Just remember that you forget || Acharya Prashant (2014)
Questioner (Q): Why do we forget?
Acharya Prashant (AP): The question is, "Why do we forget? Why forgetting is a property of the mind?"
Do not ask, "Why do we forget?" Just remember that we forget. Because when you forget then you don’t ask this question that, "Why do we forget?" Have you ever seen a man who has forgotten asking this question that, "Why do we forget?" Have you ever seen this? When you are asking that - Why do we forget? - in that moment you have not forgotten.
I am saying that do not ask that, "Why do I forget?" Just remember that, "I forget!" Just remember this tendency of the mind, because even if I give an answer, you will forget the answer. Because you are prone to forgetting. What will you do with my answer? What have you done with all my answers till now?
You forget so much that you don’t even know that you forget. I asked you all to write your learning after the session. After the last session, one of you sent your learning. I had to ask two-three people who attended the session whether I said anything close to what is written on the paper. Maybe I did and I don’t remember. They said, “We can answer your query only when we understand in which language is this written. Maybe the writer not only forgot what you said, but you also forgot all the languages of the world.”
(Laughter)
Remember that we forget. That’s all. Never allow yourself to feel that all is well. You’re surely forgetting something if you are feeling all is well. And you are feeling all is well because not only you have forgotten something, but you have also forgotten that you have forgotten. So blissfully you are ignorant that you have forgotten, and so you are feeling that all is well.
You being what you are, how can anything be well? Forget about ‘all is well’. You being what you are, how can anything ever be well? Surely you are forgetting something. Always keep feeling your pockets, "What have I forgotten? Now what have I forgotten? I have forgotten that is certain. Now what I have forgotten?"
Q: Sir, there are two sentences. One is- all is well. The second one is- it is always alright. In the first one, there is suppression.
AP: The first one is “Aham Brahmasmi”, uttered by Ravana. The second one is “Aham Brahmasmi”, coming from the Rishi. When you say, “All is well”, that is “Aham Brahmasmi", uttered by Ravana.
Q: When Ego is crushed in some incident, or when someone’s self-image is broken, people don’t forget that incident.
AP: No, we try to crush that memory also. We feel bad about it. What do you do with the letters of a lost girlfriend? You flush them down. What else do you do? One of our students exited from one of the Whatsapp groups. I was surprised. I asked him, "Why did you do that?" He said, "Because of the breakup, I uninstalled Whatsapp from my phone. All the older messages are deleted now."
So when there are more painful incidences, we want to forget more. And we say, “Let’s move on. Get on with life.” If we were able to remember that how much we suffer every day, then we would have left suffering long back. Is that a point or not? If we see our lives, then what is the story? There is repetition. What type of repetition? Repetition of what? It is the repetition of this suffering.
Krishnamurthi says, “Life is repetitive, life is repetition.” Buddha says, “Life is suffering.” Now combine both the statements. “Life is a repetition of suffering.” We suffer by doing the same work again and again.
Whatever I am saying to the people sitting here, they have not heard this from me for the first time. They hear the same thing every week and still they do the same activities again and again. It’s not being said for the first time. It has been said many times but again the same thing will happen. So life is not only a repetition, it is a repetition of suffering. We go through the same torture again and again, again and again, and therein lies the real tragedy.
To be hit once is alright, it can even be fun. But to keep getting hit again and again, again and again, and often on the same spot, that is not fun, that is tragic. I was listening to Osho one day and in one of the discourses, he was telling the story of a man and his wife. Both used to fight a lot. Both of them came to Osho and said that we fight a lot. He asked them to get separated from each other, at least for some days. So, they got separated.
After getting separated, they both got restless and told Osho that they want to be together again. Osho refused and asked them to be separated for some days. They both disagreed and returned to each other. The man after two-three months wrote a letter to Osho. He wrote that after returning back to my wife I remember a famous saying, “A donkey never falls into the pit again.”
(Laughter)
Why do you fall regularly? That is the question. Suffering is alright, but repetition of suffering is not.
