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Mind and Memory Track · Spiritual Sense: Practical wisdom to quiet an overthinking mind and recharge your soul

• 0:01
  Speaker A: So much love and blessings. Welcome to spiritual sense. This is advanced spiritual wisdom for the discerning spiritual traveler. This is for those who appreciate the finer things in life, the deeper things in life. And today we're discussing the subconscious mind and the memory. And how does it actually work? Because all the time we're thinking thoughts, we're having all sorts of emotional experiences, we're remembering things. There's all this stuff happening internally all the time, day in, day out, even our dreams. Right? This is like the filter through which we see life. So our whole experience of life is coming through the minds, through the subconscious is an inner reality. And if we don't know how it works, we're kind of at the mercy of this fascinating and very, very profound, very complex perception mechanism. So how does it work? How can you take advantage of it? And how can you have a happy mind, happy heart, and a beautiful life? So welcome, Shereen.
• 1:19
  Speaker B: Hello, Michael.
• 1:20
  Speaker A: Pleasure. So we were actually discussing what we're going to talk about today, and this is the topic. And Sherene had some wonderful things she was trying to tell me before this podcast. I said, no, no, no, let's just record it because it's absolutely fascinating. So just to tell us about the mind, subconscious mind and the memory, how does this actually all work?
• 1:38
  Speaker B: You know, before we get into anything, remember when someone says, oh, you're so smart, you think you're a brain surgeon, or so brain surgeons. Brain surgeons are supposed to be like the smartest, right? Like a rocket scientist or brain surgeon, right? Like they're up there. I feel in spirituality, and not just spirituality, right. If we want to hack life, then we need to become mind surgeons. We need to understand how the mind works and how we can repair the mind so it works better. And to be a mind surgeon, there is absolute importance. To understand exactly how is the mind working. The first thing we need to differentiate is the difference between brain, mind and soul. Because when we talk about brain, right, the brain, anything you see with your physical eyes, is part of the physical body. So the brain is like the engine of the body. It's very important for the body to function well, and even for the soul to function well, the brain is absolutely essential, but the brain is not the mind and the mind is not the soul. And so the brain is the engine of the body and the soul. If you take, like, a car and a driver, the brain is the engine of the car, and the soul is the driver. The car. So now what's the mind? The mind is kind of like a. It's an organ of the soul. It's like a faculty of the soul. It's a very subtle faculty of the soul. It's a spiritual thing. It's a metaphysical thing. It's beyond the physical. It's not a physical thing. So what do you, what is your understanding of the mind, Michael?
• 3:34
  Speaker A: I think about the mind as a screen or that through which I perceive the world. So there's the physical universe, which is sending signals out, right? So there's. There's like, I'm seeing trees and there's the wind, and there's different. There's a chair, and there's a camera and all these things. So the physical universe, I'm labeling it as those things. Really, it's just wavelengths. According to science, the actual universe is made of waves, and it's made of particles, and it's not what it looks like to us, but it's sending out energy to the body. And the five senses receive the signal. Then it goes through the body, into the brain, through the eyes and the different senses, and then in the brain, it gets. The soul is in the brain, and those energy messages are interpreted the mind in the brain first, and then in the mind. And so my experience of what I'm seeing now, I'm actually seeing my mind right now. So if I'm looking around, I'm seeing through my mind. You could say I'm seeing through my eyes. But we can close our eyes, and we can still imagine things in our mind with our eyes closed. So that's how I think of it. The mind is, is our perception of reality, and on top of that is our thoughts and emotions and all these other things. So you got an internal experience that's happening separate from the world outside, and you got the world. And the interesting thing about the mind is, like, for example, the other day I came from Arizona to Hawaii, and I went to see my mother to get some stuff that I left at her house. And one of them was this insta pot, so I could cook my own food with my own potential. And so I took it out the house, and I was trying to, like, take a bunch of stuff down the stairs, and I was like, where is the instapot? And I was looking everywhere. Like, is. It's not here. It's not here. It's not here. I was looking around, looking around, looking around, look around. And I'm like, what? How? Like, it was right here. Where did it go? Right? I went in the house, went out the house, wandered around, and then I just said, just calm down, Michael. And I looked to the side and it was literally right there. Like, it was literally right there. So how come I didn't see it? Because because of negative hallucination, I was internally somehow deleting that signal from the instapot into my brain. I just didn't notice it. It was right there. It was actually there. So that the mind. So there's a very. I find this a very interesting topic between the outside world and our perception of what is going on. So this is a very fascinating topic.
