Acharya Prashant explains that the mind functions like a mischievous child; the more one is prohibited from doing something, the more one is drawn toward it. He asserts that the effort to forget someone or something is actually a way of strengthening that memory. When a person claims they want to forget, they are still actively thinking about the subject, albeit indirectly. This indirect thinking is a trick of the mind to maintain a connection with the past while pretending to move away from it. He notes that the ego often prevents direct remembrance of someone who has caused hurt, leading the mind to use the pursuit of forgetting as a cunning method to continue deriving pleasure from the memory. He emphasizes that no one has ever succeeded in forgetting through effort because the act of trying to forget is itself an act of remembering. He suggests that there is no need to give up memories or view them as unbearable. Instead, one should simply accept the past as a collection of facts that cannot be modified. A fact is neither an insult nor a source of pride; it is merely something that occurred at a specific point in time. Acharya Prashant advises coming to terms with the past without attaching positive or negative attitudes to it. By viewing the past as a neutral fact, one can remain free from its influence, just as one can be in the presence of an object without being defined or restricted by it.
