The Geography Of Memory

Spaces hold memories and stories. While we exist as individuated beings, we exist interdependently with others and the world around us, and all experiences occur within the context of our relationship with others and the material world. To free ourselves from conditioned habits, it helps to understand the relationship between the spaces we inhabit, and the memories and conditioned patterns of being that they hold and perpetuate.
This is a 20-minute talk followed by a 20-minute guided meditation.

Transcript

In the last class,

We talked about guilt,

And how guilt is often a conditioned response.

Being human,

We all have conditioned patterns and habits that prevent us from abiding in the natural state,

The state in which we are completely experientially present and perceive reality as it is and ourselves as we are.

These conditioned patterns taken as a collective are what we often term the ego,

That which creates a sense of a separate self of a concretized sense of self-identity.

This is what creates the sense of separation between self and other at the level of duality and prevents us from tapping into our true nature of love,

Compassion,

And wisdom.

When we speak about conditioning and conditioned patterns of thought,

It could be said that all conditioning comes from relationship,

From existing at a level of duality of self and other.

While we exist as individuated beings,

We exist interdependently with others and the world around us,

And all of our experiences occur within the context of relationship to others and the material world.

In other words,

We could say that all experiences occur within the context and dimensions of space and time,

And in so doing,

They create imprints or memories.

And there is a lot to explore when we begin to examine how we relate to the spaces in which we exist and relate.

And so for today's class,

I would like to speak about what I sometimes call the geography of memory.

This is the concept or idea that the spaces in which we live and experientially exist have the ability to trigger memories of past experiences,

Whether challenging or pleasant,

Consciously or subconsciously,

And in so doing,

They affect one's present and future experiences.

It also impacts the ability of one to heal physically,

Emotionally,

Psychologically,

And spiritually.

And so getting to understand the relationship between self and space and time,

And how that affects our experience of ourselves and the world around us through those conditioned patterns of thought and experience and memory that are created is one way to work with releasing those conditioned patterns of thought and moving more and more towards the natural state.

I'd like to share a quote from Halsreid and Ayat Khan.

"'According to the ideas of the mystics,

The world in which we make our life is an akasha,

And akasha means capacity.

It is pictured by them as a dome,

And whatever is spoken in it has its echo.

Therefore,

No one can do,

Say,

Or think anything for one moment which will become nonexistent.

It is recorded,

And that record is creative.

It is not only what one does,

Says,

Or thinks that is recorded in the memory or in the atmosphere,

But that record also creates at every moment so that every line and letter of it becomes the seed or the germ that produces a similar effect.

'" Now,

There's a lot within this quote,

And you could do multiple classes just on this one quote,

But for today,

I'd just like to focus on this idea that there is this experiential capacity in space that records memory,

Everything that is said,

Done,

Experienced within that space,

And it stores that memory.

And then when we are in those spaces,

Those memories can arise very easily.

In other words,

Every experience has the ability to imprint in the space in which it occurs on the objects,

The buildings,

And the setting.

They create the spatial container within which one experiences each moment.

Now,

While I'm saying in this moment that it imprints on the space itself,

One could technically also say the reverse,

That all of the spatial sensory aspects of sights,

Sounds,

Smells,

Et cetera,

That the self perceives and the brain perceives imprint within the brain and within the neural engraving of the neural network of the brain,

And that forms memory,

That then when we're in certain spaces that have a similar or the same sight,

Smell,

Sound,

Et cetera,

It triggers that memory within the brain.

I would say that there's aspects of both,

That it both imprints within the actual geography of the space as well as within ourselves.

But often when we experience this geography of memory,

When we are walking in a park that maybe we were in as a child and haven't been in many years,

And suddenly we recall playing with our parents or with other kids at that park or something similar,

There is an aspect of that space itself that holds that memory through space and time.

This triggering of memories,

Whether pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Or neutral,

Is almost as though we re-experience them.

Most often if the memories are neutral,

They're less likely to imprint as deeply,

And often traumatic memories will imprint more deeply,

Both within the space as well as within our neural network.

And so part of the process of healing from difficult experiences is learning to recognize those imprints within ourselves and within the spaces we habitate and exist in,

And learning to clear those impressions,

To learn to recognize when we're having conditioned responses based on internal conditioning or external reminders of past experiences and learning to let them go.

This is where we gain our power from because ultimately we have the power to change those experiences,

Those impressions,

To change the story around them,

To let go of the grab of the attachment or the aversion,

To realize that we can free ourselves,

That those memories do not have to have control over how we feel and experience and exist in the world.

Memory is an interesting thing.

It's intimately linked to our thoughts,

Experiences,

Knowledge,

Internal stories,

Perspective,

Our interrelationships,

And it's directly linked to environmental factors.

