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Why Do We Forget
Things? THERE are many reasons, of course. First and the most important is that we use the faculty of "memory" in order to remember. Memory is a mental instrument depending upon the formation and growth of the brain. Your brain is developing constantly unless, of course, it is already degenerating; the development can continue for a long time, longer than that of the body. In the process there are necessarily things replaced by others; and as the instrument grows, elements that were useful in one state are no longer so in a subsequent state and have to give place to others more suitable. The net result of our acquisitions remains there in essence, but all that had led to it, the intermediary steps are suppressed. Indeed, a good memory means nothing more than that – that is to say, to remember the results only, so that the fundamentals are sifted and stored, namely, those alone that are useful for further construction. This is more important than just trying to retain some particular items in a rigid manner. There
is another thing. Apart from the fact that memory by itself in its very nature
is a defective organ, there is the other fact that I there are different states
of consciousness one following another. Each state faithfully records the phenomena
of that moment, whatever they may be. Now, if your mind is calm and clear, wide
and strong, you can by concentrating your consciousness on that moment bring
out of it and recall in your present active state what is recorded there of
your movements then; you can, that is to say, go back to the particular state
of consciousness at a given moment and live it again. What is registered in
your consciousness is never obliterated and hence not really forgotten. You can
live a thousand years and you will not have forgotten that. Therefore,
Page – 342 if you do not want to forget a thing, you must retain it through your consciousness, and not through your mental memory. As I have said, the mental memory fades away, new things, things of today replace old things, things of yesterday. But that of which you are conscious in your conscious-ness, you can never forget. It lies somewhere in the background, returns to you at your bidding. You have only to withdraw to that state of the consciousness where it lies imbedded. In this way you can recall things that you knew perhaps centuries ago. It is how you remember your past lives. For, a movement of consciousness never dies out, it is only the impressions on the surface brain-mind that are fugitive. What you have learnt with this superficial instrument laboriously – only read, heard, noted, underlined – leaves no lasting mark, but what is imbibed, breathed in into the stuff of consciousness remains. The brain is being constantly renewed and reformed. Old cells, cells that have become weak and atrophied are replaced by younger and stronger ones or the old cells combine differently or enter into other organisations. Thus the old impressions or memories they carried are obliterated. It
is, as I say, by entering into a previous state of consciousness where you experienced
a thing that you can always call back the thing. Only you must know how to get
at the point, submerged somewhere in the depths. The body, after death,
dissolves, the greater part of the vital and the mind dissolves also – only a
small portion that has been well organised, given a compact cohesive form
endures. Such an achievement is a rare phenomenon. But it is otherwise with the
consciousness. Consciousness is eternal. If you contact the consciousness you
discover the whole mystery of the earth and creation. It is consciousness that
can create.
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