Dealing With Bad Memories

Question: Bad memories that happened many years ago have a big impact on me and keep coming up. I have tried many things and it’s hard to forget. It fuels the fire of suffering again. I try not to respond or follow the thoughts, but it’s very hard. Can You talk about this, and what is one to do when they come up? How can we Just Be when so much is happening? How do we find the acceptance, peace or harmony?
Sat: There are two ways to go. Either to come to terms with the fact that every time I think of this, it causes me suffering, and in your heart, in the silence, to really release it and let it go. Or Stop Meditation or just Stay; Stay from dwelling on it. Or have enough pain with the repetition of that, until you come to the point of doing again what I just said.

Sometimes we have a hard time to let go of something and when you cannot really let it go, and you get the advice, but you still cannot let it go, and you get the technique and you still cannot let it go, then I would say go with it, go wholeheartedly with it. Go and find out how much this thing is going to be the cause of your suffering, and then at one point, you really, really drop it!
There is no shame in not being able to let go of something, until you can. But there are techniques that can help you very, very much, when the thought comes of the past, just let it go! And if it is very powerful, you sit down, close your eyes and look at it and Stay. Don’t move, no matter how much it tries to change your attention to it. I have done that.

In 1988, or 87, when I got the Stop Meditation in a crowded mall, because I was just exploding from bad thoughts, repeated thoughts. It wasn’t enough for Me just to look at it and say, “no thank you.” I would sit down every day in solitude and close My eyes and let whatever comes, come. I welcomed whatever wants to come, but it needs a lot of courage, and I just sat. The fear would come, and I would just sit, unmoved and then they would just poof, would be gone. And a few minutes later they would come, I would do the same thing. Sometimes it takes, many, many, many, many times- months, but then once you get rid of it, even the memory goes completely.

When we do enough times of Staying- Stop means Stay, the beauty of it is that, instead of having a hard time going to the region of the heart in the beginning, it’s a hard time mixing with the mind after a while. You say “ah,” you look at the thoughts, the ones that are nonsense, they are not immediately needed to be taken care of and all the stories about it. It’s as if they come and they pass without you having to do anything about it. And I am sure all of you have noticed that.