• 6:33
  Speaker B: So one thing, though, before getting it into two out there, science, right? We can all agree that when I see a computer, I see a computer. I see this. I see this. We all agree that we are seeing this, right? Because we have to get to. To be very practical about this. Because if you need to understand the mind, we can't get into too much esoteric things. So to be practical, right. One of the things I need to understand is, like you were saying, the mind is like the visual part of the soul. It is part of the soul. It is one of the faculties of the soul, the mind. And then there is the intellect, which is the reasoning part of the soul. And then there are the impressions, which are the archives of the soul. But the mind is a visual part of the soUl. And that's where, you know, you store. You know, that's not. You don't store. That's where all of your visual Things are coming up. Like you were saying, if you close your eyes, you can still see because that's it's coming up on the Mind. And so one thing you need to understand is to become a mind surgeon, you need to understand how the mind is interfacing, how the mind is interfacing with the brain, and how the mind is interfacing with the soul. So the first point of contact, the soul and the brain, the first point of contact is the mind. And in the Mind, right there is the Subconscious Mind. Then we all know that there is a subconscious mind. There is a conscious mind. And it's important to understand and heal the subconscious mind. We could talk about it some other day. It's important to understand and direct the conscious mind. But also it's very important to understand the middle part of the mind, which is our memory track, that there is a memory track. And that memory track is very important to understand. Like, what is memory track? Right. Memory track. So we all know what the subconscious mind is, and we all know what the conscious mind is. And so what is memory track? So memory track is in between the conscious and the subconscious mind. And so it's not totally subconscious and it's not totally conscious, but it's the memories that I have retained. And, for example, if I ask you, tell me some of the memories you remember from 2020, right? So we had 365 days in 2020, and we had maybe 366, I think. Anyway, it was a leap year. So we had 366 days in 2020. And we had so many things going on, right. 12 hours a day we've been awake, and so many things we were doing. All of us can recall only a few things from 2020 because the rest just go into the subconscious mind. And whatever we are recalling, we are recalling in our memory track, and that is just below the conscious mind, you know?
• 9:58
  Speaker A: Yeah. I was just saying, like, when I think back to 2020, only things I really remember is strange. Things that didn't normally happen. Like when. When the supermarket was bare, almost bare, I was like, what the hell? It was. It was a very surreal moment. And then I tried to go out for a walk, and I wasn't allowed because there was all these, like, yellow tape. You're not. Don't cross the line. You're not allowed out. And. But otherwise, I don't remember any. Hardly anything. You know, it's just the same old thing. So why do you.
• 10:35
  Speaker B: I remember being in Nepal and getting Covid.
• 10:38
  Speaker A: You had Covid in Nepal?
• 10:42
  Speaker B: We went to trek. We went to track the mountains, and I got Covid. Anyway, so back. I mean, we are digressing.
• 10:53
  Speaker A: You think you can escape the world in the himalayas, and it turns out you get Covid even up there. Isn't that interesting?
