Laws Of Memory : Part 11 : Law Of Relativity

Welcome to Pure Experiences. This is a series on Laws of Memory. Today we are going to discuss a very simple, but very important law, which is applicable on the memory. It is called the Law of Relativity, and not to be confused with theory of relativity.

## 8 - Law of Relativity

This law says that in this existence, nothing is absolute. You can call it the law of non-absoluteness, which means whenever you experience something and experience any attributesyou detect, perceive any attributes in itthose are never absolute; they are always relative. These attributes are defined relative to something, something else.

So what is the meaning of absolute? That it is fixed, it cannot be anything else, it cannot be compared with anything else. And the meaning of the word attribute is any quality, any quantity, any adjectives that can be added to your experience.

So whatever is perceived is perceived comparatively. The differences provide the knowledge. If there are no differences, either nothing is perceived or no change is detected.

So this all can sound really abstract, so we must go and check some examples using our direct experience. And then, after looking at some examples, there is no need to search the whole world; you can use logical inference to prove the law.

When you perceive any object, you see the size, the weight, the heat, temperature, so on. These are the attributes of that object. Even brightness, color, so on. And you will quickly find that the sizes are not absolute. If you compare two objects, you can call one big and the other small. But when you are looking at just one object, you cannot say whether it is big or small.

This example is so simple that many people will not appreciate it. It is almost too obvious that size comparison can happen only if there are two objects. But somebody can say, "No, if you give me one object, I can measure its height, width, and so on. I can tell you the absolute size of it." And that is why I said this simple example will not be appreciated by many.

When you are measuring the size of something using a scale or a ruler, tape, you are comparing it with the scale or the measuring rod, whatever. Otherwise, it's impossible to know the size. The measurement simply puts a number on it, so that when you measure something else using the same measuring rod, you can compare the two numbers and tell which one is bigger. If you don't compare those two numbers, two measurements, nothing can be said.

And the same goes for volume, weight, even the direction: up and down, left, right. You need to compare it with something to know anything about the attributes of an object.

We never paid attention to this in our, in whole of our lives. If you declare one object as bigger than the other object, and if somebody brings something else which is bigger than the big object, now you must call that object a small object, because something bigger is there in the room. So something which was big became small because now it is compared to a bigger one.

The attribute of size is relative. We say it like this, and when we say it like this, now it does not appear so childish. If somebody can say that, "What is your point? Yes, obviously this happens." But you need to contemplate on this sentence: the attribute or the quality of the size is always relative. And that means there is no absolute size of anything.

Now it is more shocking. That also means that size is an illusion. You will never find a real size of anything.

So you need to think deeply why this this is called law. And if it is called law, there must be some big reason.

Somebody can say, "No, I know the size. The size is 1 meter by 1 meter by 1 meter, 1 meter cube." And that is because you never paid attention to the meter. It is an arbitrary unit. If you bring a foot rule, now the size will change to probably 3 by 3 by 3, roughly. How big is that cube or box? Nobody knows. If you change the unit, nobody will understand how big things are.

A very good foot rule or measuring rod is human body itself. The word "foot" or "feet" probably comes from there, but it's not equal to the size of the foot, human foot. So the the units and the measuring rods are defined by international unit society or some standard, and they are all arbitrary.

So if you stand close to something, you get a very good idea of how big that thing is. If you hold it in your hands, yes. If you cannot see it with your eyes, you declare it as small, tiny, microscopic. And sometimes it is so big that we don't know what is the size; it looks like almost endless, infinite, like a mountain or Earth itself. You need to go very far away to see how big it is.

So the big and small is a concept created by human beings that is useful to know whether I can hold it, or whether I'll be crushed by it. Should I fight with this man who looks bigger than me, or should I run away? This is how the mind creates size. It is a mental construct. There is no size in the existence. Without any comparison, this quality will not exist.

Same for everything else. Now the logic comes in here: weight, volume, duration, time, mass, energy, force, velocity, and many more things. You can take any attribute and experiment. Do you find anything absolute?

If you want to measure the direction, it must be relative to something. If you want to measure the angle, it must be relative to something. If you want to measure the position, you must find an origin, a standard place. So there are no positions, no angles, no directions.

How much is mind created? How much is our imagination only? The answer is easy: everything, all of it, all the qualities.

So these were some physical examples. We are going to take some non-physical examples or conceptual examples before we go to the mental, because for human beings, those mental things are more important. This law will produce a mental shock if you think about it when applied to mental attributes.

So before that, let us take a look at something very fundamental, which is change.

## Change & Memory

How do we perceive the change? Change is fundamental because we have defined the vibration as a change, but the law of relativity breaks this concept also, it is so strong.

Change is simply comparison between two memory states. The comparison is not happening in time, you must assume like this, although we won't be able to imagine it clearly. So there are two objects in the memory. They are compared instantly, timelessly, and some attribute is producedbig or small, and something like this.

But if it is the same object, and if the comparison produces a difference, the intellect or the memory will not call it an attribute; it will call it a change. See how mysterious this thing is.

And this change gives rise to a sense of time passing. Something has changed, that gives rise to the concept of time. The concept of time comes out of perception of change, and the perception of change is simply comparison of two memory states. You can define time as the measurement of changehow much change has happened, just like meter is a measurement of distance, how much distance is there. Time measures how much change is there.

So it is very amazing that if you present two objects, two different objects, to the memory, and these memory locations are compared, it will give rise to the attribute of size and so on: volume, bigness, smallness. But if the memory says it is the same thing, it is the same object, then it will give rise to the attribute of change.

