*Day 29*
Question - The second question was memory. You mentioned how at different times, different things are stored in the memory. How does the memory work?
Gurudev Sri Sri - The strongest experiences get stored in the memory more predominantly than others, but then there are some experiences which are very superficial that also get imprinted in the memory.
For example you just had a casual conversation with somebody and sometime in the dream you hear that conversation which really was nothing. So, the way the memory works is very complex.
That which gives you a lot of joy and pleasure gets stored and that which gives you pain gets stored. That which appeared to shake your ego, identity gets stored and that which seemed to boost your identity gets stored more than others.
Then sometimes some superficial events, incidents, impressions just get imprinted there simply. If you wake up in the morning and you observe sometimes you are talking to people who are not there.
Has it happened to you? You are having a dialogue. You are telling four, five seven people," you go away now. You go to shopping. You go do this. I am not ready to meet you,"or this and that.
You are doing all these dialogues and it appears almost real, but you wake and see there is nobody here. You are by yourself. These are impressions in the consciousness, in the memory.
And books, the things you read and the movies you see can all have such an impression and get stored in the memory, but getting stuck in the memory, those impressions become too much in the mind.
Then it takes that much longer time to see that one consciousness beyond all that. But no memory can stay forever. It is always time bound, pleasant or unpleasant, these experiences are time bound. For some time they drag on and then slowly fade away.
Question - Is memory only on an individual level or on a common level, beyond the individual level?
Gurudev Sri Sri - When you see a memory it is on the individual level. We don't call that common consciousness memory, but we call it knowledge, knowledge present in the consciousness.