• 10:59
  Speaker B: Right, right. Anyway, so one of the things that we need to understand about this, about the memory track, right? Because memories. Memories, right, memories. You could categorize memories into three different categories. One memory is a line drawn on water, right? One memory is a line drawn on ink, like with a pen and a paper line drawn on paper. And one memory is a line etched into stone. So there were many things that happened in 2020, but a lot of them were memories that were line drawn on water. And. And some of them. Right, some of the things like what you were sharing about going to whole foods or. And going to. Going for a walk, you know, those are kind of like lines on paper, right? And then they are stronger memories, which are lines etched into stone. And so the lines etched into stone are wherever we either good or bad. Like, they're very powerful memories. And mostly, I don't know why, but nowadays, mostly we only recall negative memories, and they're very powerful negative memories. So let's say something really bad happened in 2020, like someone you loved did something, you know, betrayed you. You know, something else happened. Something else happened, right? I mean, that is line etched on stone. And so what happens is, and the same thing could happen to me, but it could just be a line on paper. Why is it that some memories for me are just line on paper and some lines on a stone and via some lines on water, right? Most things, right, like you eating, walking, all of that, those are normal things. These are mostly line drawn. Drawn on water, right? You don't remember them too much, but there are other things. Like, why is it some memories are line drawn on paper and why on line drawn on line etched into stone? Because our samskaras or our impressions in the soul decide this, right? My attitudes, my past experiences, all of them decide this. And so if I want to be happy, I can tell you this. You could have billions of dollars. You could have, you know, be the president of, you know, massive company. You could, you know, you could be, you know, you could have, like, the most amount of whatever, right? And the, you know, the most loving people in your. In your life, everything, right? But if in your memory, if you don't understand how your memory track is working and you allow all of these lines either etched on pen or etched into. I mean, written on. Written by pen on paper or etched into stone, if you allow them to take over your life, you will never be happy. You have to understand what is going on at that level.
• 14:48
  Speaker A: That's very interesting. So if the memories are negative, then we can't be happy because we have pain stored in our memory, suffering that's stuck in there, and it comes up, and it's kind of, like, affecting our present, because the memories come into the conscious mind. They recall in conscious mind, aren't they?
• 15:10
  Speaker B: So there is the subconscious mind, and it comes up into the memory, and from the memory into the conscious mind. That's the layers it goes into.
• 15:20
  Speaker A: Mm hmm. You know, I just want to mention something I read a while ago that someone did an experiment with memory where she had these little cards, and every day she wrote down two experiences from the day on, the day she had a they experience. One was like a more, you know, significant thing. Like, let's say, you know, she got a bunch of money or something, something that she thought what she would remember. And another thing was something really basic, like, you know, I ate my breakfast and I had whatever. Whatever, right? Something really ordinary. So a bigger memory and a kind of ordinary memory. And she put. Then she put the date on them and she put them all away in this, like, this box. And I. She did it for, like, seven years or something. And then after that, she would randomly pick up one of these cards out of the box and read it and see if she could remember it. And do you know what the result was?
• 16:19
  Speaker B: No.
• 16:21
  Speaker A: She basically didn't remember any of them. Hardly at all.
• 16:25
  Speaker B: Right.
• 16:25
  Speaker A: Isn't that interesting? Almost everything. She did it for seven years. Almost everything just disappears. Only very, very occasionally. Does anything stick in the memory track?
• 16:37
  Speaker B: Yeah, just occasionally. But a lot of does stick, right? Because you'll be thinking. You'll be sitting down and thinking, why am I thinking of such a random place and a random thought? Right?
• 16:48
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 16:49
  Speaker B: Because it's coming from the memory track, right? But there is a secret. And this secret is in one of the sanskrit praises of God, which is sat chit Ananda. So you could say chit. Chit is consciousness, but you could also say chit is memory track. That is what Dadi Janki used to say. Chith is memory track. So sat is truth, chit is memory track, let's say. And Ananda is bliss. And so more than it being a praise of God, right, it is actually a formula. And actually it is a law. It's a law. Only when, absolutely, only when truth is playing in your consciousness can you have bliss. So if you want happiness, right? It doesn't at all. I mean, yes, you need a certain amount of happiness to feel safe and secure, so you can have actualization and you can actually have bliss. So you do need a certain amount of things, you know, like you need, you know, I'm not saying that you do need certain amount of money. You do need a good house. You need a good thing before you can say, okay, let me experience bliss. But after that amount, right. It doesn't matter what you have, what you don't have, who you are. You know, how important you are. President of the United States, known none of that, right? It doesn't matter. Only when you have truth and that is reflecting in your memory track will you have happiness. So the next question is, what is truth? What is truth? In this particular case, these are synonymous. Truth is synonymous with spiritual, and spiritual is synonymous with eternal. So anything that you're reflecting that is eternal and that is spiritual, you're thinking about those things, then that cleans out the memory track, and that's when you're happy. Because memory track, people can get, what would you call it? People can like it it steals. Right. Like different people and different things steal your memory in this particular moment. There are a lot of things that happen today, and that's, you know, the tyranny of whatever, the mundaneness of life and that steals it. Right. Steals your memory and just. It's like kidnapping it and keeping it, and you have to bring it back and say, no, I am going to reflect on eternal spirit spiritual things, and if I keep reflecting on eternal spiritual things, I will have happiness.
