Random Ramblings of a Reluctant Blogger

“I forgot”. Nothing elicits a varied reaction than these two words. Right from anger to pity, to exasperation, to commiseration, to annoyance, to giving up, the reactions run the whole gamut of emotions.

Highly successful persons and many accomplished life coaches could lecture you on the ill effects of forgetfulness and how to beat the ‘beast’. They however, do not quite comprehend that forgetfulness is an art and that it can take one into the zen zone of perfection.

Yes, I can very well attest to the fact. But, like every art, it takes a lot of patience and knowledge _ the knowledge of knowing oneself. For, from just forgetting to reach the zen level of forgetting, one has to travel a lot. One gets to know the difference when one looks within, and it takes time.

I had started early. I remember well that I very often came back from grocery shopping, my mother sent me to, forgetting at least one item. So much so my mother found her own solution, likes all mothers do. She gave me a written list, but since often it involved going to two or three different stores, I would still return forgetting something. On one occasion I went out barefoot to pick up some letters delivered to our postbox, and ended up at my neighbourhood shop not knowing what I came there for.

Being a kid, I then could not have realised that the trait I had was an asset. And with formal education not being in tune with forgetting various methods are drilled into the mind to forget forgetfulness. While formal education demanded some retention, my forgetfulness was not allowed to germinate. It is to my credit that I had managed to not let education destroy the boon I had. Years of constant practice later and execution instilled in me a faith that has me now seeing the spiritual benefits of forgetfulness. Remember there is a ‘fullness’ in forgetfulness!

Many shrinks, doctors and counsellors will have you working scientifically on your forgetfulness. They reason, the mind will want to remember the pleasant and forget the traumas. Not that I intend to challenge them, but I feel that they miss a point by not being able to approach the subject artistically and spiritually. It is an art form that prefects itself over time. It is just not about saying I forgot or just forgetting, but about being in that zone where forgetting is a state of being, of blissfulness. It is a meditative state where you forget what you forgot. And not even realise that you have forgotten. I now can get into that state wherever I want, or to be more precise when my wife wants something!

My wife, given that she is still far from the zen state, always takes my forgetfulness at face value and relates it to laziness or uninterest. How can I even explain it to her?

Of late, however, my zen state faces a threat. My wife has not only joined me, she even threatens to beat me in my game. “Why only you, I too can forget,” she calmly informs me. I naturally cannot challenge her forgetfulness. In fact I would be happy if it really were to be so. That she still isn’t in that meditative state, I realise when she never forgets to forget my past indiscretions and brings it up every which way she could.

The zen art of forgetfulness cannot dwell in the past. And so I remain calm, forgetting what she is even angry about.