The Desire to Forget

The ego believes that the mind is dangerous, and that to make mindless is to heal.
(A Course in Miracles)

They say that our mental abilities peak in our early 20s and from there we enter a relentless decline with every decade that goes by. So is "mindlessness" really our fate, and can spiritual wisdom perhaps offset the cognitive decline? The old-age disease Alzheimer's has exactly the symbolic meaning the Course in Miracles alluded to: you erase painful memories just because they are perceived to be too ugly. It is yet another attack of the system on itself, just as cancer is. Perhaps you could call Alzheimer's the cancer of the mind.

This disease doesn't seem random to me. I am middle-aged and I have cognitive mal-functions. Whenever there is too much on my plate, or whenever I am thrown out of my comfort zone, car keys can easily end up in places they are not supposed to be. The good news is, a spiritual path can help with that. Along the Way you zoom into one thing at a time; the one thing is in fact "the thing" just because at that time there is nothing else in the world. Walking the Way you also always feel at home - no matter what, you are always in the comfort zone!

A spiritual path gives you the mission statement that is meaningful to you. Each morning you get up and you have life to look forward to. Unfortunately, not everyone can claim the same. Have you ever seen a lifeless expression when you looked into someone's eyes? It is as if the soul connection is gone. Life can be harsh at times. Loved-ones may pass away; we may struggle professionally or become ill. Yet none of these events are soul-destroying; we can always recover from these tragic moments. No, the desire to forget only kicks in if we have come off-track from life's mission; when we experience guilt, regrets or envy; and when we cut into our soul-connection every step of the way.

That's where a spiritual path comes in. Along the Way you are literally being reborn every day. Tough choices may lie ahead and you may occasionally miss a step, but never will you persistently walk in the wrong direction. It is the ongoing conflict with what is holy inside of you that deadens your soul-connection. Wrong jobs can do that or bad company, but mostly it is the wrong opinion about yourself that is the problem. You think you need your job to be someone, or you want to please the "in-crowd" just to belong.

Connect with your soul today and let go of the artificial opinion about yourself. It is really not that hard to do. A spiritual path is exactly that, a daily renaissance, a daily reminder of who you truly are deep inside. The Bhagavad Gita has this description of the struggle of the mind. Looks like our ancestors discovered the root cause of memory loss many thousand years ago:

If a man keeps dwelling on sense-objects,
attachment to them arises;
from attachment, desire flare up;
from desire, anger is born;

from anger, confusion follows;
from confusion, weakness of memory;
weak memory - weak understanding;
Weak understanding - ruin.
(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad Gita)