Does it count as a “been there, done that” if you don’t remember much of anything about it? If it’s something you’ve read or watched, remembering only that you did and almost nothing more, is it still part of you?
Aging takes a lot away. There’s no getting around it. When our auto-save is no longer saving where we’ve been and what we’ve done, except perhaps in scraps of random detail, a calm adjustment is in order, lest we suffer the loss as an aggravation or sadness.
Do you remember enjoying what you read or watched, that where you were was inspiring? Isn’t that more important than a play-by-play description?
We assimilate more than we realize. A “wraith of memory” remains, as named by neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf, and it helps to shape the attitude and manner of the self we become.
Now, what was I about to write along that same line? It has suddenly fled my brain to Who Knows Where!
I could dwell on that, and I have, but to what use? We set ourselves up to be troubled when expecting our brain to manage more than it can. Its cells gradually lose population like a city adversely affected by a changing climate. With or without our approval, cell-citizens leave.
Sometimes our missing connections return for a while when the moment of needing them has passed – a name to go with a face, a title to go with a book – but accepting the disappearance is the greater need. We are not less for the loss, because none of that storage speaks to why we are here. Memory gaps and even mental decline are superficial events that matter not to the soul.
What counts is our attunement. Our love, expressed without reservation. Our being the best we can be.
When a devotee remarked that it was hard to see Kamala Silva in the last years of her life with significant dementia, Swami Kriyananda put this in divine perspective. “It’s only her mind,” he said matter-of-factly, seeing who she truly was in spirit and sweetness. As she is seen by God.
Let us not count on what doesn’t. What counts is the true nature of our being, and our only real job here is to bring it into sync with our soul’s purpose. Remembering to live from our essence requires no recollection of anything else.