sadhana

How often have we searched in our minds for the name of a familiar person and regretted not having remembered it? How often have we kept our keys and valuables in a certain place and forgotten them? How often have fathers taken their baby out for a quick shopping nearby and forgotten to take the baby home, and left with only the grocery?
These are very common symptoms of the failure of memory in us. It is quite natural to have memory losses as we grow older. Just as our other faculties become weaker over a long period of time, e.g. we begin to wear glasses, move slowly, and walk around with a walking stick, in a similar way our memory becomes weaker.
The question is should we fear this propensity to lose our memory or should we look for reasons to justify our seeming loss? A blind man develops extra sensory powers whereby his physical deficiency is compensated. A deaf man too has a deeper sense of things. We believe that we have powers well beyond the physical sense to comprehend and realize. Arguing from this point of view we may well say then that loss of memory is deliberately intended for us by Nature as a means to help us forget the physical reality and develop deeper insights about life and death.
If to grow older means to grow wiser, then forgetting the mundane and the gross realities of life may be necessary to help the mind find space and power enough to be in touch with the most essential truths of life and to be a spiritual reference point for a civilization which is fast progressing in a direction that is leading it to more and more materialism.
Yet we find that the majority is growing older without showing any such signs of development. I have come to experience the tragedy of growing old as something which involves more and more losses. Alzheimer’s disease has hit us like an epidemic. Older people are becoming increasingly prone to it s disastrous effects.
Society is losing its elders who once used to be a strong bulwark against the forces of disintegration. Their experience and wisdom were great assets for the family and the nation. But our elders who are the political leaders today have shown by their behavior that wisdom does not always come with age. They have forgotten the high ideals of benevolent governance and what we are left with is a group of senile servitors who know only how to service themselves. Justice, peace and compassion are ideals forgotten conveniently, and all other ideals of humanity are left for the young to fight for