Memory of Sublime feelings / Parapranasmritih
In advanced meditation, depending on what sect the meditator is in and depending on his or her objective, it may be important to invoke and to keep in touch with the memory of sublime feelings from lofty experiences which one had before.
If the objective is to be in a void state of consciousness, to be in nothingness, to dissolve out the self or the supposed-self, then this use of the memory of sublime feelings which occurred in previous meditations, but which is not current, would not apply.
The memory of sublime feelings in higher states of meditation, where the self was emerged in bliss within itself or where the self was in bliss and in a bliss environment, may be impossible to reach. This happens because the mind as it is configured while using a physical body, is insensitive to sublime states which are not passionate. The mind cannot formulate or conjecture such high states. In fact the self may find that it is unable to visualize or conceive of previous high states because the mind failed to apprehend those experiences due to the subtlety and abstraction of them.
This same mind has no problem grabbing and displaying memories of grosser events which happen physically or psychically. In this situation, the ascetic may find that he or she has to train the mind to grasp, record and remember the sublime experiences. Special meditations may be done just to get the mind trained in doing this.
Feelings consist of some type of pranic energy, subtle energy which one can perceive as either happiness, distress or neutrality. When the subtle energy is on a higher level, it is sublime. Hence the term paraprana (para = higher, sublime). Smritih is memory. That is the recall of an event which was recorded by the mind. Of course if the event was subtle or super-subtle, the mind may not record it because the mind may not have the means to do on.
Merely because humans have no hearing apparatus which can apprehend every sound, they do not hear the sound from a dog whistle. The mind may not be able to note certain transcendence experiences even if one has them during meditation. Suppose a dog trainer put a dog whistle to his lips and blew through it, we can assume that a sound was made but there is no way for our minds to record that frequency. And still we know that a sound was made. The evidence is the action of the trainer in putting the whistle to his lips and also the action of the dog’s ear become erect soon after. But with that evidence the mind will still be at a loss if it was requested to enact the sound mentally.
Similar incidences occur in some higher meditation, where one has an experience but does not have the means to properly comprehend it. One cannot recall it because the mind simply could not note it.
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During meditation when the mind is blank of ideas, when it experiences neutral states as feelings, it may occur that the mind clearly recalls lower experiences. If then one tries to switch the mind to higher experiences for recall, the mind might become stunted, immobilized or unresponsive because it finds that it does not have the ability to do so.
When this happens, the yogi should note this inability of the mind and be advised by a teacher on what to do next. Those whose objective is a voidal state, has no need to do this. This advice is for those whose objectives include sublime higher states, and reaching higher environments or dimension for divine social association in those places.
