The Art of Empowered Remembering
© 2002 By Rawn Clark
Dedicated to all my Companions along the Way.
With this brief essay, I wish to inform you of a technique that I have found very helpful in regard to the work of self-transformation. I call this the "Art of Empowered Remembering".
My first experience with this technique was at the young age of six while my family was driving to visit my paternal grandparents. I loved my grandparents very much and knew in my bones that they loved me equally, so the thought of visiting with them was always emotionally comforting. Along the way, we always drove by several orchards filled with either nut or fruit trees. If you have ever driven by an orchard, you will know the almost hypnotic effect of passing by row upon row of perfectly aligned trees. Each row is like an endless tunnel stretching off to infinity which, at the age of six, held a secret mystery all its own. :)
While watching this Escher-esque play of perspective pass by, I was thinking of the anticipated visit with my grandparents and was filled with such a wonderful feeling of warmth and safety. I resolved in that moment to ALWAYS remember the experience. As if by instinct, I started taking very careful note of all the details of the moment. I noted all the details of what I was thinking, feeling and seeing, and resolved to hold them in my memory for the rest of my days.
Some children have a "security blanket", but I had my security memory instead. ;-) To this day, I retain that memory with astounding visual, emotional and mental clarity. Over these many years, any time I have had need of that feeling of unquestioning love, all I have had to do is remember that moment and I am suffused with its warmth.
Over the ensuing years, I came to develop a whole library of this sort of intensified memory. Each was a moment that held personal significance of some sort. I retain the moment I first stood at the foot of Mt. Shasta; the moment I met my first "holy" person; a moment spent meditating beside a favorite creek; the moment I stood atop "Angel's Landing" at Zion National Park in Utah; and so on. I draw from this memory base frequently whenever I have need of the emotional or mental states that they represent.
For example, when I must confront a fear, I remember the moment that I overcame my innate fear of heights and of falling off them, climbing the treacherous and narrow path out to the tip of Angel's Landing, and I am infused with the knowledge that I *can* overcome a fear. ;-) Or, when standing in the middle of a concrete city with all its noise, air and psychic pollution, and I'm feeling disconnected from the essential power of raw nature, I call up the memory of standing before the awesome power of Mt. Shasta and I am connected once again with the blessed Earth. Or, when I lie down to sleep with a mind filled with thoughts, I return to the memory of sitting in lotus on the banks of Mill Creek, peaceful and serene, with only the sounds of burbling water and birdsong, and I am fast asleep. :) Or, when I am feeling frustrated by the Work of initiation, I seek out that memory of meeting my first truly holy person and draw strength from the cognition of where the Work leads . . .
When I began the Bardon work of the soul mirrors and self-transformation of my character, I decided to use this same Art of Empowered Remembering that had served me so well since early childhood. Through experiment, I quickly distilled the following application to the work of character transformation:
During the period of introspection that results in the two halves of the soul mirror, I came to realize that for every negative trait, there existed at least one moment in which I had behaved in an opposite, positive way. I decided to use my memory of those moments as templates for the positive behaviour which would counter-act and eventually replace the corresponding negative trait.
At the beginning, all I had to work with in this regard, were the often times vague memories of those instances where I had enacted the root of the negative character trait, in a positive way. Given the vagueness of some of those memories, my first task was to strengthen them by meditating upon them (one-pointedness exercise) and doing my best to recall as many details as possible. I would focus upon the three primary aspects of remembering -- what I was 1) thinking, 2) feeling and 3) physically sensing (seeing/hearing/smelling). In other words, the experience of my three bodies (mental, astral and physical) in that past moment. This had the effect of strengthening even the vaguest memory, sufficiently enough for my purpose.
With this initial tool in hand, every time the habitual negative trait arose, I would immediately call upon the empowered positive-memory and consciously pattern my behaviour upon that past success. Invoking this positive-memory helped me reclaim the same state of mind and emotion that had, in the past, allowed me to express the core need of this negative trait, in a positive manner. I immediately discovered that this was a VERY helpful tactic.
However, I also discovered that since these memories were strengthened long after they had occurred, their power was not the same as the memories that I had intensified at the moment they were occurring. Obviously, these memories needed to be updated. So I decided to substitute this intensified-after-the-fact old-memory with a new-memory, intensified at the moment of its occurrence.
