Bhagavatam-daily 299 – 11.13.32 – The absence of memory is also a memory

Thank you Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting Chanting and while we go through these various levels we can recognise our own distinct our own being different from these levels of our consciousness so for example here it says that in the awake state we experience consciousness based on the kind of perceptions that we have based on whatever our senses come in touch with based on that we experience certain things Now when we are asleep at that time also we experience certain things and what we experience then is actually at the level of the mind so within the mind we experience the replay of our perception of whatever sensory experiences we may have had those sensory experiences often intensified, magnified we may experience at the mental level Now in the deep dreamless sleep state there is no experiencer at all sorry there is no experience at all and even then after we wake up from a dreamless sleep we can say that oh I had such a deep sleep that I did not dream at all that means that we have some recollection of the absence of recollection just like sometimes we have a memory blackout what were you doing one week ago at the same time oh I just don’t remember we can strain and struggle our memory now we know that we existed and we did something but we may just not recollect what we did so absence of recollection or the absence of memory is also a memory what that means is that unless there was an experiencer who existed before the deep dreamless sleep and who existed after the deep dreamless sleep and who also existed during the deep dreamless sleep the experiencer could not have said that oh I didn’t experience anything I didn’t dream anything so the absence of memory or the absence of recollection also requires by recollection we mean recollected memory the inability to recollect any memory the inability of a particular event also assumes, presumes the underlying existence of the faculty of recollection only when I have the capacity to remember can I remember that I did not remember if we did not have the capacity at all if for example during deep dreamless sleep we had ceased to exist then we would not have been able to we would not have been able to do things we would not have been able to recollect that I did not recollect that I did not recollect so in this way the point that Krishna is making is if we make a if we introspect seriously ok now I am awake and I am observing things say right now I am hearing a talk or I am speaking a talk and then when I sleep I dream at that time I may see something in the dream and now at that time also there is a I who is the observer and depending on the nature of the particular dream involved the I is the doer also the I who is the doer may be lying, may be fighting may be sporting may be whatever that I may be doing the point is there is a I who dreams and then in dreamless sleep also we can say that there is a I who who who later comes to know that I did not dream anything I had no dream so in this way amidst the variety of the experiences and not just the variety of experiences because we may have variety of experiences at the Jagruti level also pleasant, unpleasant thrilling, boring horrifying suspense filled, whatever it ecstatic so there are so many different kinds of experiences we may have at the awake level here we are talking about the variety of experiences in terms of variety of experiences at a variety of levels of consciousness so even amidst such variety there is the continuity of the experiencer the continuity of the experiencer means that no matter what happens the experiencer remains the same and just as we understand that there is one experiencer there is one continuous experiencer who experiences the wakeful state the deep dream state and the deep dreamless state so by inference we can understand that this experiencer will continue to exist even when one is beyond the one is beyond the beyond these three states also so the experiencer is a continuous being continuous means continuously existing in terms of time who exists beyond these three states of consciousness and thus just as if somehow while we are in a dream usually we can’t understand that we are having a dream but if somehow we could understand within the dream that this is just a dream then if something terrible was happening to us we would not get so disturbed by it and if something wonderful was happening to us we would not get so excited by it because we would understand this is just in a dream so like that if we just understand by this sort of scene of introspection that our identity as the experiencer is distinct from these three levels at which we may experience then we will be able to stay calm stay focused stay undisturbed stay devotionally purposeful that means stay fixed in understanding that I have nothing to do other than to serve Krishna no matter what happens so that sort of purposefulness can come to us if we understand that we are different from from the level of reality at which we are experiencing something so by that understanding our identity to be different from matter and material level of reality we can avoid taking material ups and downs seriously and we can focus on connecting with Krishna loving and serving Krishna and attaining Krishna