And as I said,

They have both spatial and temporal components.

Memories exist in both space and time.

So as I said with the example of the park,

That's a good example of a memory that was formed in a certain space,

But then it's carried throughout time when it is brought up within us.

There's also memories that are more directly linked to time.

A common one that I witness is anniversaries,

Especially of the loss of a loved one or of a traumatic event.

And often people on the year anniversary or the five-year anniversary of the passing of a loved one or a traumatic event,

Even if they don't realize that it's the day of the anniversary,

They will have some sadness or depression or anger or some difficult emotion arise that is linked to the memory that is tied to that date in time.

And so that's one way of looking at the temporal aspect of how memories imprint within space and time.

It's important to recognize that all of these memories and conditioned habits of thought are what come together to contribute to our sense of self-identity.

It's often how we define ourselves in relationship to others,

How we view ourselves,

What we think we're capable of,

Whether we think we're good people or bad people,

Whether we carry guilt.

All of this is often linked to these concepts of self-identity that are created through existing as an individuated being that is interdependent with others in the world around us.

We learn to understand ourselves through our relationships and through our experiences.

Now,

Over time,

If we are not careful and aware of that connection,

We get into stuck patterns of being and relating.

And so with certain relationships,

We might end up always relating to each other the same way and having set patterns of how we relate.

And the same issues come up again and again.

With spatial aspects,

It can be habits that we form in a certain space.

And so whenever we're in this house or in a certain place in town,

We have these habits of how we feel or what we do that become more and more ingrained the more we do them.

And this is why it can be really helpful to sometimes leave our typical environments to step out of our comfort zone.

Because our comfort zone is often defined by those things that we do on a habituated basis that are familiar to us.

And so it's comfortable because it's known,

Even if it may not be healthy or ultimately what's desirable or useful,

There's comfort in the familiar.

And yet stepping outside of our comfort zone,

Traveling to a foreign land,

Talking with people that we might not normally talk with or interrelate with,

All of those experiences also open up the possibility to let go of patterned ways of being in the world.

In the last class,

I talked about the importance of taking retreats,

Of taking time away from those typical relationships and those spaces that we exist in on a day-to-day basis.

And when we take that time to step away,

It also frees us from some of the geography of memory that keeps us in a patterned habituated way of being.

This geography of memory also affects the development and concretization of defense mechanisms,

Of character armoring,

And therefore how we hold tension within the physical body,

Within the emotional and energetic bodies.

Being in a space where a difficult experience occurred can cause that memory to arise.

And they've done a lot of studies with post-traumatic stress disorder about how PTSD can be triggered by anything that brings up the memory of the past trauma.

You know,

It could be a color or a sound or a sight or the place.

And so when that occurs and we re-experience a past trauma,

There's a flood of adrenaline and cortisol and other chemicals within the body,

And we bring tension and guarding into the body.

There's fear,

There's anxiety that arises,

And we re-experience those things.

And so when we realize that there's a connection to memories and geographical spaces,

Then when we see that there is a memory arising that is tied to something in our environment,

We have the ability to shift how we respond to that,

To focus on the movement of the breath,

To focus on the felt sense of the body,

Noticing if we're bringing tension into the body,

Simply observing our internal state.

For one,

This helps to prevent us from going down a rabbit hole of getting pulled back into the memory and all of the difficulty in reliving it again.

But secondly,

It also helps us begin to work with creating space between the trigger of the external world and the space and the internal response.

And as we're able to make that space bigger and bigger,

That creates the ability for the impression to start to dissolve.

And as the impression and the memory start to dissolve and lose their power,

It begins to release those conditioned responses.

We've talked a lot about all of these different conditioned patterns and habituated ways of being in the world and how that's what prevents us from experientially existing in the present moment.

They're the filters of the mind and the ego that separate us from direct perception.

Being human,

We all have these conditioned things that arise.

And so we have to be gentle with ourselves and have compassion.

But we also have to have the dedication and commitment to bring awareness to those conditioned habits and patterns and have the commitment to work with releasing them and not allowing them to dictate our experience.

And that can be the most difficult part.

Because when a conditioned habit or pattern arises within us,

It can overwhelm us and feel like the most important thing.

And there's an intense urge to react to do something.

But often when we react,

We end up recontitating the experience of the mind.

When we react,

We end up reconditioning the pattern.

We emphasize it,

We give it more power,

And it's actually more likely to occur in the future.

As we talked about with guilt last week,

You know,

Guilt can be very addictive.

And as we give in to the feelings of guilt,

Rather than actively working to transform them and let them go and see what we can do better and move on,

If we give in to guilt,

It becomes a addictive cyclical pattern where we think we're doing the right thing by beating ourselves up.

