28th April, 1999

Chapter 1 - The You That You Want To Change

Day 24 - Misery

Memory make you miserable or wise. Memory of experiences and events in the ever changing world, however good or bad constrict the vastness of the self. They bind you. Memory of your nature, the non-changing self, expands and elevates awareness. 

This liberates you. You are what you are because of your memory. If you are ignorant, it is because of your memory. If you are enlightened, it is because of your memory. Forgetfulness of the infinite is misery. Forgetfulness of the trivial is ecstasy.

Question - How do we get rid of unpleasant memories and

limitations?

Gurudev - Know the impermanent nature of the world and events. Realise that past events do not exist in the present. Accept the past and drop it. Be dispassionate and centred. Memory of the self is gained in the company and service of the Enlightened. “So Hum” increase prana or “So What?”, if nothing works, go to God. 

When you are miserable, know that you have gone away from the self. This is called ashaucha, becoming unclean. In India when someone dies, the close relatives are said to be ashaucha for 10 days because they are very sad. They are impure because they have moved away from the self. 

After 10 days of just living through that experience and reading the Bhagavad Gita, being with the knowledge and pulling themselves back into the self, they become

shaucha. They have purged the impurities that arose during those events.

This happens again and again in life. You become ashaucha and then you must get back to shaucha. Go deeper into yourself, then real shaucha happens. Shaucha’s benefits are clarity in the intellect, a pleasing mind, focused awareness, control over the senses and thus eligibility to realise the self. 

Shaucha is disinterest in the tendencies of your own senses. You have the understanding, “Oh yes, here is this old familiar tendency again. Come on, I have had this experience enough, and still my body craves for it again”. By being disinterested for a moment in one own body and senses - just an idea, a sort of distaste, you will find that the situation changes. 

Why do people love each other so much, have such an intimate relationship, and then fight? Ashaucha has happened. If you do not have distaste for the tendency of the senses, then distaste for the object of the senses is bound to come and you will blame the person or object.