Memory Selection in Meditation
The way Patanjali phrased it, memory is an obstruction to meditation. So is accurate analysis, inaccurate analysis, imagination and sleep. The interesting thing about this is that it is not possible to eliminate any of these unwanted features of the mind but it is possible to reduce their occurrence drastically by yogic methods.
Sleep for instance can be reduced in the number of hours required simply by improved diet, selected times for eating, less anxiety, change in lifestyle for more conservation of physical and psychic energy and breath infusion just before meditation sessions, where the subtle body is surcharged with fresh energy and shifts to a higher plane in which meditation is done without the spread of drowsy energy.
Memory is a special feature of the mind which for the most part is involuntary. Yes, the observing self does invoke memory but the most frequent display of it occurs on the spur of the moment by involuntary mental movements which the self is subjected to and which it is induced to energize and permit.
During meditation memories usually arise. Before the self can corral these or blot them out, it finds itself under their influence. This causes failure in meditation. In fact in most meditations despite the external show such as sitting in a yoga pose or sitting quietly in a sanctified place, the mind continues flashing memories which disrupt the meditation.
If the yogi does breath-infusion before meditation, he or she will, if the session was thorough, not have to deal with memories arising because the mind would have shifted from the level where memories are automatically invoked in the mind. Even if the breath infusion did not remove all polluted energy from the psyche, still there will be a reduction of memory flashes. That influence will reduced so that the self will see the memories in slow motion and will be able to squelch most of them.
~~~~~~~
In the astral existence during some sessions of breath infusion, when the subtle body shifts to higher planes, even to the brahmaloka plane of existence, Yogeshwarananda advised that in the meditation following those sessions an attempt should be made to remember the format and feelings in the subtle body during those shifts to higher planes.
That is an instruction for the use of memory during meditation, the positive use of it, to condition the psyche to grasp the higher level which it reached during breath infusion, so that it reinforces in the psyche the need to reach those higher levels.
During meditation when the mind invokes a lower memory, that is an attempt to take the psyche to that lower plane. Thus this same method can be used constructively to take the mind to the higher planes.
~~~~~~~
It is interesting how during a meditation session, the mind will seek out lower memories instead of claiming higher experience which would reinforce and boost the meditation.
This habit of the mind of always seeing lower levels might be compared to a cockroach, which no matter what, will locate the dirtiest place for its residence. However a yogi must make the endeavor to elevate the mind, especially during meditation session.
The problem with the mind is that it does not astutely recall higher experiences. Especially if the higher experiences are not sensational, if such experiences are mild and hardly register in a vulgar and coarse way, the mind does not register memories of the event, which means that when the self desires to contact such memories, it may find that they do not exist in the memory reserves.
It requires practice to get the mind to be attentive to subtle experiences which do not have a vulgar or sensational register in the mind. During breath-infusion practice and during meditation when one reaches a higher plane, one should check to be sure that the mind makes notations about those higher levels; that it is recording memories of what those experiences yielded even if such experiences were mild, abstract or non-sensational.
