2010-03-16
Without memory
How would the world look like and we in it? Without memory, we wouldn't know who we are, we wouldn't know what we like and dislike, what we love and hate. We wouldn't know which country is ours, what religion we believe in, we would understand nothing about the customs and institutions that profoundly determine our lives. We would have no recollection of how one can eat with fork and knife nor a clue about what these are; what a wheel is and why it is of any use; what letters and numbers are. We wouldn't remember names, categories, types. We wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the effect and the cause, we wouldn't understand the concept of time. Present would be sum up to the response of our system to external and internal stimuli, which once done, would cease to exist, as if it was never there. Nothing could have meaning - and if it did, it would only be instant. (…)
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About a year ago, I wrote: "Memory is a burden. Just like the experience of life in general. However, in all experiences, including memory and wild dreams, there is an opportunity to learn."
There is a dichotomy between perceiving the moment and perceiving the memory. They are directly in each other's way. But I guess that without memory the moment is shallow. And without the moment, memory has no purpose.
It is probably a matter of attitude to stop thinking of memory as a quantitative sack of dead weight, but rather as a qualitative prism or lens to make each moment bigger than itself.
Ordinary moments are not much to speak about. But there are extraordinary moments of realisation, where memory becomes one with the moment we are in. At such a moment, there is no difference between ordinary vision and most wonderful imagination. They are small marvellous eternities.
Such a beautiful comment in itself...
But there is more to it, because memory is life. DNA is storage for information, thus cannot but have memory. Cells have built-in tiny little programmes and that's how they know what to do, thus they too have memory. Memory then is essentially more than a matter of perception or attitude; it is a building block, one of the threads that make up the tissue of life.
How you perceive of it, as a burden or as at one with the moment, is just stories (some significantly more beautiful than others) that the story-teller in your head is fond of narrating and sincerely expects you to believe…
Aha :)
But I think there is a difference between the storyteller and the observer.
As far as I have understood, when we look at time-related things, we are looking at it from eternity (the same way as two-dimensional reality is watched from the third dimension, and 3D from the fourth). I guess the storyteller abides in eternity.
But that which observes eternity, abides in immortality (my own terminology, I will change it when somebody suggests something better). The moment I described is a moment of unity with that which observes eternity. It is a real eternity, where time has no significance. Storytelling occurs only later, when the moment is over. All that is left is memory and analysis, there is a distance from the moment, time is running again.
Well, clarifications hardly clarify. I don't trust my storyteller.
The storyteller is just the wiring of our brain. It is a brain function made up of fantasy and memory and based on emotion that loves to weave things together, dramatize facts and form dramatic stories than then narrates us. It basically narrates (or better, dictates) our interpretation of reality. We often have no choice than to believe it, without even noticing.
Now, the concept of the observer is New Age material. Have I ever told you how much I hate New Age? I blame it not only for straightforwardly cheating people but mainly for leading a whole branch of philosophy, metaphysics, to the dustbin. Anyway, that's a long discussion in itself. Back to the observer. From the viewpoint of Space, the observer is another role of personality and a creature of the mind. Space is Being. The observer is still somebody doing something, still an act-or, not a being. We believe that the distance the observer creates between himself and our thoughts/emotions shields us somehow, that when we observe things rather than live them out, they become more tolerable. The observer is intended to stop us from allowing our heart to break, do you see?
You wrote: "I don't trust my storyteller". Well, good for you, don't. But don't trust the observer either. You also wrote: "time-related". This is a very good point. Space is the only place without time, immortality, eternity. Anything else, which seems "time-related", is a bad copy. :)
"Now, the concept of the observer is New Age material. Have I ever told you how much I hate New Age?"
Yes, you have told me. Even though I do my best to tolerate everything, I, seriously, as far as I know, have never touched anything New Age, and never planned to.
Sakshi (witness, observer) is a concept of Vedanta. Thus Spake Sivananda: "Learn to discriminate. Understand His mysteries. Feel His presence everywhere as well as His nearness. Believe me, He dwells in the chambers of your own heart. He is the silent Sakshi of your mind. He is the Sutradhara or the holder of the string of your Prana. He is the womb for this world and the Vedas. He is the prompter of Sankalpa. Search Him inside your heart and obtain His Grace. Then alone you have lived your life well."
Of course, it's not the concepts we are after. We both are after something quite different. And it is best and real only when we do it, live it, not talk about it :)
As Monty Python put it: "Your cat is suffering from what we vets have not yet found a name for... Your cat needs to be confused."
No wonder why I prefer Buddhism over Hinduism. :D
Seriously, though, I believe that what Sivananda describes in his wisdom is Space, not an observer in the common sense. Space is a mirror; in this capacity, it is the observer and the holder of everything, not to be confused with the observer I mentioned before. :)
Sincere thanks for the quotes, I'll study them further later on.
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