What is memory?

[Somesh Kumar 0]

Dear Theist prabhu,

Hare Krishna!

 

 

We can't say that the brain has no involvement,because it can be demonstrated that it does have involvment.People lose their memory due to various traumtic injuries for example,or diseases like Alzheimers.

 

 

We don't say that brain has no involvement. But we ask the question that why does the brain does'nt function when a person dies?

 

What is the power which is making the brain work? We try to bring the point of discussion to the conciousness which is the property/characteristic of the soul!!!

 

 

I am also curious as to the souls memory.Will we remember details of our material experience or does that become left behind at liberation in favor of the pure impressions of the spiritual world?

 

 

As far as I've read from the scriptural books the little knowledge that I have tells that memory etc is the function of the mind and mind is not consciousness.

 

As Krishna said

Bhumir apo nala vayur, kham manah buddhir eva cha,

ahankaram itiyam me bhinna prkrtir ashtada.

 

"So Earth, water, fire, air and ether (which our body is made of) and then the mind, intelligence and false ego. They are the separated material energy of Krishna! Therefore the process of memory which is the function of mind/intelligence is material.

 

And then He says:

 

Apareyam itas tv anyam, viddhi prakrti me param,

Jiva bhuta mahaabaho, yayedam dharyate jagat.

 

So here Krishna says that there is a superior prakrti as well which is running this world and that is the soul. So Krishna has distinguished the two.

 

So I think that the more spiritual we become we have less material thoughts. That is, the mind is still there, but it is becoming purified As Narada Ji said " tat paratvena nirmalam " i.e., the mind and thoughts are getting purified. If the person who is advanced in spirtual thoughts can forget all material thoughts remaining in this world itself then how can he remember that in the spiritual world when he is serving Krishna personally?

 

 

Hmmm..how to prove memory is subtle?

 

 

Krishna has given me a good idea to prove the subtleness of human memory.

Consider for example if we want to increase the memory of the computer which is a material object with no consciousness, we have to insert extra RAM blocks into it. If we thought that memory is the same for human beings then we also will have to put an extra block in our head to increase our memory, which is not the case. But contrary to this, We can increase our memory by increasing our concentration, which in turn comes from the consciouness!!!

 

Hence proved that memory is subtle

Apologies for the length of this posting and also if I've said something wrong here which is not in the shastras!

 

Let Krishna help us all in reaching Him!

[Guest guest]

 

You can have individuality without memory,a baby just born has no memory,yet it is an individual.

 

Memory is supplied by God,it is not intrinsic to the soul.

 

The atma is pure consciousness,awareness.

The atma is part of the supreme soul,the supreme

soul possesses memory which is shared with us .

 

By ourselves we have no ability to store memory,we are

dependent.

 

The process of bhakti yoga purifies the desire of the atma from self centered desire .

 

That has nothing to do with memory,it has all to do

with desire.

 

Memory is a function of the supersoul,paramatma,

enabling us to exist in a functional way.

 

Our memory is not independent of paramatma,we have no control of what we can remember,sometimes you can

remember things that happened 20 years ago,other times you cannot remember to buy milk.

 

With alzheimer's a person may have difficulty remembering who he is,but may remember clearly things that happened 50 years earlier .

 

It is a karmic reaction not due to brain function,the brain may function better then the average person for events long past.

[theist 1]

But shiva, we are parts of Krsna, so why wouldn't we share in having memory as He has memory.Just with a minute capacity?

[Guest guest]

 

we are parts,although we are not duplicate parts.

We cannot exists in many forms at once,we cannot

control matter,we cannot do many things that God can.

 

We have consciousness,but our consciousness is not the same

as God's ,God's consciousness has many different abilities

that are natural ,our abilities are limited.

[ethos 0]

Shiva, Actually we can do all those things God can, just in minute degrees.

Qualitatively one, quantitatively different.

 

Theists point remains.

[Guest guest]

 

to quote the modern sage Bono 'were one but we're not the same'.

 

Well if you can read my mind,control nature,control people's destiny,have knowledge of the future,manipulate

matter at the subatomic level, etc,then maybe you are

like god.

 

The rest of us will have to be content with human reality.

The difference between you and God is that all of our

abilities are being supplied by God as our karma allows,

we have no independent abilities of our own.

 

We cannot move a finger without god's help,our body responds to our will,or so we think,in fact that is an illusion.

 

We have no knowlege of how we even move a finger,we simply move them without performing any kind of preliminary

action.

Imagine a robot performing similar functions,it would be impossible for it to do anything without guidance from

a source besides it self.

 

We are the same we function without any kind of mechanistic planning,our heart beats,our white blood cells roam around seemingly with a mind of their own doing their thing,

our cells function in an incredibly seemingly intelligent

way,our bodies function in a dance of almost infinite

complexity all without our knowledge or help.

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

 

furthurmore a drop of water may have some of the qualities

of the ocean,but not even close to all .

