What does 'memory' involve in yogic philosophy, and how do we improve it?

Ans : In order to understand what memory is, it is necessary to know what the antahkarana (inner instrument) is. The term covers all aspects of the mind. The chitta is the basic mind-stuff; just as cotton is the basic stuff of which the cloth is made. When it thinks, this thinking aspect is called manas. When it correlates experiences and discriminates, it is called buddhi. When it indulges in individualistic assertion and when the basic thought of 'I' is held in the mind, it is called ahamkara. These four together form the antahkarana.

When the manas and ahamkara function together, their combined work is called determination. The ego is there, it thinks a thought with great deliberation and pushes the thought in a particular direction. This is will power. When the idea is strongly supported by the ego, it is will power. When the manas and the ahamkara delve into the chitta in order to bring out some thought that is there in the unconscious aspect of the mind, it is called memory. When the emphasis is greater on the ego and less on the manas, it is called determination. When the emphasis if greater upon the manas but less upon the ego, then it is memory.

All the three-manas, chitta, and ahamkara-function in memory. Manas is the most important principle. Chitta lays itself out as a passive actor in this drama. The ego gives the impulse, and then the idea comes up. Sometimes in spite of the greatest effort of the ahamkara and the manas the idea does not come up. It may be a recently submerged fact, and the mind and the ego try their best to bring it up, but they fail. There are other cases or happenings of thirty years ago and the thing is submerged, but with the least effort, it comes up. How the chitta gives up the ideas submerged in it, no one really knows. Sometimes you give up trying to remember things in despair, and it spontaneously comes up! To improve memory, you have to undergo a process of mental training and improve your concentration:

Exercise #1: Let your friend take 10 or 20 different things and put them on a tray. Cover it up. Uncover it for just one minute. Look at it for that one minute. Immediately cover it up again. Take a piece of paper and a pencil and jot down the things you saw. Allow yourself five minutes to recollect all the things. Then check your list with the things in the tray and see how many you have omitted.

Exercise #2: Let your friend arrange those things in some order. As in the previous exercise, uncover the tray and look at it for a minute. Now try to jot down the names of the things in the very order in which they are found on the tray.

Exercise #3: Try to meditate upon a particular thing and the associated ideas in a particular order. For instance, take the subject "chair," and your thoughts might run as follows: 'This was a big tree, it was in a jungle in the Himalayas, a contractor must have cut the tree, the timber was sold to a merchant, he cut it into planks, a merchant engaged a carpenter, the carpenter has laboured upon it and cut it into various sizes. Then he has taken nails and driven them in at the various joints, so the chair has taken the proper shape, and afterwards the carpenter has polished it, and then placed it on a showroom floor. Now I have purchased it, and it is a very comfortable chair!' Now try once again to repeat the same process in exactly the same sequence. This exercise will enable you to train the mind to go over a particular set of ideas in the same order, by building up a chain of association of ideas. Do it in the reverse order also.

Exercise #4: There is a different form of the same exercise. Here the emphasis is more on association of ideas than concentration on one object. Take a flower for instance. Your thoughts would run: "It is a sweet-smelling flower, fresh water is extracted from it, Muslim queens used to bathe in rose water, Muslim ladies wear purdah, purdah system has been abolished in Turkey, Turkey is a westernised nation, the influence of western values is strong in India, and so on. Now try to go over the same ground in the same order.

Deliberately try to remember faces, names and dates. Great men have had their own way of memorising names and faces. When a new name is mentioned to them and a new person is introduced to them, they will during the course of their conversation go on repeating the new name several times. Then the name will stick in the mind for a long time. Meditation and pranayama strengthen memory. Various herbs also promote memory. Japa is an excellent aid to memory. If you keep your general health perfect, your memory also will be strong.