Devotion knows only one thing, remembrance. And we cannot remember a thing piece by piece; either we remember it whole or we don’t. One cannot remember himself so that he is part God and part man; if he remembers he remembers totally. The process of remembering is sudden and total. It cannot be piece meal and gradual. Remembrance is an explosion. Discipline has a sequence and devotion has none. For example, we need to remember a name that we have long forgotten. We are simultaneously aware that we know that name, yet we cannot recall it. We are in the state of perplexity and confusion. The very word forgetfulness means we forgot something we know. We are aware of it at some deeper level of our unconsciousness. Yet it fails to communicate with our conscious mind. So we have to build a bridge between these two parts of mind.
We try different ways, we strain our mind, we scratch our head, we close our eyes, we twitch our brows and yet it goes on eluding us. The more we try the more tense we become. The tense mind goes into pieces; the quiet mind collects itself and becomes whole. It might be then that some friend comes along and he engages us in some conversation which has nothing to do with the name we are trying to remember. In the mean time we forget the worry about remembering the name. And the wonder of wonder happens, the whole name suddenly pops up and we have it once again. The reason is simple. As soon as the tension caused by opposing forces of our mind disappeared and we entered into a state of relaxation; what we failed to remember with the effort came so effortlessly. And when it came it came whole.
I have said this as an illustration this is how our ordinary mind works. Memory is one of the functions of our mind which is divided into two parts. One is the conscious mind and the other is unconscious mind. Conscious mind is used in the work days almost always and the unconscious mind is used sparingly, as per the need. The fighting between these two stop; then that which was standing on door step of the unconscious mind emerges into conscious and we have it.
Remembering the divine, or what we call self remembering goes even deeper than the unconscious mind, it is beyond it. The conscious is the superficial part of the mind which is lighted, and below that lays the unconscious buried in dark. Below the unconscious lays the collective unconscious, at the bottom lays cosmic unconscious - which is the mind of the entire universe. Remembrance of God or self- remembrance happens at the level of the cosmic mind, which is the ultimate in the consciousness. God or self is known when we become completely integrated – not only with our conscious, unconscious and collective minds but also with the consciousness.
Dr Dwarakanath (Mitran Foundation)
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