Question: Sir, what is the method to forget anyone so that his memories do not distract our mind?Speaker: There is no need.Listener: Sir, if we want to?Speaker: Ayush is asking how to forget something or somebody? How to be able to forget the past? Do you know the tendency of the mind? The mind is like a small kid, small mischievous kid. The more you tell it to not to do something, the more it wants to do the same thing. Have you seen the kids? When you tell them to not to go to one particular corner of the room, what does the kid do? It will not go to any other place, it will go only to that place.As young men and women, what do you find the most attractive? That which you are prohibited to do. Right? And you are always thinking of those things, people, actions that others don’t want you to be engaged with. That is the tendency of the mind. The more you try to restrict it, the more it goes in the same direction. Hence, the more you are trying to forget, the more you are strengthening the memory.
When you say that I want to forget ‘X’, am I actually forgetting or am I remembering all the more? I get up in the morning and I say that I want to forget ‘X’, now am I forgetting or am I remembering all the more? I have now made an arrangement to remember ‘X’ even more. The one who is actually forgetting, will he think that I have to forget or will he just keep forgetting? But if you are thinking about forgetting ‘X’, then even in thinking about forgetting ‘X’ what are you doing? Look at these six words, ‘I am thinking about forgetting ‘X’. What am I doing? In thinking about forgetting ‘X’, I am actually thinking about ‘X’. Am I not? This is my indirect way of remembering ‘X’. So, till two months back, I was saying that I am remembering ‘X’ and that was my way of remaining engaged with ‘X’, remaining with the memory of ‘X’. And now, I am saying that I am thinking about forgetting ‘X’, but still I am thinking about ‘X’. So has anything changed? Two months back, I was thinking about ‘X’ and two months later, I am still thinking about ‘X’. It is just that then I was thinking directly, and now I am thinking indirectly. That is the pleasure.You know, you don’t want to forget. Deep in your mind you still want to remember. You get up here and you tell me that you want to forget but the fact of the matter is that you have no intention to forget. You get deep pleasure in remembering again and again. But then, the ego will not allow you to remember. It may be a person who has insulted you, who has hurt you, so what do you say, that I want to forget you. The ego will not allow you to directly remember that person. So, the mind comes up with an indirect trick. The mind says that I cannot directly remember that person. I am not allowed to. That person hurt me, how can I directly remember him or her or thit or that incident? How can I directly remember it? So, what do I do? I indirectly remember it by trying to forget it. So cunning is the mind! By mind, I do not mean your mind. By mind, I mean the universal mind, everybody’s mind. The mind is so cunning, it finds indirect ways. I can not be with you so I can at least be with your memories. And I can not directly allow you to come in my memories, so I will go indirectly allow you by trying to forget you.I assure you that no one has ever succeeded in trying to forget someone. The more people have tried to forget, the more they have remembered. But that is exactly what they wanted. They wanted to keep remembering again and again. Because remembering is such a pleasure. You don’t want to give up that pleasure. You are still getting that pleasure. It is so nice to remember. You don’t want to give up the memory and there is no need to give up the memory. The memory is there, it will be there, let it be there. Don’t even try to forget. In trying to forget, you are saying that I cannot bear it. That is the argument you are making to yourself. It is unbearable so I am trying to forget. It is not unbearable. In fact, it is pleasurable, but that is another matter.Nothing is unbearable, whatever is there, is there. Don’t try to do something with it. Come to terms with it. Yes, it happened, it happened. Isn’t it a fact that something happened? Can you change that fact? Anybody here who can go and modify his past? Anybody here capable of modifying the past? It happened. It happened. Yes! it is a fact. Stand up to it. And what is a fact, is a fact. It is not an insult, it is not a pleasure, it is not a pain, it is not something to be proud of, it is just a fact. Yes, that happened, but that’s it. It is a fact. And what happened, happened at a point in time, it tells nothing about me. Do not try to judge me by my past. You will be making a mistake. It happened. I am alright with it. I am neither proud of it, nor do I feel humiliated about it. It happened, at-a-point-in-time, not right now. So, don’t judge me. You are what you are. Something happened. Right? Let it be. It does not diminish you, it does not make you bigger. Come to terms with it and coming to terms with it does not mean that alright, it is something so bad, yet I will accept it. You don’t need to have an attitude towards it, neither positive nor negative. It is just there, a fact. The bottle is there, a fact. I need not say that it is a glorious bottle. I need not say that it is a filthy bottle. It is there, just there. The bottle is there, and I am there and I am free. In spite of the bottle being there, I am free of the bottle. In spite of the past being there, you are still free of the past.
-Excerpts from a Samvaad session. Edited for clarity.