Where exactly is memory – in the soul, mind or brain?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question Where exactly is the knowledge stored? Is it stored in the brain, in the mind or in the soul? Actually, it is in all three and it depends on what kind of knowledge it is and how deep our connection with it is. There is the soul and the knowledge at the spiritual level, when we say soul is Sat, Chit, Ananda. That Chit refers to consciousness or awareness as a natural faculty of the soul.
So, that Chit is intrinsic to the soul. But currently, what does that Chit refer to? The knowledge of how to love Krishna, how to serve Krishna, how to live in spiritual reality. That is Chit.
But currently that knowledge is covered. Just as if a person is watching a movie and when a person gets caught in the movie and the person has a distinct identity but the person may identify with the hero in the movie, the person may forget who I am. So, like that, our knowledge has become covered.
He describes in 3.39 in the Bhagavad Gita. Now, the whole process of Bhakti Yoga is ultimately to remove that covering. So, the Vedanta Sutra ends with the words and when that has happened, then the soul will become liberated.
So, that is the original spiritual knowledge of the soul. So, that is currently largely inaccessible to us. But it will become accessible as we become purified.
Then we come to the mind and in the brain. So, the brain is the physical apparatus where the memory is stored but even today, scientists are quite unclear about how exactly memory is stored in the brain. Because, till a decade ago, the notion was that all the cells in the body change but the brain cells don’t change.
But now, researchers have found that even the brain cells change. So, then it becomes like say, now you are writing some note on a paper. Now, if one by one I take all the molecules from the piece of paper and I change all the molecules and then you find the note is still there on it.
You wonder, how is that possible? Everything that made the material of the paper changes, how does it contain or remain there? So, what the Vedic understanding is that the memories are stored not just in the brain. They are also stored in the mind. So, the brain is the physical medium where they are stored but beyond that there is the mind also.
So, when the memories come in, even according to scientific understanding, there are sections of memory. There is a short term memory, long term memory and the more we repeat it, recollect it, revise it, the memory goes from short term to long term or the similar, whatever you remember, it goes from the short term memory area to the long term memory area. So, beyond all this, we have the mind.
So, this is with respect to worldly information that we are talking about. Now, those perceptions, those impressions, which either have a lot of meaning for us or have a lot of feeling for us. Meaning is intellectual, feeling is emotional.
Which have a lot of meaning or a lot of feeling, they go deeper and they get stored in the mind and not just in some part of the mind, prominently in the mind. So, the mind in one sense is like a mega hard disk. So, practically speaking, everything that we are exposed to, it creates some level of impressions.
But the intensity of that experience, that perception, will determine how deep rooted the memory will be. So, when we move forward, deeper in, at that time, it stays in the consciousness. Other things go back to the subconscious mind.
Like, I may have so much data in my computer, I may not know where it is stored. And I may not even know that it is stored. So, I may use some search key and then I find out, I had this file over here.
So, like that, sometimes we may get some stimuli which might trigger some memory which we had long ago forgotten. Not only we had forgotten memory, we had forgotten the existence of that memory also. So, that can happen.
Generally, when we go from one life to another life. So, at that time, the brain is destroyed. And the memory that is stored in the brain is destroyed.
And because most of our functional memory is connected with the body. That’s why most of the body-based memories are destroyed. Actually, Prabhupada gives this as one reason in 4.5 in the Bhagavad Gita.
4.4 in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna asks Arjuna, Arjuna Arjuna asks Krishna, You are saying that you gave this knowledge in the long ago to the Sun God. But Sun God is, you are union in the Sun God. How could you have given this knowledge? So, in 4.5, Krishna answers, Bahunvedhitaan Janmaan Tavacha Arjuna Both of us have gone through many lifetimes.
Tanyamveda Sarvaani Nattu Ambeddha Parantapa. I remember, but you don’t remember. And the reason for that, he says next verse, Ajopisana Vyatma Rudanameshwaropisana My body will perish.
So, that means with the destruction of the body, also a significant amount of memory is lost. That memory will be connected with the brain. And that will be lost.
Only when some stimuli from a previous life comes along very strongly, then generally people might recollect something. But in general, we don’t recollect the stimuli connected with our past life. So, presently now we are discussing something.
So, where will this be stored? It will be first stored in the brain. And depending on how much you contemplate, how much meaning it has, how much feeling it has. So, it will go deeper.
Some impressions will be there of everything that happens in the mind. But how deep-rooted they will be and how accessible they will be, that will depend on how much important they are for us. Important emotionally or intellectually.
And that’s how the memory is stored in all three levels. Now, when we try to remember Krishna, at one level of remembrance of Krishna is of something just coming from outside to inside. We are hearing something about Krishna.
But the difference is that we have an original relationship with Krishna. And in that sense, that memory of Krishna doesn’t just come at the cranial level nor just at the mental level. Actually, it removes all these blockages and revives the spiritual level.
So, that’s why in the remembrance of Krishna, there is smaran and there is poorti. Smaran is what we cultivate. I try to think of Krishna.
I chant Krishna’s name. Poorti is what Krishna reveals. Sometimes when we come to Kirtan, sometimes when we take darshan, we feel a surge of devotional joy.
Some peace coming up. So, that is because of poorti. So, either way, what is happening is, remembrance of Krishna goes beyond the physical and the mental level to the spiritual level.
And the avaran that is there, it removes. By which, we can again become activated in our real life with Krishna. Does this answer your question? I like this.