment to you. Though the river has so much food, just a small bite satisfies your hunger. Each experience brings complete-ness. Completion means being led to void or nothing. In the progression of life you will leave behind every experience saying. "This is nothing." A sign of intelligence is how soon you arrive at this understanding. Examine everything in life and say, "This is nothing" and what remains is love, and that is everything.

When "this is nothing" does not come out of knowledge, it will come out of misery. Either through knowledge or through misery, you come to the point of this is nothing, this is nothing. The choice of how you come to that point is yours.

© `Deccan Chronicle’ dated March 6, 2002. Reprinted with permission.

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