• 19:58
  Speaker A: What do you mean steals the memory? Because the memories are already there. You mean that they're not.
• 20:04
  Speaker B: Steals it. It's like chit chore. It's called chit chore. It's like kidnaps, right?
• 20:12
  Speaker A: You mean the memory kidnaps the moment. Like if you're trying to focus on something and the memory comes up and takes over the moment. Yeah.
• 20:20
  Speaker B: Your negative memories kidnap the soul, right?
• 20:24
  Speaker A: Right. Yeah. They. They spew forth unwanted, you know, without unwanted things.
• 20:31
  Speaker B: Exactly.
• 20:31
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 20:32
  Speaker B: So even though, interestingly, in that experiment, right, even though she didn't remember any of those things.
• 20:37
  Speaker A: No. She might have remembered a few of them, but barely any. Barely any of them. She was quite surprised because most of it was irrelevant to her mind. Like, the only. The only thing she remembered were, like, really vivid, intense, emotional. The more intense and emotional it was, the more it gets etched in like a. Like a stone. But nearly everything that happened, she wasn't like, neither here nor there. So it just didn't stick. Just sifted through into the subconscious, disappeared.
• 21:05
  Speaker B: So what I'm trying to say is that if I don't understand, right, if I don't understand how these negative memories are hijacking my life, I have to understand that. I have to understand that these negative memories keep ringing, even if it nothing. Even if it's not very important, right? Even if it is as simple as, oh, I have to feed the cat. Right? That is not eternal. That is not spiritual. And if you're not thinking about eternal spiritual things, you're not experiencing happiness. You're just experiencing a very mundane life. And the more you think of eternal spiritual things, the more it is sustainable happiness. Otherwise, it's just regular pleasure that goes away.
• 21:59
  Speaker A: Yeah. A lot of people equate happiness and pleasure as the same thing, but they're not the same. Like, I can have lots of ice cream and chocolate and coffees and sit in the sun and it's all very nice, but then it comes to an end and then.
• 22:16
  Speaker B: Yes, and also diminishing returns, right? If I have ten ice creams, I'm not going to be any more happier than if I have one ice cream.
• 22:23
  Speaker A: Woo hoo. Let's get ten ice creams. Let's have twelve pizzas.
• 22:26
  Speaker B: But if I have, like, let's say I'm reflecting on eternal spiritual things for five minutes, and then I decide to do reflect on 1 hour, then I will have ten times more happiness.
• 22:37
  Speaker A: That's a good point. Yeah. The more spiritual practice, the better it is. So we're not saying that we shouldn't eat ice cream or whatever it is, but it's more that there's a state of joy, super sensuous joy, joy beyond the senses that we get when we focus on eternal things.
• 22:59
  Speaker B: Right. We are definitely not saying don't eat ice cream or chocolate. That would be a disaster and a tragedy.
• 23:05
  Speaker A: Nor would life be without mangoes.
