Train to forget

As a child I was once advised to take Brainolia, a popular tonic at that time, for improving memory. The ability to remember is a laudable one and quizzers have to have it in abundance. 

This relates to factual memory. When it comes to emotional memory, I don't have to try to remember. Every embarrassment, things that make made me angry or sad, every slight, insult, breach-of-trust is remembered in technicolor and recalled at will. 

Times do come when remembering is not fun anymore. And unless we forget, it is impossible to start afresh. But how to forget? Well, one can either try to deliberately remember the good things (what is called pratipaksh bhavana), so that in the mind the opinion about the offending person ultimately tilts towards the positive. The past is nothing but present memory. So if we can influence our memory a bit, it helps. 

Or one can realise and accept the truth that inside the apparently steady physical body, everyone is actually new every moment, like every frame of a film is actually a new one - looks continuous since it runs. The person who offended us may be different now. Maybe mostly same because of his/her own memory function, but we can admit the possibility for change, and not give in to a "Kuchh nahi honewala" syndrome. 

Intelligence knows how to remember. Wisdom knows how to forget.