Why do we Remember or Forget anything?

Remembrance is a process of registering activity of our brain. In any experience our brain function is such that it invariably records or registers an experience in which our sensory organs are involved. If one has to categorize any experience into a broad spectrum it will be pleasurable experience and painful experience. Whenever either pleasure or pain is involved, our brain immediately registers it so that it can be recalled or retrieved from memory as a remembrance whenever the necessity may arise in future.

But what may happen in the case of any experience where either pleasure or pain is involved? Our brain is conditioned such that as soon as either the pleasurable or painful thing is felt the brain immediately captures it without waiting for the completion of the experience. In the case of pleasurable one the brain wants to record it in order to repeat it any time in future while in the case of painful one the brain wants to record it in order to avoid facing it again in future. So, there is an act of acceptance and rejection happening always in any experience and this act may result in the registering by the brain. In other words, whenever the experience is partial or incomplete due to the tendency of our brain to capture either pleasurable or painful experience as quickly as possible there will be registration or recording of the partial or incomplete experience. Probably, this might be the reason for our dreams.

Similarly, our brain has the capacity to forget certain things irrespective of the experience being pleasurable or painful. Whenever the experience is considered by the brain as irrelevant, which means there is no need to remember for any purpose, then it may not record it or even if it is recorded during experiencing it may be forgotten within a short time.

Now, is there a possibility of neither remembering nor forgetting anything at all? That means the brain must not register anything because, the question of forgetting may arise only when something is remembered. As mentioned above, the brain may register only partial experiences, be it pleasurable or painful or irrelevant. Then how can one make any experiencing complete? For this one must observe the entire movement of our thought process. During any experience there will be many thoughts arising for the purpose of analysing, measuring, judging, concluding, etc. This process may go on moment after moment and hence there may be a series of recordings, one after another. What if there is no movement of thought at all? That means one must be able to experience anything without analysing, judging, etc., which means there is no experiencer or analyser but there is mere experiencing. So, there will be no intermediate measurements and hence no analysis of any kind. This may be possible for us only when we are utterly attentive during experiencing. In attention there will be no movement of thought, which may tell it is either pleasurable or painful or irrelevant. During this kind of experiencing where attention is involved there may not be any recording by the brain because there will be none to measure and decide whether it is pleasure or pain. So, there will be no necessity to remember or forget anything. The experiencing will be complete and such an experiencing will result in total understanding of the fact. When there is total understanding of the fact why should the brain recall it for future purpose? The matter should end there once and for all. Remembrance may happen when the understanding is incomplete because of partial experiencing.

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