MEMORY(SMRUTI, સ્મૃતિ) -- (3).

We may gain or loss from the power of smruti to awaken the past into present. It is not proper to forget the death of a pious father. We should remember him to gain the encouragement in our progress and not be unhappy about it. Guided by discretion, smruti should awaken and keep alive only those helpful thoughts. To some extent everybody's smruti is inspirational. It is one method of sadhana to keep alive this inspirational memories.

It is entirely possible to get stuck in the emotional aspect of these memories. Sadhak should be extremely careful at this time. With equanimity, he must give constructive push to these memories. This equanimity is not dull and inert. Also it is not the carelessness and indifference toward the society. This detachment and equanimity is soaked with love that helps to increase the veneration and love towards Bhagawan.

Pujya Shree Mota
Jivan Sandesh
Edition 3; page 303.

This letter was written in 1944. It seems that it was written at the time of death of the father of a devotee.

MEMORY (SMRUTI, સ્મૃતિ) - (2).

Sadhak needs to use memory with great discretion. It is a form of energy and to be useful, it needs to be appropriately controlled. Memory can be useful by recognizing and regulating the noble virtues of heart and mind. At the same time it can breath life into bad impressions too. As a result sadhak needs to nourish some impressions and destroy others with the help of memory. It takes a lot from sadhak to bring this process to fruition. He does not rest until this process of preventing harmful impressions going deeper or preventing resurgence of the already established impressions becomes a habit of the mind. He does this with the help of memory and does not rest until this is done. It is easy to say this but in practice it requires a great deal of sadhana to train the mind. Sadhak does this with the help of the same memory.

He experiences that his mind grasps the degrading impressions with ease and speed. He needs to join a different kind of conscious chain of thoughts with this impression to prevent it from establishing or awakening similar degrading impressions. He needs to do this with awareness and equanimity. Sadhak can take the help of naam-smaran, prayer or guru-smaran to prevent this kind of impression from going deeper as soon as he confronts the talk or incidence of that kind. Sadhak blossoms when he always invokes and entertains the good hearted intentions and good qualities in people who have tried to harm him. To get the strength to awaken different kind of impressions with this new habit is a part of sadhana. Sadhak must learn to view every incident with a different kind of attitude.

Pujya Shree Mota
Jivan Sandesh
Edition 3; pages 301 - 302.

MEMORY (SMRUTI, સ્મૃતિ) -- (1).

Sadhak needs to keep variety of arsenal in his quest to progress in the life. Memory is one of the important tools. It is beneficial only if the memory is used in a right way.

Memory helps in the process of accumulating the impressions (sanskars,સંસ્કાર) on the mind, although not directly. The mind and its receptivity actually accumulates the impressions. Memory does the work of waking up the old impressions. It gives the form of thought or imagination to this dormant impressions. Because of this the old impressions solidifies. Memory helps the process in this fashion.

More over the memory also helps the process of receptivity of the impressions when received initially. As soon as the impression is received, memory connects it to the other related impressions and thus binds them with the chain of consciousness. As a consequence, the initial impression gets to be stronger. Certain impressions penetrate the layers of subconscious mind, while the impressions connected with the chain of consciousness being stronger, springs up on the surface in the form of thoughts or emotions on its own at the opportune times. Many amongst us have the experience of certain impressions coming to surface after many years for no apparent reason. This happens as a result of its connection to other impressions by the chain of memory. It is apparent that memory has a role in this process. In  this fashion memory helps in both the processes of solidifying and reawakening the impressions.  
                                                                           To be continued in next blog
Pujya Shree Mota
Jivan Sandesh
Edition 3; Excerpts from pages 299 - 300.

FEELING SAFE AND SECURE - (2).

Natural tendencies of the mind has many forms and its play is endless with multiple ramifications. You can say the same regarding the truth. Truth also has multiple facets and forms. If we hold on to the truth for one situation then we can miss other forms of truths in other situations. We should not hold on to the feeling of security so that we do not cling to partial or only one particular aspect of the truth. Only then we can move from one situation to another. Once we feel secure in one situation it creates a kind of inert satisfaction. We will never experience the bravery, sense of adventure, strength,  enthusiasm and intoxicating sense of purpose while leaping forward to some unknown situation. This feeling of security in the mind will try to convince us that present situation is the ideal one creating hindrances to change from this static situation. It will create many mental miseries and clashes. Sadhak should never encourage or entertain the condition of security to avoid this situation. There is a saying that, " It is good for the monk to always be on the move". We need to interpret this in terms of continuous progress. Sadhak should be like that too. Change and associated struggle is necessary for the progress in his life. One will never experience the taste of divine nectar without the struggle. This struggle is necessary not only internally but for external situations too.

Pujya Shree Mota
Jivan Sandesh
Edition 3; pages 65 - 66.

FEELING SAFE AND SECURE (1)

Safety and security in external situations means staying put in the same situation. Feeling of satisfaction in the situations and circumstances that you are in results in lack of progress and eventual downfall. Sadhak cannot afford to feel secure at any stage. The roots of downfall lies in this satisfaction at any stage in his progress. This rule applies to both, an individual and the whole universe equally.

Sadhak can never feel satisfied and stay put during his long and arduous journey. He must be keenly aware that every situation is an indication of incompleteness. He must have this divine flame of dissatisfaction burning in his heart coupled with lots of patience. In this fashion he must create a happy union of intense, creative and irrepressible longing for progress and immense patience.

We should not experience the sense of security in any phase of our lives. Always keep in mind that everything is transient except God. We must understand with knowledge that any phase of life with its sense of security is a temporary one and we should not experience the sense of security in it. Whenever the mind has a sense of security in anything, it needs to be confronted and stopped from going further in that direction.The force of prakruti gets an upper hand on us as we have the habit of staying in the same secure condition. Our path for divine transformation becomes easy and forceful only when we let go our sense of security.This is the way to reduce or eliminate the strength of the prakruti. The feeling of security never gives us a chance to change our nature. Not only that, our old nature gets to be more adamant due to staying in the same situation.

Pujya Shree Mota
Jivan Sandesh
Edition 3; pages 64 - 65.

Shama's two cents -- Feeling of safe and secure is not equivalent to happiness.