Hey there, I was hoping to get some opinions on the subject of memory and its usefulness in our spiritual journey. To me, whatever path each of us take, they all lead essentially to the same place, that is, right here, and right now, in an egoless state of consciousness, because that is where the treasure lies and has always lied, within ourselves, hidden deep inside of the superficial self-made fabrications that we identify with, such as our beliefs, our thoughts, our ambitions, our ideas and opinions...and our experiences. In the core of all of that is something pure, free from all society's conditioning, something that transcends our dimensions of space and time, its our inner light, its pure consciousness, and it is that with which we must reconnect to, it is that that we must go back home to, because it is our true self. What we constructed around that is fake, its fragmented, its in conflict, and it ultimately is what is responsible for the degradation of our planet and the actual auto-destructive behavior of our society. We must change, or we shall disappear, taking along with us thousands of other animal and plant species.
From here, if the ego is what we must free ourselves from, that implies that our experiences and our memory are to be detached from that which we truly are. Didn't the Buddha say something like memories are a source of pain, letting go of them is the end of suffering.? If living in the present moment means that your actions aren't guided by the past, when does memory play its part in our spiritual journey? Transcending our ego also means transcending our memory.
I realize now that I'm expressing them, that these questions are of complicated nature. They actually came up to me as I was reading Castaneda's Art of Dreaming, the part where Don Juan recommends to recapitulate one's life:
Quote:
Don Juan had given me very detailed and explicit instructions about the recapitulation. It consisted of reliving the totality of one's life experiences by remembering every possible minute detail of them. "The recapitulation sets free energy imprisoned within us, and without this liberated energy dreaming is not possible."
(...)
Don Juan stated that the old sorcerers' rationale behind the recapitulation was their conviction that there is an inconceivable dissolving force in the universe, which makes organisms live by lending them awareness. That force also makes organisms die, in order to extract the same lent awareness, which organisms have enhanced through their life experiences. Don Juan explained the sorcerers' reasoning. They believed that since it is our life experience this force is after, it is of supreme importance that it can be satisfied with a facsimile of our life experience: the recapitulation.
See, I tend to agree that our purpose here is to experience reality in a conscious manner. We learn from our experiences and (should) get wiser and thus evolve. Where do these experiences get stocked? In our memory, right? So our memory is actually of primary importance in our spiritual journey.
See why I'm a bit confused?
So, what I'm trying to ask here is, in a word, how important is it to remember?
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Edited by exclusive58 (12/29/06 10:41 AM)
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