• 23:08
  Speaker B: Right. Be a tragedy. We are not saying that. All I'm saying is that we have to be mind surgeons and we, as a mind surgeon, I have to understand what is kidnapping my memory in this moment, right. Just take five minutes, ten minutes, and journal what is coming up in your mind. Right. The date, yesterday, today, whatever. Right. What is coming up in your mind, right. That is usually coming up from your memory track and see that and replace that with eternal spiritual things. And it could be as simple as, I'm a soul, I'm light, I'm peace, I'm loved by God. It could be very simple things. They're not very simple, actually. They're very profound and deep. And the more you practice them, the more you do, the more you will really see the benefit of very simple exercises.
• 24:09
  Speaker A: Yeah. The masters practice the basics again and again and again. That's the difference. The novice thinks that advanced things are the way to go or what's new, new, new, new. And have all this book knowledge. But the masters focus on just the simple practices and do them thousands of times. We it to be happy, we have to focus on eternal things. And the reason we're not focusing on them is because the memory is arising automatically into our mind and. And filling our thoughts.
• 24:47
  Speaker B: Stealing our happiness.
• 24:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, filling up the thoughts. What I've noticed personally about this is that when I sit sometimes with meditation, I have memories of, like, random movies that I saw, like years ago. And like, I'm just like, why? Like. And when I noticed that that is the memory track.
• 25:04
  Speaker B: You know what I mean? Now that is the memory track. It's not totally subconscious, it's not totally conscious. It's in the memory track.
• 25:11
  Speaker A: Yeah. I remember recently I was sitting somewhere, I was like, I'm not gonna go online at all. I'm not interested in all this nonsense. And I just sat there and I just disliked random images of some random thing and then another random thing. I'm like, what is this? It felt like a trash can. I was like, I don't want this stuff in my mind, but where is this? It was my fault for watching the stuff that it got in there, and now it's coming back out again. What I personally have found is that the more time I go offline for and I stop watching any stuff and I stop having any inputs, if I stop consuming content and I just sit for, the longer it goes on for, the more stuff starts to come out of my mind.
• 25:57
  Speaker B: Memory track, right?
• 25:58
  Speaker A: You know, it just keeps spewing out, spewing out. And there's so much in there because it's from the subconscious going up. And then it comes in the mind. And I think because most people, myself included, have so much information, information, it's pushing it down. And then once we stop consuming it for whatever reason, then it starts coming back out again.
• 26:21
  Speaker B: You know, the important thing is how not to allow our current situations to ruin our future. Just like you watched a movie and it's coming out, right. What can I do right now so that the memories I'm creating right now are not. Especially the negative memories are not etched in stone. What is it that I can do right now? Because whatever happened in the past, I'm. I'm reaping the repercussions or the benefits or the rewards or whatever, right? I'm doing it. I'm feeling it now. But what is it that I can do now so that in the future it doesn't happen, the same thing doesn't happen. And so, again, it's very simple, right? It's very simple. You have to be aware that there is a memory track. You have to be aware that there is a subconscious mind. You have to be aware that there is a conscious mind. You have to be aware that the conscious mind is the first interface between the brain and the soul. And you have to remember that the mind can be controlled. Not controlled. You could say disciplined. The mind can be disciplined, but you have to treat it very gently, like you would treat a toddler. If you have a really nice, precious toddler in your care, how would you treat that toddler? Firmness. You won't allow it to eat whatever it wants, do whatever it wants, right? You will be firm, put discipline in, but you will be gentle. You will be loving. You have to talk to the mind the same way. You have to look at it. You have to differentiate and talk to it and say, hey, you, how goes. How are you doing there? Right. Is. What is it that I can do right now that I'm not bombarding you with negative stuff. Bombarding you with negative stuff. And so that is when you start doing the eternal spiritual things.
• 28:37
  Speaker A: So let's. Let's say someone is sitting down somewhere and they have thoughts from their memory track coming in their mind. What are they supposed to do in the moment?