But all that's doing is reinforcing the egoic belief that there is something fundamentally wrong with us.

And believing that there's something wrong with us does not help us to clear the patterns and move towards our natural state and bring forth the light that then is going to be beneficial for others and the world around us.

And so I encourage all of you,

As you go about your day and your weeks and your months ahead,

And you go into different spaces and places in the world,

Try to keep an eye out of what arises in your consciousness in certain places.

Learn to recognize when there's a geography of memory held by a space that makes you feel a certain way.

And the more you begin to recognize it the easier it becomes to work with it,

To not let it dictate your experience.

And if it's in the location that you live or the city that you're in,

Sometimes it's good to take a break from being there to see if having that space allows you to work with understanding and clearing and finding a new way of being in the world.

These memories that we create that are connected to space ultimately are often related to attachment and aversion.

That's what creates the grab.

That's what makes them addictive.

And as we've talked about,

The way to work with releasing attachment and aversion is to find that still-being in the world.

And so I encourage you to think about that as a way to work with that still-being in the world.

And the way to work with that still-being in the world is to find that still-being within.

We can also work to actively clear impressions.

And so for today's practice,

We'll do some pranayama,

Different techniques of breathing in and out through the nose,

Including alternate nostril breathing.

And the purification breaths combines certain breathing patterns with the nose and mouth and with certain visualizations related to the five elements to release all of the impressions,

Because impressions are always fundamentally associated with a certain elemental energy.

So as you purify the five elements,

Five energies within your body,

It begins to clear those impressions.

So if you will,

Please find a comfortable and stable posture for meditation.

It can be seated or lying down.

The most important thing is that you have a stable base beneath you that supports you in such a way that you can release any unnecessary tension,

Holding or guarding.

Once you arrive in your posture,

Begin to follow the natural movement of the breath.

It might be long or short,

Choppy or smooth,

Shallow or deep.

However it is,

Simply observe the movement of the breath in the center of your body.

Observe the movement of the breath in this moment.

As you continue observing the natural movement of the breath,

Begin abdominal breathing.

With each inhalation,

Allow your body to breathe and then continue to breathe.

As you continue observing the natural movement of the breath,

Begin abdominal breathing.

With each inhalation,

Allowing the abdomen to gently expand.

With each exhalation,

Allowing it to gently contract.

Allowing the shoulders and chest to remain relaxed and still.

It doesn't need to be a very deep breath.

Simply whatever is comfortable and accessible to you in this moment.

Now,

We will begin doing some pranayama.

Breathing in and out through different nostrils as a way of clearing the channels.

We will begin with five breaths in and out through the left nostril.

You can either use your right hand to close your right nostril as you inhale and exhale through the left,

Or you can leave the right nostril unplugged,

But just imagine inhaling and exhaling only through the left nostril for five breaths.

Now,

We will do the same with the right nostril.

Breathing in and out through the right nostril only.

Again,

You can use your left hand to close the left nostril,

Or you can leave it unblocked.

And simply imagine breathing in and out through the right nostril for five breaths.

Breathing in and out through the right nostril for five breaths.

Breathing in and out through the right nostril.

Breathing in and out through the right nostril.

We'll now begin breathing in and out through both nostrils evenly for five breaths,

Inhaling and exhaling through both nostrils.

Breathing in and out through the right nostril.

We will now move to alternate nostril breathing.

We'll begin by inhaling through the right nostril,

Exhaling through the left,

Inhaling through the left nostril,

Exhaling through the right.

That'll be one round.

We'll do three rounds total.

Again,

You can use your hand to begin by blocking the left nostril with your thumb,

Inhaling through the right,

Block the right nostril,

Unblock the left,

Exhale through the left,

Inhale through the left,

Block the left,

Unblock the right,

And exhale through the right.

And continue.

We'll begin by inhaling through the left nostril.

We'll begin by inhaling through the right nostril.

And you finish the round that you're on,

Exhaling through the right nostril.

Release both nostrils and breathe evenly in and out through both nostrils.

We will now begin the purification breaths.

The first element is earth.

Its color is yellow.

Inhaling and exhaling through the nose.

As you inhale,

You can imagine the pure golden energy of earth entering and filling the body.

And as you exhale through the nose,

You can release all stale magnetism,

All energy,

Intention,

Holding,

That no longer serves.

We will begin by inhaling through the left nostril.

We'll begin by inhaling through the right nostril.

As you inhale,

You can imagine the pure golden energy of earth entering and filling the body.

As you exhale,

You can imagine the pure golden energy of earth entering and filling the body.

The next element is water.

Its color is green.

Inhaling through the nose,

Exhaling through the mouth.

You can imagine yourself submerged in a green body of water surrounded by green mist,

Green foliage,

And trees.