 

they are both containg H2O but the ocean contains whales,

boats etc,and has abilities the drop does not have.

[ethos 0]

Shiva, all the mystical experiences and capabilities of the jivas are there in the scriptures. Look what Brahma can do and he's a jiva. (Is he? Or is he half-and-half like Arjuna or Siva) Anyway, the many, many examples are there of what is possible for the jiva.

 

The modern scientists are controlling matter and they are discovering alot of powerful knowledge about how it works, including the bio-chemistry of the body such as heartbeats, etc. They do so well with this understanding of systems, that they are able to make artificial heart or dabble in cloning, etc. I'm not saying they have all the answers, not even the important ones. I too think they are barking up the wrong tree. But they make their little inroads into the quantitative aspects of knowledge.

 

It should be obvious that we can do all the things God does on a limited level.

 

And if we can't do particular things now, well someone else may be doing them. We can practically demonstrate anything the Lord does once our time and effort are mature. Of course, we cannot compete directly with the unlimited Lord. Yet, this whole material world is here for us to try it all.

 

God is doing everything ...Yes! But we are also causing all kinds of things to happen through our will. ––Simultaneous oneness and difference! You can float smaller objects on ocean drops and the drops do contain minute living organisms.

 

Hey, what topic were we talking about?

[Guest guest]

 

This is why the material world is desribed as being

illusory,the conditioned soul is under Maha Maya,

the great illusion.

 

This illusion is created by God fooling us into thinking we are the cause of so many things.

 

In fact everything is an illusion,you cannot even take a breath without the help of God,you cannot think a thought without god creating that inner voice that you are fooled into identifying with.

 

This illusion of control over the material world is there because that is the reason the jiva is here in the first place.

We want to be independent,this is impossible,therefore an illusion is created of independence.

[ethos 0]

Yes, God is doing everything. But you also have the ability to act––just as God does.

 

Are we all just some big cosmic plasma or something that pretends to disagree for God knows what reason? Do runners competing in a race just pretend to compete? No, there really are successes and failures. Man proposes and God disposes.

 

Prabhupada: The soul is finite Brahman, and the infinite Brahman is God.

 

I never suggested ultimate control, I just said we have our little successes.

 

Hey, what topic were we talking about?

[theist 1]

Memory is a constituient of intelligence.

 

 

From The Quest for Enightenment ch 6.

 

 

Disciple: Socrates terms his method maieutic, that is, like that of a midwife. He thought that a soul could not really come to knowledge of the good by the imposition of information from an external source. Rather, such knowledge had to be awakened within the soul itself. The teacher's business is to direct, encourage, and prod a soul until it gives birth to the truth. The maieutic method therefore suggests that since the soul is able to bring the truth out of itself, knowledge is really a kind of recollection or remembrance. If so, then there must have been a previous life in which the soul possessed the knowledge it has forgotten. This suggests, then, that the soul (understood as something involving intelligence and memory) exists continuously through many lives and, indeed is eternal.

 

 

Srila Prabhupäda: Yes, the soul is eternal. And because the soul is eternal, the intelligence, mind, and senses are also eternal. However, they are all now covered by a material coating, which must be cleansed. Once this material coating is washed away, the real mind, intelligence, and senses will emerge.

[Somesh Kumar 0]

Jai Sri Krishna Theist,

 

Srila Prabhupäda: Yes, the soul is eternal. And because the soul is eternal, the intelligence, mind, and senses are also eternal. However, they are all now covered by a material coating, which must be cleansed. Once this material coating is washed away, the real mind, intelligence, and senses will emerge.

 

 

Does'nt this come from the fact of spiritual vareigatedness? An advaitin would say that only soul will exist and everything else will vanish. But we know from our beloved bhakta mahajan Narad Ji that hrsikena hrsikesa sevanam bhaktir uchyate that means that the senses are always existing but when used for the satisfaction of Madan Mohan it gets purified and then it becomes spiritual.

 

Any thoughts?

[theist 1]

Haribol Somesh,

 

I take it the same way you do.It seems that when the minute memory capacity that the soul possesses is trained on Krsna, that is spirtual life.When the soul chooses to focus its consciousness elsewhere, the memory factor becomes bewildered like we experience in a dream.

 

In a dream we forget our waking identity and identify with a particular dream character.Even within that dream we may experience memory to some extent.

 

So from what I gather, our quest is to regain memory of ourselves in relation to Krsna,rather than to try and void all memory.

 

It's hard for me to understand but this is the picture I get.Always open to revision.

 

Hare Krsna

 

[Guest guest]

 

wy don't we ask Krishna ?

 

http://www.asitis.com/15/15.html

[theist 1]

shiva:"wy don't we ask Krishna ?"

 

Great suggestion.He will re-mind us.

 

[xxvvii 0]

Sec 4 - "Secret Meaning of Quintessence" (from Chinese), chap.4 "Summary of English Translation"(from Chinese) in "Tibetan Book of Dead" ("Bardo Th:odol")