First i want to give a definition of memory. I define memory as “the maintenance of information.” This is a rather broad definition. It includes the maintenance of information in people and in things such as books and computers. There are also memories in things that we normally don’t see as vessels for information. For example, people cherish relics for the memories that are stored in it. To fetishes are attributed magic powers because of information stored in such things. In all things, not only in fetishes and relics, information is stored. Some people are very sensitive to this. They don't want to touch spiritually polluted things because they feel that their bodies get dirty.
What is the goal or function of memory? It is to keep for the future the useful information that was acquired in the past. For example, you remember your own experiences to use them in your later life.
Before we come to a deeper insight in what is memory, i want to give some examples connected to the topic of memory.
It is known that when people get older, their ability to memorize weakens. Though often this loss of memory capacity could be a result of diseases or of having lived a life of sin and confusion, it is also very normal and desirable that older people lose some abilities of memory.
For example, i myself often put my keys somewhere and later i forgot where. Why does such a thing happen? It is because i am so busy thinking about certain things that i don’t have concentration on where i put my keys. There is a trick that you can learn to prevent it. The trick is that when you put down your keys, you make a photo in your mind of the place where the keys were laid down. Later you can then remember that picture in your mind.
You can remember where the keys are because you concentrated on this with a special department of your memory, the kind of memory that is connected to your senses.
Children are very much centered on the experiences they get through their senses. When you get older, you don’t need anymore all the experiences that you had in your youth. Older people turn their attention more inwardly. When you forgot where you put your keys, you can probably still remember what you were thinking about when you put your keys away.
Children can play for hours with a few wooden blocks. For them, this playing makes many new experiences. They try to put a big block on a smaller one and find out that this doesn’t go well. From their experiences children deduct certain kind of ideas or thoughts, for example that you can’t easily put larger things on smaller things.
Smaller children can very easily learn a new language. When you get older, it gets more difficult to learn new words. But why should you? Normally, once you learned to speak, you don’t need to learn a language anymore. It is logical that the ability to memorize a language decreases when one gets older.
Is the ability to memorize of a child better than that of an older person? I would say that children can better remember the experiences they are having, but older people have a better memory that is connected to logical thoughts.
You can train your ability to memorize. For example, you can train to retain the images of what you saw. I already spoke about how you can make a picture in your mind of a certain situation. You can train this ability. You have to learn to not think when you make such a picture. As soon as you begin to have thoughts about what you see, you will remember your thoughts but not the picture.
You also should not look at details in the picture, because then you will be tempted to think about that detail and you cannot remember the rest.
Concentration is the most important asset for memorizing well. Your concentration should be deep and on the right topic. You could concentrate on what you think, but to remember the picture you must concentrate on that picture.
While you concentrate, you should be also relaxed. To feel relaxed means that all your energy can go to that one topic, that picture that you are taking.
The ability to memorize what we see and hear or what we felt is a memory that is connected to our senses. Animals also have such a kind or level of memory. With the same kind of memory you also can remember movements that you learned. It is a special kind of memory to remember how you learned skills with your body. When you learned swimming, but didn’t do it for 30 years, your body will still remember how to do it even after such a long time.
Interesting is that when you haven’t swum for so long and you do it again, also the memories of the situation in that you learned to swim might come back to you. All the experiences connected to learning to swim were apparently stored in your body and those memories come back as a whole when you repeat the movements.
The ability to memorize what you sensed and the ability to memorize what you once did or learned with your body are both connected to the level of memory of your body.
God created the cosmos on five different levels: God, Heart, Mind, Body, Creation. These five levels on that we and the whole cosmos do exist are actually five different levels on which God has created everything. God created the whole cosmos with love and energy and from internal to external, the whole cosmos was created on the five distinct levels that i just mentioned.
For example, bodies of living beings are constitutions of energy on a very specific level. Bodies move by themselves, have life in them. Dead things cannot move by themselves. The energy that made them has been expressed in an entirely different way than God expressed energy on the level of bodies. The mind is again very different from a body. A body you can see, but a mind is invisible. The Heart is the carrier of love. In each human being and in each animal and in all what God created, there also should be God present. God is an expression of energy as well, on a most internal level and of a most particular energy. When you live a good life, you can feel God in yourself. Then God does exist in you.
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What is a memory? A memory, when we look at it in a more technical way, is nothing else than a certain constellation of energy. For example, memory in a computer is stored in simple constellations of “energy-yes” and “energy-no”. When energy-yes is depicted as 1 and energy-no is depicted as 0, than we could draw up a combination of 1’s and 0’s and with this we can symbolize meaningful letters. With these letters we make words and with words we can write a meaningful content. The deepest thoughts can be expressed in words, and these words can be stored in the memory of a computer as a constellation of energy-yes’s and energy-no’s.
Likewise, all our genetic information is stored in DNA. DNA is nothing else than molecules that, again, are put in a certain order. The information is not in these molecules, but in the order that these molecules make when they were stored in a long chain.
