As a result of the sum/total of all of your experiences in life, impressions are left upon the aspect of your awareness called ‘chittam’, the storehouse of impressions. These impressions are what memory is made of. Wipe the chittam clean, and there is no memory, at least not in the common sense of the word ‘memory’. Those impressions condition the mind… program the mind. They are karmic in nature. They are a major aspect of your karma. Many schools of spiritual growth and of education merely program your mind to function as they feel you should function. That sort of education is indoctrination. It is not True Education.
However, there is another form of memory. Everything is contained in seed form within the Absolute… i.e. within the Transcendent. That is what everything is in its essence. Therefore, anything can be found within the Absolute. When you are living in what I call a transgradiently integrated state, i.e. in enlightenment, then you are living in harmony with Mother Nature… living in harmony with your own true nature… living in harmony with God… living in harmony with your own Divinity… living in harmony with all that is. Then you live what is called your Divine Play, your Lila. In other words, you live your true nature. You ‘remember’ things by re-membering with those things within the Absolute. All knowledge of everything is within the Absolute, but in the state of Enlightenment you only access what is in harmony with the Cosmic Flow of your life. You have no memory in the conventional sense of the word… i.e. no Chittam. You are free. You are not enslaved by programming, conditioning, limitation, etc. That is what is called ’emancipation’. It is what the Soul longs for – True Liberation from the chains of programmed thoughts and emotions.
Now, there are some subtle points here that need to be understood:
Firstly, the pathways through which both kinds of memory emerge are the same, even though the source of those memories are very different. Since the pathways are the same, to the onlooker both types of memory appear to be the same. Both can forget things, both can know or not know things, both must go through the process of learning – for example, learning a foreign language, or how to play the piano, etc. However, in the first type of memory, it is about what is stored in the chittam. In the second kind of memory, it is about what is in harmony with Natural Law. Please understand that living in harmony with nature does not usually look like what many think it should look like. It is not like the Hollywood or Bollywood depictions of Jesus, Saints, and Sages. It is a very natural state that can look quite ordinary to the undiscerning observer. Though the Absolute is a field of all possibilities, it is not in harmony with nature to be a superman. (Often, in this age of humanity, supernatural powers are the result of left handed tantra which is not in harmony with nature and creates a great deal of bad karma… but that is another subject. Generally speaking, the performance of showy miracles at this time is not in harmony with nature… not in harmony with the times.)
Secondly, you may think it is a contradiction that ‘things’ can be contained in the Absolute, which is a field of No-thing-ness, i.e. Pure Consciousness… before any ‘thing’ exists. This is how that works: Have you ever looked at the screen on the back of a camera? The image of what is being photographed appears within the camera. That is called a virtual image. Say you are photographing a tree. The tree appears in the camera but really there is no tree in the camera. Like that, everything exists in the Absolute, but in a virtual sense. Now some would argue, “what is really virtual, the Absolute or the Relative?” I respond by saying that all you need to do is understand the mechanic, then you may feel free to assign the word ‘virtual’ to whichever you would like.
Along those lines, a dear student once said that they did not want to spend time meditating or living in the ashram at Mount Soma because they wanted to stay in the real world. I, with loving humor, responded by saying, “Do you really consider that pinball machine you are living in to be the real world?” She looked back at me and smiled. In that moment, at least for a moment, she had a deeper understanding of the word ‘maya’… illusion… virtual.
Dear Maharshiji,
Namaste,
Thank you very much for explaining this delicate and extremely impenetrable concept so nicely. I and my significant other were discussing exactly this point yesterday – the working of cosmic energy of Absolute and how the role of karma fits in its flow. Would you please enlighten how does a person frees oneself of the karmic baggage, the impressions or the memories hidden deep in the ‘chit’ while struggling with all the responsibilities of this world which, although is actually Maya – yet the responsibilities are real (logical too as the karmic baggage is real). Hence the question is – How does one wipe the ‘chit’ clean?
Thank you very much for sharing your wisdom!!
At the end of a meditation retreat several years ago I went for a walk and stepped beyond the Mount Soma gate. As soon as I took that step I felt the world outside of Mount Soma to be gray, flat, and two-dimensional. I was floored; that was the world I had considered to be “normal” up till then. But really, what was normal at that point was how I felt inside of Mount Soma.
This is one of the best things that ever happened to me because remembering that experience of what my everyday world is truly like (gray, flat & two-dimensional) is what drives me into arranging my life so I’ll be able to spend more and more time at Mount Soma. Without that experience I would have had an intellectual understanding that it’s good to be at Mount Soma but really no personal experience. I doubt my life would be where it is now.
I can also see how easy it is to get lured back into thinking that my world outside of Mount Soma is the “real world.” When I’m immersed in it, it doesn’t seem so gray and flat and two-dimensional. It seems normal.
Very beautiful,Claudi.
Claudi’s comment is beautiful and so is n’s request. I will respond to it in an upcoming blog.
I think some people may think meditating in a ashram is not natural because you have to meditate and thats not natural.
Thats what i sometimes think.
Because nobody starts doing it before they read study or find a guru ect.
But on the other hand nothing is natural than.
Everything in this world right now is man made
Schools houses cars planes tv ect ect.
The people who live at mount soma are i think extremely lucky.
Why dont you make a section on this site called experiences so people can post there experiences off the ashram there it would be great!
I loved reading this. I actually read it several times. I seam to allways come away with a better understanding but
also more questions. I recently read when these deep impressions are mastered the Seer or Self rests in its true nature. It seams meditation is the key. When I meditate everything makes more sense. Thank you.