• 28:51
  Speaker B: Okay. You should always have some go to spiritual thoughts, right? And it could be very simple. And you can write this down, because spiritual things. Right. Truth. Right. Truth is very interesting because truth is universal. Spiritual truth. I'm talking about. Spiritual truth is universal. Whatever applies to me applies to everyone. If I say I'm a pure, peaceful soul, that means everyone is a pure, peaceful soul. If I say I'm a child of God, that means everyone is a child of God. If I say I'm loved deeply, deeply, deeply loved by God, because that's my experience, that means everyone is deeply, deeply, deeply loved by God. The difference is I've experienced it and someone else hasn't. That's the only difference. But that is truth, right? That is truth. And so it's not like my truth is different from your truth because these are spiritual truths. These are not, like, physical truths or they are not psychological truths. These are spiritual truths. And so we have to take very simple spiritual truths. I am a soul. I am light. I'm loved by God. I belong to God. God belongs to me. I'm safe. I'm blessed. Simple things. Right? And when it's the I, it is the soul. The soul. I, the soul is blessed. I, the soul, am loved by God. I, the soul, am safe. Simple things that you keep repeating, repeat. You have to repeat it on loop.
• 30:35
  Speaker A: Yeah, that. That overrides the nonsense in the mind.
• 30:40
  Speaker B: Yes, that overrides the nonsense. Because remember, sat chit anandam satchitanandam. Truth in the memory track gives you.
• 30:50
  Speaker A: Bliss, and it gets in the memory. By doing the practices. Yeah.
• 30:54
  Speaker B: Yes. By doing the practices again and again and again. And it's so joyful, you might think, oh, this is too simple. I don't want to do it. Just try it.
• 31:04
  Speaker A: Masters practice the basics. You know, it takes a while to come to terms with the fact that it's the high level people in any area, whether it's sports or, you know, music or spirituality or engineering or whatever, there are certain key principles, and people master those principles at higher and higher levels through repetition and practice and depth. Whereas novices, they want interesting little tricks and interesting little hacks, but they haven't actually established themselves in the basics. And so getting rid of any of these memories or whatever is just again and again, practice, practice, practice. Simple, even. Like, I am a spiritual being, having an experience and I'm separate from the body. This is a very, very, very big deal. That's extremely profound.
• 32:02
  Speaker B: I wanted to finish with this whole idea of taking basics and practicing. And, you know, why does a novice pretty much always remain a novice? And why do some people become experts? Because we started off with thinking we have to become mind surgeons. And so why is it that some people are like this and some people like this? Why is it that some memories are etched in stone and some are written on water? You know, why is that? Right? It is our samskaras, it is our tendencies, it is our impressions, it's our attitudes, our belief system, our habits, all of these things, right? And so what these do, what these habits do is they really trip us up. So, I mean, whatever we are sharing, right, is very important. Don't take your habit of wanting new things and wanting something, you know, new and shiny and all of that, right. It's just a very bad habit. It's not going to get your happiness. You need to understand the mind. You need to understand how simply the mind works. And you need to feed the mind the right things. You need to have the right diet in the mind. You have to have the right practices for the subconscious, I mean, for the memory track. And you will see that. You will be happy.
• 33:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's the basics. Fill the mind with beautiful thoughts and have the patience to stay with it long enough for it to work. So hopefully everyone has got a better understanding of how their mind and memory works now. And now you know what to do next time you're sitting somewhere and all this stuff just starts pouring forth into your head. What am I supposed to do? Do the practice?
• 34:14
  Speaker B: Yeah. Write down a few spiritual practices and just keep practicing. And then as soon as you sit down and other thoughts come, you just continue the practice.
• 34:22
  Speaker A: Yeah. And after a while that overwrites the memories. They kind of, they get overridden with new thoughts.
• 34:33
  Speaker B: You want to pick a number.
• 34:35
  Speaker A: 16.
• 34:43
  Speaker B: Communication. You have the strength to express yourself freely without fearing how others might judge you. There is a refreshing feeling of being in touch with who you are, allowing your inner truth to show itself and bring you back peace.
• 35:08
  Speaker A: Thank you very much. Yay. Well, thank you everyone. Thank, thank you for watching all those here and enjoy our free trainings, med free meditations and have a beautiful day, a beautiful week. Talk to you soon. Much love. Blessings.