How to forget past memories?

Acharya Prashant
3 min readApr 13, 2020

How to forget the past memories?

By not trying to forget them. Trying to forget the past is a sure-shot way of holding on to the past. Do you know there are two guaranteed ways to remember something: First is to try and remember it. Put up reminders here and there and you will remember it.

This is a second way to remember something and never forget it. ‘I want to forget ‘A’ and I remember daily to forget ‘A’.’ What am I remembering daily? ‘A’.

The mind very well knows what to forget. Do you even remember everything that you have done since the morning today? Can you recall every second? You have already forgotten. You have already forgotten. Mind will forget on its own.

You do not allow the mind to forget. How do you not allow the mind to forget? By giving importance to that thing. The moment you take something seriously, it gets more deeply registered in the mind. Now it will not forget it. So don’t ask, ‘How to forget?’ Ask, ‘How not to take trivia seriously?’

Our problem is that we take those things seriously that deserve to be pushed aside, and we have no sense of that which is really important. So we remember all the rubbish. But what is really important, we forget that. We forget that because what is really important is actually not important to us. We do not value it.

Till the time you keep valuing something, it will hover here (pointing at the head). It will keep buzzing here. It is impossible that what is important will be forgotten. So find out what is really important. When you know what is really important, then everything else will just fall-off on its own.

A man is holding on to a two-rupee note in his fist. Why? Because he thinks that this is all he has, and to him it is supremely important. Days, nights, even in dreams, he is remembering that two-rupee note. But then suddenly somebody reminds him that he is already carrying a precious gem in his pocket. Precious gem, invaluable. It’s there with you already. What will he do with this two-rupee note now? He has something a billion times more valuable, already with him. What will he do with this two rupee note now? He will easily forget it.

But he will forget it, only when he discovers the really valuable.

Acharya Prashant