In order to generate this new-memory, I kept pursuing the technique of using the old-memory as my template for new behaviour. Then, the first time I succeeded at truly manifesting this positive alternative, I used the Art of Empowered Remembering upon that experience and retained *that* moment as my new-template. At that moment of success, I concentrated very intensively upon what I was thinking, feeling and physically sensing, and then impressed the experience upon my memory with all of my will power.
This resulted in a MUCH more potent and useful template that helped me to very quickly bring about the permanent transformation of the negative trait. My experience of the Art of Empowered Memory in this regard, led to my discovery of how beneficial retaining the memory of success can be.
In pursuing the IIH exercises, it is natural that the student will experience a surprising success one day, followed by little or no success with the same exercise on the next day. Then it becomes a process of reclaiming that original success and this is often a frustrating, discouraging experience. The reason why this occurs is because the student's body must accustom itself to each newly attained ability. In other words, pursuing the exercises changes the structure of the student's astra-mental body and this sort of change has its own pace.
What I discovered was that by applying the Art of Empowered Remembering to that initial experience of success, I was able to significantly speed up this natural process of acclimation in my three bodies. The reason for this is fact that this Art relies upon intensive attention to, and retention of, the details of the experience of *each of the three bodies* at the moment of occurrence. Essentially, one creates a vibrational template in the memory that, when recalled, has the effect of impressing this vibration upon the three bodies at the time of recall. In other words, when I recall the Empowered Remembrance of a moment of success, my mental, astral and physical bodies naturally adopt (i.e., begin to resonate with) the vibration of the memory. It's a gentle transformation, like water soaking into a dry sponge, that eases the triple-body's transition to the new state required by this new ability.
The first time that I employed this technique I was amazed by how much it helped! In very short order, this practice virtually eliminated the frustration of bouncing back and forth between success one day and failure the next, resulting in a steadier advancement.
Here's the technique of Empowered Remembering applied to success, in a nut shell:
1) Work like hell to achieve that first true success with the exercise. There's no getting around that part! ;-)
2) At the moment of that first true success, apply the Art of Empowered Remembering. Take VERY careful note of the details of your mental state, your emotional state and your physical state. Savor the moment and impress these details *with all of your will* upon your memory.
3) After your successful exercise is complete, recall this Empowered Remembrance for the first time. Bring it into clear focus and savor it for a few moments. Then release it and go about your business. Recalling an Empowered Remembrance for the first time, so shortly after its formation, will increase your ability to recall it in future.
4) Just prior to the next time you engage in said exercise, recall this Empowered Remembrance of your past success. Sit with it and savor it for several seconds, letting your three bodies adjust to its vibration. Then begin your exercise, drawing upon your memory of success as needed.
5) Each time you succeed with this exercise, add that experience to your template-of-success memory. This will further empower the Remembrance and increase its effect upon the acclimation of your three bodies.
6) For those exercises in which progress is especially slow and which require a significant acclimation on the part of your triple-body, I suggest that at night, just before falling into sleep, you recall your Empowered Remembrance and savor it for a few moments. This functions in a manner similar to Bardon's auto-suggestion technique (i.e., it influences the sub-conscious psyche), while simultaneously acclimating the triple-body to the needed vibration.
An Empowered Remembrance of success can be cultivated into an astra-mental battery that can be VERY, VERY, VERY beneficial to developing the finger rituals and their like. For example, if you have cultivated the Empowered Remembrance of all of your successes in accumulating, condensing and then projecting the Fire Element, all you would need to do is tie a finger movement to that Remembrance. The pre-determined finger movement will then ignite the Fire-Remembrance and all the power of all those successes with be "at your finger tips". It is then VERY easy to accumulate, condense and project the Fire Element in an instant. This addition of the Art of Empowered Remembrance to the creation of a finger ritual, greatly shortens the time it takes to reach the point when the effect occurs simultaneous with the finger movement.
Over the years that I've been actively using this technique, I've discovered countless applications for it. It has served me well. It has enriched my life in general and has been a blessed companion in my work of initiation.
In this essay, I've listed only four of the "thousand-and-one" applications I've discovered thus far. Each one of these four, branches out with seemingly endless possibilities, most of which are VERY practical and beneficial. I recommend this Art of Empowered Remembering to you and hope that my words have inspired you to experiment and discover the remaining 997 possibilities! ;-)
My best to you,
:) Rawn Clark
18 Oct 2002