Enhancing spiritual memory

Feb 16, 2010, 12.00am IST
Uma and K S Ram.

Random Access Memory, RAM in short, is a feature that makes computers meaningful. It is hard to imagine a PC functioning minus RAM.


Computers without RAM are like people with dysfunctional memory, who live a life divorced from reality. Who imagine events, create a false world around themselves, and waste their precious lives. On coming across such people, we realise how blessed we are to have our memory alive and in order.


Sages, however, might beg to differ. In Indian spiritual lexicon, memory ( smriti ) is more than just remembering telephone numbers and bank balances. Memory connotes an evolved state of being. Success and failure in life, in the ultimate sense, depend upon how active and functional one's memory is. An illustration from the Bhagavad Gita might help clarify this point.

The forces are positioned on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, ready for war. Arjuna, a key player in the Pandava team, finds his brethren and revered seniors before him. His emotions suddenly get the better of him. He realises the futility of war. He sees before his mind's eye death and disaster on a large scale. He turns 'spiritual' and resolves to renounce the contest. His mentor, Krishna, pities Arjuna and gives the message of the Gita, ending it with, ''Reflect upon it and act as you choose.'' What is the effect of the Gita, coming straight from Krishna's mouth, on Arjuna, the ardent disciple? He says, ''My delusion is destroyed. I have regained my memory smritilabdha through Your grace!''

Tracing the sequence of self-ruin, the Gita states, ''Brooding over the objects of sense, man develops attachment to them; from attachment comes desire; from desire anger sprouts forth. From anger proceeds delusion; from delusion, confused memory or smriti-bhransh , from confused memory the ruin of reason, due to ruin of reason he perishes.'' Recovery of memory motivates Arjuna to engage in battle, but he fights in the dispassionate mode of action, the mode of Karma Yoga. He fights in Krishna's shadow of grace, acting solely as a blessed instrument of God to reset a disturbed cosmic order, dharma-sansthapanarthaya .


What is that ultimate memory that Krishna quickened in Arjuna to inspire him towards right action? In the typical paradox of cosmic truth, ultimate memory is the same as original memory which, in turn, is the same as eternal memory. This relates to the truth of the essential unity of creation, non-duality, advaita . Sustenance, guidance and positive energy flow from the renewal of the memory of oneness and unity. All belong to the One, not as its parts, but rather as the One. Each of us, jointly and severally, is the One. The prelude to the Upanishads enunciates the 'absurd' equation of Vedanta: One minus one equals one. ''That is a whole, this is a whole, from that whole has this issued. When this whole issues from that, what remains is a whole.''
Maya blurs the memory of oneness; it inspires notions of difference, self-interest and rival interest. The spiritual journey consists of constantly renewing this memory until it firmly lodges in the mind. This is called sumiran , a corruption of the term ' smaran ', or remembrance. Sages across religions have hailed its value. Steeped in sumiran one gets established in bhakti or devotion, because the point of bhakti is ananyata , 'non-another-ness'.