Being here and now

Is it possible to be absolutely in the present moment, or do we always live through our memories?

Memories certainly play an important role in our lives; yet people do not know how to make use of these memories in order to improve themselves. For people today, memory has become a mere storehouse of impressions.

But according to Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras, memory is not a storehouse of impressions; it is a vritti, a modification of the mind (citta vritti). This vritti, if properly managed and controlled, allows us to draw experience and inspiration to improve the present. People think about the future, but the future is always unknown. The present is what you are living, the past is what you have lived through, and you do not know what will happen to you in the future.

That is why the field of human interaction is mainly the past and the present. The past gives you experience, and if you recognize that memory is a vritti (simply a way of thinking) rather than merely a storehouse in which all good and bad impressions are kept, the present gives you the opportunity to improve upon that experience. This is why yoga treats memory as a vritti of the mind.

Generally, people identify with their memories, and these memories point to our attraction or aversion (liking or disliking, love or hatred). If someone hurts you today, it will remain in your memory — twenty years later, should you happen to meet that person again, what memory will surface?

The Nature of the Mind – Tamasic or Sattvic:

How is it that people who have been friends for a whole lifetime can become enemies over a single situation? And what of all the good companionship and connection we experienced before? Gone. Because of one circumstance, one situation. All the good that was cultivated as friends is destroyed by a single sentence; and it is that sentence that hangs over people for the rest of their lives. Such is the tamasic nature of the mind.

You long for goodness and beauty, yet you identify with evil. You long for what is beautiful, what is good, yet you do not identify with it. You merely want it; you merely long for it. Twenty years of goodness vanish instantly in half an hour of aggression. This is a clear sign that although people long for Sattva, purity, and goodness, they identify with Tamas. This is part of the Smriti, the memory, that surfaces and is used by people to justify their Tamasic behavior.

You should try to think of your actual memories of your own past experiences as vritti, so that you may draw from them the very best. If you can identify with the goodness of the past, with the wonderful times you shared with others, that memory will become an inspiration. Today, that memory will bind two people together no matter how far apart they may be, and there will always be a close bond with that person. This is what needs to be done in order to develop your present life. But if you live in the past, ignore the present, and worry about the future, you will get nowhere.

People get nowhere because they keep thinking: "This happened to me there, that happened to me here…" People live in the past. Older people, many times, speak of the golden days of old. They are stuck in these memories, which they consider the golden days of their lives. Why isn't today a golden day? It is, and it can become dazzling and golden, provided you are able to draw out the very best from your own memories and experiences. You don't need to dwell on the past, or to misuse the future or the present.

Simply be in the present moment, not in the past and not in the future. Enjoy and learn from the present. Take guidance from past experiences, but why dwell on what has already happened, and why dwell on what will happen tomorrow? In life, one must always work on improving the present.

Text inspired by the book "On the Wings of the Swan, Volume VIII"

Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati

And Citta Vritti according to Patanjali — this is precisely the topic of our gathering at the sixth module of our Holistic Therapist for Body and Mind course, taking place in November.

memory is not a storehouse of impressions; it is a vritti, a modification of the mind.