Neuralyzer
I remember a scene in the movie ‘Men in Black’. The character played by Tommy Lee Jones kills an alien & then uses a special device (called Neuralyzer) to erase memories of all the people around who witnessed it (to protect his Organization’s secrecy).
MIB was released in 1997. I was 15 years old that time & this ‘memory erasure’ was certainly a novel concept for me at that age.
It was like using undo command (Ctrl + Z) in Microsoft Office.
I still recall my accidental discovery of Undo command in MS Word as nothing short of a ‘eureka moment’😊.
I look back on my first visit to Australia around 15 years back (for a machine commissioning activity) . I had taken the longest flight of my life (around 16 hours) and I was already bored from seeing a number of movies in the flight’s tiny TV screen.
To make the matter worse, I came to know about my missing luggage upon arrival. It was a completely new experience for me and I was furious.
Suddenly I saw a man waving at me. I assumed that he was from the airline ground staff (since he was wearing some kind of a uniform).
He greeted me with a smile but I shouted back, “Where is my luggage?”
He was surprised and a bit hurt with my response. But he kept his cool & replied, “No idea mate. I have just come to drop you to our factory”.
Ouch. He was the Client !!
The lightbulb in my head had lit up a bit late (probably due to my already angry mood). I repented silently & tried to put on my best behavior with him later … but the damage was already done.
I wished I had the Neuralyzer with me that time. I would have simply erased memory of this unpleasant experience from his mind.
There is an age-old saying that ‘Time is the best healer’, but I know from my own experience that it is partially true if one is low on self-awareness.
Some 12-13 years back, I was in the process of selling my existing home & buying a new one ‘simultaneously’. Initially I thought that it would be a cakewalk, but it soon turned out to be a nightmare.
Due to some reason or other, both transactions kept on getting delayed. My home’s buyer was delaying payments. I was rather desperate since I had to buy another house with that money. But there were some issues in getting NOC from Society. It had become a big mess. Those were one of the worst 5 months of my life.
Finally it got over, but I had become quite bitter against that buyer. I had bought my new home in the same building, so we used to encounter each other frequently. That used to fuel my anger even more.
I again wished I had that Neuralyzer with me that time. I would have used it on myself to erase that unpleasant memory.
Sadly, real life doesn’t have any Undo button.
My situation was like (below) famous parable of Buddha
The Parable of the Two Arrows
The Buddha once asked his student, "If a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful?"
The student nodded, yes.
The Buddha then asked, "If a person is struck by a second arrow, is that even more painful?"
The student again nodded, yes.
The Buddha then explained, "In life, we cannot always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. The second arrow is optional."
(Source - Sahil Bloom’s Newsletter)
I was executing a self-goal every time whenever I was seeing him, getting hurt by those same painful past memories again & again.
This was before I started practicing Vipassana Meditation.
I attended my first 10-day Vipassana meditation course without much expectations but the biggest takeaway for me from that course was a newfound ability of ‘letting it go’ or ‘living grudge-free’.
It took me some time to implement this learning in real life, but it started acting like a Neuralyzer soon.
Thanks to my continued Vipassana practice of last 13 years, I have not needed any Ctrl+Z button in my life. Unpleasant things still happen once in a while, but I now manage to let go of those bitter experiences rather easily & quickly.
Meditation is the magic Neuralyzer which clears grudges (that too without erasing memories).What grudges are you unable to shake off?
Have you tried any type of meditation to get over those?