From these examples we can understand that all memories are nothing else than constellations of energy. Because energy was expressed on five distinct levels of creation, also memories are stored in these same five levels.
Like you can store computer memory on a disk, so memories of the body are stored in the body and memories of the mind are stored in the mind.
Where exactly are the memories of your body stored? Many people think that memories are only stored in the brain, but in reality memories of the body are stored everywhere in the body. When you give a person a massage it could be that you loosen up certain muscle tensions that have been there for very long. At the moment that these muscles relax, the energy that was stuck in it comes free and with it the memories. Such a person could suddenly begin to cry because he or she remembers something emotional that had been forgotten. The memory was stored as energy in those muscles. Releasing that energy, the whole body responds and memories connected to that muscle tension also come free. These other memories were stored in other parts of the body.
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Let us try to understand more about the five levels of memory.
Memory that is stored in things has a more impersonal level. When information is written in a book, it is accessible to many people.
Memories stored in a body have the function that a person, or also an animal, is able to act right. You learned to walk and this enables you to walk whenever you need it. The memories of your own experiences also help you to get ideas about the world in that you live. When you once burned yourself when you touched a hot furnace, your memory of it helps you to not touch that hot furnace again.
The lower and more external levels of memory serve the higher ones. When you have collected many memories in your mind, you have gotten many ideas and you will organize these ideas to come to understand principles. This is not only based on your own experiences, but also on those of others, for example by your reading books. Principles of order are understood and organized and kept in the memory of the level of your heart.
Finally, you also have a memory on the level of you having God in you. On this level, you can feel God’s love in yourself and you instinctively know what is good and what is wrong.
There are five levels of memory. The memory on the level of God is a kind of religious or moral memory. When you don’t have a relation to God, you don’t really have access to this moral memory.
The memory on the level of Heart is for making order and to apply principles.
The memory on the level of Mind is one of thoughts, feelings and plans.
The memory on the level of Body is one of sensory and motor experiences.
The memory on the level of Things is in the things and when we use or connect to those things, those things will tell us what they experienced. For example, when i come here in this place, i usually can feel a lot about what you did and thought and felt during the time i was absent. The energies of what you did went into this room and the things here and other people can pick it up.
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Let us think of a human being who is growing up. A little child is very much still functioning on the level of body. The child experiences everything through its body and plays, plays, plays with things. This is very necessary, because the child must build up a memory of experiences on the level of the body that plays with things. Children should have enough time in their life to play with things so that the child naturally learns about the properties of the world in that it lives.
Bit by bit, the memory of experiences builds up and the child begins to get ideas, develops a memory on the level of the mind. It is good when you don’t teach too many principles directly to children. Tell children all kind of stories and through this, children get an idea of higher principles. From ideas contained in stories, children make up their own memory on the level of principles. That is the level of memory of the heart. When people get older, they come to understand more of God, at least in the original world. They get an understanding of God and in that way a memory is built on the highest level, that of God living in you.
When people get older and ripen in an original way, they get more and more access to a memory built up on the level of God and Heart. Such a person can get the task to prepare the foundations for a good future. Because such a person has a memory on the level of God, that person will be directed by his or her sense of morality and love. Then, with the help of the memory on the level of the Heart, the person develops strategies for the future. Based on such strategies, that person can make concrete plans, because the person has a memory, a build-up of information on the level of the mind. From plans, good actions come that make the person act and work upon the things. The actions can be made because the person has a memory of actions and experiences on the level of the body. Finally, there also is made use of a memory in the things. Books and computer files, and things that were made in a holy way serve the good life of generations of the future.
We should pay attention that we save for the future all the good that we built up. We should work on a memory on all levels that can be useful for our children, grandchildren and all coming generations.
Stradivarius was able to make excellent violins. His craftsmanship was based on many abilities and very much knowledge. If Stradivarius had thought of passing on his abilities and knowledge to future generations, violin builders would today still be able to make such good violins.
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I want to come to a summary of this teaching.
Memory serves the good development of the future.
Memories are stored on five different levels. These levels go from very external to very internal.
We can train our ability to memorize on each of these levels. The key word for this is concentration. You should be concentrated on a particular level of information if you want to train the memory on that level. You can’t be concentrated on both your sensory experiences of your body and the thoughts in your mind you are having about it. You must learn to make a choice to concentrate on either one of them.
The development of the memory goes parallel and serves the good education of a child and the development of a person.
Here i still propose names for the memories of the five different levels:
1. Memory on the level of God: DIRECTIONAL MEMORY
2. Memory on the level of Heart: MEMORY OF ORDER
3. Memory on the level of Mind: MEMORY OF IDEAS
4. Memory on the level of Body: MEMORY OF EXPERIENCE
5. Memory on the level of Things: EXTERNAL MEMORY.
May 20, 2003; transcript from a speech
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This can be very useful, I liked it very much!
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