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The eleventh sutra of the samadhipada is on smṛti. The smṛti vṛtti. The vṛtti called as smṛti. This is also surprising. Memory is a modification of the citta. Memory is produced, germinates, and it's a functionality of the citta. So the sutra goes like this.
अ॒नु॒भूतविषया॒सम्प्रमोषः॑ स्मृ॒तिः ॥ १.११॥
Anubhūtaviṣayāsaṁpramoṣaḥ smṛtiḥ ॥ 1.11 ॥
Anubhūta viṣaya asaṁpramoṣaḥ, asaṁpramoṣaḥ it is. Literally asaṁpramoṣaḥ means taking away, robbing, totally making it nil. And smṛti is memory. So what is memory? Anubhūta viṣaya - experience of the subject, or what is experienced, vishayanubhuti, experience of the subject or anything, any experience. That vishayanubhuti asaṁpramoṣaḥ, it is not robbed, not deprived, not gone completely.
Because moṣa( मोष) has a dhātu(धातु) called muṣ (मुष्). Muṣ means robbing, stealing, taking away, emptying, take away. Asaṁpramoṣaḥ, not taken away completely, that is called as smṛti.
Something is retained, not totally gone. Memory is not allowing to (sleep) away any experience. I repeat, the meaning of the sutra is, that is smṛti is defined as, memory is defined as, not allowing to slip away an experience. Means what? When we undergo an experience, or when we experience something, and that experience is not completely gone, that experience is retained, may not be totally, but it is retained. And why it is not totally retained? Why it is less retained? It is not totally retained, and it is retained very less, because of time. Because that muṣ, robbing, what is that robs the experience? What is that takes away the experience? What is that makes the experience to be lost? It is the time, kāla.
Kāla makes anubhūti to lose. So experience of anything, any object, or any subject, or anything, vishayanubhuti, thinks down, is robbed away, taken away by the time. Not to take away, not allow it to be taken away, that is asaṁpramoṣaḥ. Asaṁpramoṣaḥ is not allowing it to take away. That means retained. That is called as memory.
How beautifully Maharishi Patanjali explains, at a very deep, subtle level, he explains and dissects the experience, and also the meaning of smṛti. Normally, memory, smṛti, we remember so many things. Many things we remember. Many things we don't remember. But just imagine, if we remember everything, and if we remember many things, if we remember all the things, all our experiences, it will be a disaster. It is a terrible burden on the mind. Tremendous unhappiness. But if you don't remember anything, it is also a problem. Just imagine we don't remember anything at all. It is a problem. It is a difficulty. The normal life cannot run. So a normal life cannot run, even if we remember everything. And it cannot run, even if we don't remember anything.
That is the asaṁpramoṣaḥ.Not completely taken away. So what is to be remembered, is to be remembered. And what is to be given up, is to be given up. And that is the, of course, a discretion is to be used there. But smṛti, here, has that important dimension that it is retention. The ability to retain. That ability to keep it. And that is a phenomenon where it is not completely lost. And it is not completely retained. That is smṛti.
But we should remember, this is the strange way smṛti has been defined. This is a strange way. This vṛtti has been defined. So an experience of an object is retained. And if the object is removed, the experience is not removed. Drink a cup of coffee or milk or eat some sweet. The experience we got it, is not lost. Even after the absence of the object. The experience is retained along with the object, the shape and form of the object. But as the time passes, it goes out. That is the Anubhūtaviṣayāsaṁpramoṣaḥ. It thins down.
Swami Vivekananda explains beautifully about this when he comments on the memory or on the smṛti. He says that memory, Swami Vivekananda's commentary on this particular sutra is very interesting. Memory can be caused by the previous three. That is the previous vṛttis. For instance, you hear a word. That word is like a stone thrown into the lake of the citta. It causes a ripple. And that ripple arouses a series of ripples. And this is memory. So in sleep, when the peculiar kind of ripple called sleep, throws the citta into a ripple of memory, it is called a dream. Dream is another form of the ripple, which in a waking state we called memory.
Simply Swami Vivekananda summarises, puts the entire thing in this capsule. It is the nature of the citta to retain. But time robs it. This is why we don't remember clearly, or all the details, or precisely, minutely, actually an incident happens. Because time robs it. But repetition strengthens memory. Anubhūti, after anubhūti, of the same, strengthens memory.
So what you remember is very important. And memory is told, smṛti, is told at the end - pramāṇa-viparyaya-vikalpa-nidrā-smṛti. It is told at the end. Because for memory, it has to have all the four pramāṇa,it can be pratyakṣam, anumāna, āgamāḥ or viparyaya, or even vikalpa, or as we saw just in the earlier sutra, even the experience of nidrā is remembered. So memory is given at the end, because it is the resultant of the earlier vṛttis. And all memories arise from the experiences of all the above four vṛttis. It may be kliṣṭā or akliṣṭā. Pratyakṣa vṛtti, pratyakṣa pramāṇa, or having kliṣṭā or akliṣṭā.
So memory is a thing which is already known, already experienced. It is based on the past. There is a difference between thought and memory. Thoughts come and go. They just come and flow. But memory sticks. It is an experience. And by repetition, it strengthens. And that is how the smṛti, memory, has been defined and analysed by Maharshi Patanjali - Anubhūtaviṣayāsaṁpramoṣaḥ smṛtiḥ.
In yoga, we see a number of courses, camps, trainings are held to improve memory, to develop memory. But Patanjali says, surprisingly, it is a vṛtti which is to be eliminated, which is to be stopped. How it can be done? What is to be remembered, is to be remembered. A positive memory, if at all we have to use the word, and remove all the negative memories, just for comparison. And by that, we remember what really, actually, the truth, that will be remembered.
So smṛti, it is a vṛtti. And how these vrittis are to be handled, stopped, to be blocked, as we saw in the beginning, yoga is citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ. After completing the analysis of the vṛtti, the nirodha part, Maharshi Patanjali takes up in the next sutra, that we shall see.
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः||
To Be Continued..
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These are transcription of session delivered by Vice-President of Vivekananda Rock Memorial & Vivekananda Kendra, Sri M. Hanumantha Rao Ji.
Audio Link - https://youtu.be/zIYiTdk6JV8?si=iY5SDILpR3IYY9oURead n Get Articles, Magazines, Books @ http://prakashan.vivekanandakendra.org
मुक्तसंग्ङोऽनहंवादी धृत्युत्साहसमन्वित:।
सिद्धयसिद्धयोर्निर्विकार: कर्ता सात्त्विक उच्यते ॥१८.२६॥
Freed from attachment, non-egoistic, endowed with courage and enthusiasm and unperturbed by success or failure, the worker is known as a pure (Sattvika) one. Four outstanding and essential qualities of a worker. - Bhagwad Gita : XVIII-26
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