The second aspect of mind is memory. The work of memory is not creative but perceptive. Its work is to receive impressions and to gather them together. Some scientists say that the cells of the brain are impressed by every impression that comes through the senses, and it is that which is kept in the brain, to be brought forth when one wants them. But it is not like that, although it can be taken as a symbolic explanation. The scientist has pictured it as it is in the inner plane, but because he does not recognize the inner plane he wants to explain it in physical terms and calls it brain-cells. It is true in essence; but it is not in the brain, it is in the mind.

Memory can be likened to a photographic plate; the impressions it takes remain there, and when a person wishes to recollect something this faculty helps him. It is within his reach. As soon as he wants to recall an experience he puts his hand, so to speak, on that particular plate which has received the impression of a certain experience. No experience received from sight, or smell, or hearing, or touch, or taste is lost. When people say, "My memory is not good; I cannot remember things; I am absentminded", the reason is that they have lost control over this faculty; but the impression is there all the same. Very often a person says, "I know it, but I cannot recall it to my memory." In other words, in his mind he knows it, but in his brain it is not yet clear. For instance, when a person cannot remember the name or the face of someone he says, "I think I know it but I cannot find it for the moment." That means that his mind knows it, that it is there, but that he cannot make it clear in his brain.

There are certain things we need not look for, but which are always clear in our memory. We have only to stretch out and put our hand on them, such as figures, names, and faces of those we know. We can recall them at any moment we wish; they are always living in our memory.

But then there is the second part of memory which is sometimes called the subconscious mind, though in reality it is the bottom of the memory. In this part of the memory a photograph is made of everything we have seen or known or heard, even once just like a flash, and it remains there. There we can find it at some time or other, either with difficulty or easily, as the case may be.

Besides these two aspects of the memory there is a still deeper sphere to which our memory is linked, and that sphere is the universal memory, in other words the divine Mind, where we do not only recollect what we have seen or heard or known, but where we can even touch something we have never learnt or heard or known or seen. This can be found there also; only for this the doors of memory should be laid open.