Dec 17

Memory has two facets. On one hand, memory is a particularly personal faculty that is directly related to our unique life experiences and is therefore subjective.

It is more generally applied in the process of learning and gathering information that can be shared with others and increased by exchange and communication with others on an impersonal level.

Some of us have an especially clear subjective memory upon which we rely as a reminder of our own learning whether physical, emotional or mental. In the deeper levels of our psyche, involving our soul wisdom and our spiritual experiences, we rely entirely upon our own preservation of the secret or sacred private world into which few others are invited.

Some of us have a wonderful capacity for clear recall of what is related to factual or scientific information gleaned through the intellect and by study. This applies to wider issues beyond the personal and embraces information that we share and consider fundamental to reason.

Others possess unusual aspects of memory that we cannot really share or even understand the process involved…..

For instance, the capacity to regress one’s memory back to the birth experience is a rare faculty unless cajoled through the assistance of a psychologist.

The memory of past lives that can occur when regression slips beyond the first consciousness in the womb to remembering past life experiences. This is known to happen under therapy but also spontaneously as a rare conscious function of memory.

Spectacular memory feats have become more generally known to us through individuals who possess extraordinary abilities both or recording information and of recall.

For example, there are individuals who can memorize musical scores or orchestrations of sound through auditory memory or by the visualization of the score.

There is also photographic memory or eidetic memory. Few share the ability but those who can demonstrate it can astonish us with a range of talents ; the capacity used in mathematical calculation; in recording and recalling data with speed to challenge a computer; in speed reading and recall of volumes of books;  in memorizing registration numbers of vehicles; in retention of names of people, and in the many arts, sciences and specific skills that have been known in human culture including the skill of recalling emotional experiences that produce emotional and physical responses enough to make us laugh or to weep – a faculty well known to actors.

Allowing that these wonderful talents exist as a potential in the human brain and mind is one thing.

To train our own memory as we wish, and to be able to rely upon accurate recall remains our personal task and responsibility.

 

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May 6

We would all like to think of being able to retain all our mental faculties as we age. This includes the subtle faculties that are less easy to define, but that nevertheless play an important role in our inner life. As well as all the obvious benefits of keeping a healthy, balanced body, our psychological health is needed if we wish to preserve both the faculties that allow us to function in the physical world and the subtle faculties that preserve the life of the mind and consciousness.

Whereas our general mental faculties help us to relate to the material world, our subtle faculties provide us with such qualities as insight, intuition, and the inspiration we need for mental creativity and also for our own integrity. These are faculties required for both the creative arts as well as for our use in the creative processes of our daily life.

They are more difficult to understand as they function in different spheres beyond material analysis and the knowledge that we presently hold. Just as our well known faculties serve us in material existence, so the subtle faculties help us become more aware of our soul.

To not only understand ourselves but to feel we have a place in the grand scheme of things is imperative if we wish for a strong self image that allows us not only mental health and fitness but satisfaction for the inner and enduring part of ourselves. It is here that we turn for inner guidance to our superior sense, that of intuition.

We are reminded of the spiritual directive ‘Man Know Thyself”. We need to be comfortable with our efforts towards understanding our whole nature and to live comfortably with our vision of who we are and what is our ideal of personal excellence. 

In this, we need inspiration to encourage us. Inspiration is experienced both as an inner dictate of our higher consciousness or as an injection from a higher source, completely beyond our own ego and individuality. Each one of us needs to know that there is a reservoir of beneficent and greater intelligence and vitality that can nourish our own.

If we allow our subtle faculties to serve us well, it is possible to think that we may reach a state of total mental fitness, to experience expanding states of peace, happiness and well being.

Sally Janssen’s wonderful book “Mental Fitness: A Simple Self-Help Guide”, offers simple and timely solutions. Read more…

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Jan 19

All our mental faculties are important, with those perhaps best known to us being the ability to reason. to comprehend, to articulate, to communicate, to concentrate, and to imagine.
In addition we have special faculties and mental abilities that vary vastly with different individuals such as language skills, musical abilities, mathematical skills, and artistic abilities amongst them.

Insight, imagination and visualization are all involved in creating a mental vision.  It is our clarity of inner vision of our life plans that helps determine our degree of success. This applies to our daily short term plan or to our long term goals and to our most intimate picture of ourselves – our self image upon which our self confidence depends.

Another important faculty we tend to overlook is the ability to translate all sensory information that comes to us from the outside world through sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch into material our mental system can best relate to.
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