Q: I have a question about my memory. It’s getting worse all the time. I’m going to have it checked, but I’m also wondering if it’s an expression of something that’s not physical. I can see some of the benefits, like not clinging to things, but I’d love to hear you talk about this.
John: The whole purpose of memory is to manifest your being in. The moment you’re even concerned about your memory, you’re separate from your own being, and you’re making the substance of memory of greater importance than being both in your heart and in your being.
Q: I can understand that because much of the time I’m even enjoying it, but there’s a scary sense of dissipating.
John: When you don’t want it to dissipate, you cut off the supply of your own being to your memory. The supply of being matters more than memory, but it isn’t going to matter more if you’re not connected to it. So be the supply of being to your memory without any focus of result.
Q: I understand it as just relaxing. Is that it?
John: Yes. Do what you can on the same level as memory for your memory, but don’t use any movement of your being to improve it. That’s not what it’s for.
Be unconditionally open and soft in your heart within the context of memory. That includes the loss of memory as much as having more memory. The existence of memory isn’t less when memory dissipates. Your experience of it changes with the decrease or the increase, yet it isn’t about either.
It’s you being open and soft in your heart within memory, and that openness and softness doesn’t become less when your memory becomes less.
Q: I think it’s even helping me to get deeper. Am I using it? Is this what it’s for?
John: If you’re being openness and softness within memory, when memory increases there’s an impetus to openness and softness, and openness and softness deepens. If you’re being that openness and softness and memory decreases, the impetus is the same to openness and softness.
If you try to use openness and softness for the benefit of your memory, you disconnect from openness and softness. Or, if you notice that decreased memory feels open and soft, you will subconsciously compromise your memory.
The balance is simply being open and soft whichever way your memory goes.
Q: So my wanting a high-functioning memory back is not something I should give energy to?
John: On the level of your self, yes, and deeper within than your self, for instance in your heart, no. And you’re able to do both at the same time. On the level of your self, work on your memory, while in your heart it makes no difference to you.
It’s the truth of multi-tasking, but if you connect the two you fool your self. There needs to be a full flow on a heart level and a full flow on a self level. They work independently of each other. You’re moving on both levels at the same time, and you’re all in both levels.
Q: Okay. Practically, what I’m getting from this is just to relax.
John: Yes. The more relaxed you are, the less you’ll cross the levels. When you’re profoundly relaxed as awareness, you will naturally move in your heart and in your self in the way that you know.