And as you inhale through the nose,

Inhale green mist.

And as you exhale out the mouth,

You also exhale green mist.

As you inhale in yourself,

Become water.

.

.

.

The next element is fire.

Its color is red.

Inhaling through the mouth,

Exhaling through the nose.

As you inhale through the mouth,

You can feel the pure red energy of fire entering and filling the solar plexus.

And as you exhale through the nose,

You can feel that energy rise through the center of the body,

Passing through the heart and coming purified by light,

Continuing up to exit the crown and purifying the energetic body.

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The next element is air.

Its color is blue.

Inhaling and exhaling through the mouth.

As you breathe,

You can feel yourself expanding into the blueness of the sky,

Becoming light,

Becoming air.

.

.

.

The fifth element,

The quintessence,

Is ether or space.

Using a very subtle and refined breath,

Inhale and exhale through the nose.

Breathing so gently,

It's as though there were a feather perched on your upper lip you were trying not to disturb.

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.

.

.

When you are ready,

Return to a normal breath.

Focus on the stillness within.

.

.

.

.

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When you are ready,

Maintain a connection to the stillness within.

As you gently and slowly begin to open your eyes and with a soft gaze,

Take in the world around you.

As human beings incarnated at this level of existence,

We exist at a level of duality,

Yet we are constantly striving to experience unity.

While it may seem paradoxical at times,

It is only through the presence of duality of self and other that one has the ability to transcend that duality and experience unity.

This is something that we all have within us,

To transcend our limited sense of self,

Our conditioned patterns of being,

And experience that unity,

The mystical unity that is always present right here,

Right now.

I'll leave you with a quote from one of my former professors,

The anthropologist Michael Jackson,

Who wrote a book called The Politics of Storytelling.

"'Storytelling is a vital human strategy "'for sustaining a sense of agency in the face "'of disempowering circumstances.

"'To reconstitute events in a story "'is to no longer live those events in passivity,

"'but to actively rework them,

Both in dialogue with others "'and within one's own imagination.

'" Whether we realize it or not,

We all have internal stories,

Many of which are tied to the geography of memory,

And the places we've been when we've had certain experiences that generate memories that then lead to the creation of the story within.

Yet we have the ability and the agency to rework those stories,

To live those stories,

To let go of the grab,

And in so doing,

To find the freedom and unity that we all desire.

Thank you all for joining me today.

Reviews

Thank you for sharing your wisdom. I love the different perspectives you give which are so helpful in reflection. 🙏

Thank you for sharing your wisdom. This deeply resonates with me, and I appreciate your insights on memory and how it relates to time and place. I also was grateful for the meditation, it was very grounding and I will return to it again ☺️

I always feel better after listening to one of your sessions. I'm so grateful that I found you on Insight.
Do you ever do workshops?It would be so wonderful to be able to talk about these subjects after a session, with you and other people..

Thank You for this great talk and wonderful meditation!

It helped to clear for good by hearing this teaching how we ignotlrantly keep on identifying with these unconscious patterning and then getting depressed but now learning to let go of these patterns which hold us captive and not move forth in our growth. Thank you so much. When you say let go in this case doing this meditation will help naturally to let go than actively wishing or intently letting go? Because I got mentally tired wanting to let go and unable to let go. I will practice this pranayama and bhoot shuddhi ( purification of the elements). I express myself for further guidance. Thank you

all your talks are incredibly helpful and insightful 🙏

Thanks you so much

A very easy to understand way to explain conditioning which cause us to feel separation and how the practice of meditation allows us to experience oneness and detach from our stories. I really like how Thomas has a gift to explain so clearly concepts that seem complicated at first. And the breathing practice Thomas guides us through toward the end brings inner stillness which allowed me to connect to the entire universe. Thank you dear brother. I love you so much.

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
Thank you Thomas🙏🏻❤️

So wonderful to share another meditation with you, dear Thomas. And again one to return to to ingrain these healing qualities. Hoping all is well on your end- I’ve been meaning to write and will do so soon. Love and blessings from Sukanya and me.🐾💜🙏

Thank you Thomas for the new content 🙏🙏🙏 All of your talks and meditations are excellent, so profound and give the opportunity to become aware and change our conditioning, to have a more realistic view of all our human experience. So much gratitude ❣️

This talk was so useful in suggesting ways to let go of engrained patterns and the Pranayama exercises which followed were deeply calming. One I will come back to a lot I think! Thank you, Thomas 🙏🌟✨

Phenomenal!! I loved (and needed) everything about this! Thank you!
🙏🏼💞💥

Epic. 😁 what a great lesson! I needed to stop it several times and rewind to hear what you had said again. Great practice. Thank you for your work Thomas!🙏🏼