Let Go of the Past

NEERAJA RAGHAVAN





Why do unhappy events stay on in the mind? Why are we haunted by those episodes in our lives that left us grief-stricken, frustrated, resentful, hurt, guilty or upset, and not by those that left us happy and contented? Across the mind's screen, unpleasant images of the past flash by more often than fulfilled pleasant ones.Perhaps the key lies in the word `fulfilled'. Fulfilment implies completion. It refers to something that is over, finished with, with no loose ends. Close that file. We need to click on the filename if we wish to open it.Otherwise, the file is tucked away inside a folder, somewhere. However, numerous haunting memories continue as current files. Something in each one of them remains to be finished. It may well be an apology that was due. It could also be an unwillingness on our part to accept a loss.
Whatever the case, that niggling file is always open in the mental computer screen. As sole operators of the `files' that trouble us, we have it in our power to `complete' those files and save them, too, in that folder in the recesses of the mind. But to do that, we will have to let go of some of the pride, hurt, guilt, resentment or whichever emotion is coming in the way of our `completing' that file.
Each religion has its own prescription for this `completion'.Confession, forgiveness, mindfulness, conscious acceptance -all these are different ways of telling those open files to close. For, this is one computer that never shuts down -not even when we sleep. Our troubled dreams testify to that.