For example, you take two balloons. One is bigger than the other. If they are seen simultaneously, then the memory will produce the attribute of size: one balloon is bigger than the size of the other balloon. But if you remove one balloon, and simply pump more air in the remaining balloon, the memory will not say that there are two objects of different sizes; the memory will say the same object is now bigger, size has changed.

In the first case also the size was changing, but since it was simultaneous, there was no dimension of time there. But here, the same object is presented. The memory recognizes it as the same object, and therefore it says it is changing. So the change is relative to the first state. There is no absolute change also.

It is very difficult to talk about change without using the language of time, so we'll use the language of numbers and probability.

If the balloon has two probabilities of appearing differently, which is possible because there there is a potential for the balloon to change, then if these two probabilities are presented in the memory, and if the memory says it is the it is mostly the same object, then it will be called a change. The difference of two probabilities will be called a change.

The memory will not say that the object one was smaller than the object two; it will say the object one changed into object one which is now bigger. The comparison is between the memories, not between the two perceptions.

So before we understand change, we must introduce another concept, which I already introduced. It is that of a memory location.

You know that the memory is infinite, there is no limit. It is non-physical, non-mental. We can assume that the memory is divided into sections. It is an assumption, there is no real section. There is no real division in the memory.

You can compare it with a movie, a film, which has many frames. Each frame can be called a memory location because something is impressed on that frame. Memory is simply an impression of a vibrating pattern. That vibrating pattern is experienced.

So for simplicity, let us assume that there are only 1,000 memory locations in the existence. And in our example, that means the movie has only 1,000 frames. And a pattern of balloon is impressed on that memory location. In all those 1,000 frames, because of the copying mechanism of the patternsthe patterns are not stationary, they copy themselves everywheresince we have only 1,000 locations, we assume that only 1,000 copies will be made.

Then we assume that the balloon is leaking a little bit of air. So that means the pattern, when it copies, must copy it with less air. There is a probability that this will happen: air will leak out of the balloon. So every time the copy is made, the memory pattern must copy the pattern of balloon with a little bit of less air in it. So after 1,000 frames, you will get the same pattern, but without much air.

These 1,000 possibilities, they exist at the same time. There is no time in the existence. It is all infinite memory. So these copies are made instantly, without time, just like all the pictures on the movie strip, the film strip, they are present at once. This balloon will appear in 1,000 frames of the movie, with the difference of size.

So if the attention shifts from first frame to the last frame, the memory will say a change has happened, because a difference in size will be detected. The conclusion will be: size has changed.

And the memory will also say, by shifting the attention through 1,000 frames, it will say it took 1,000 frames. It will create a sense of time: one unit of time corresponding to one frame. So the memory will say: change in size happened in 1,000 units of time. So if the unit is second, it will say it took 1,000 seconds.

All of these 1,000 frames will be perceived, but the attention will shift from this frame to that frame. It's all in memory, and wherever the attention is, that is the present moment. Let us say the attention is on frame number 500, and the balloon will be shown half the size there. And if the attention is on 1,000 frame, the balloon will be shown almost with no air, small balloon.

And if all these frames are recalled, the intellect, whatever is doing the comparison, will say: this balloon was big; after 1,000 seconds, it became a small balloon. Change has happened.

But actually, all these memory locations are present timelessly, only the attention is moving. In rough words you can say the mind is moving, not the object.

This is a very familiar sentence for many people who must have studied some philosophies, ancient philosophies: "The mind is moving, there is actually no change, nothing changes, objects do not change."

There are almost infinite possibilities and configurations in which a memory pattern will exist. If you scan through those memory locations, one or other kind of difference will be detected, and it will be called a change.

I know it is very difficult to understand. It took me half an hour to record this much.

So the track the attention or mind takes to scan through the memory locations will be called a timeline.

You can imagine there can be different tracks where the same memory pattern can take different shape. It evolves in a different timeline. But since a local copy has already been made in a human memory, it becomes the history or the past. And now that cannot be changed. The human or this organism says, "This event happened."

This mechanism or the process sounds very complex. Probably I don't have the skill to explain it nicely, but it's very simple. There are infinite timelines, and whatever path is taken, for some or the other reason, becomes the history. And we know only the history; we cannot know the present, or other timelines, or futures.

So you can say that the change is a movement of attention through the memory location. Attention is simply selective perception.

We can go on explaining like this, but it will take a full book to explain every word.

So in our film metaphor, if the film is moved in front of a light source, the pictures will be projected on the screen, and the pictures will appear as changing. One object will appear on the screen, and it will produce the illusion of change. What is actually there? A thousand variety of the same pattern. They are actually 1,000 patterns.

But you must remember that there are no actual memory locations that are separated from each other, and there are no actual 1,000 patterns. It is all one. It is present there as a superposition of 1,000 patterns.

Because we will never understand what is happening, how the mind is moving through superposition of 1,000 states of memory, we need to spread it out in distance, in space, and try to understand it with the metaphor of film strip, frames of images.

So if a larger or greater difference is detected, the conclusion is that bigger change has happened, there is a lot of change. But if there is not much difference between all these patterns in different memory locations, we perceive it as stable. It is the same object. That is the conclusion.

If there are two objects in the same frame, in the same memory location, still the memory can detect a difference, if there is any, and it will say: this object is bigger than that object. Object number one is bigger than object number two. Now this is intra-frame comparison instead of inter-frame.

If there are two objects in all the 1,000 frames, the memory can still detect any differences, and it will say that these two objects, one is always bigger than the other. Or, in case of leakage of air from the balloon, if there are two balloons and they are present in those 1,000 frames, in each frame you will see two balloons, but one will become smaller and smaller. So that can also be detected. Memory can say that there were two objects; after 1,000 seconds, one is very small, the other is big. Still the same.

And there can be infinite kinds of combinations, permutations, events, display of vibrating patterns. And the attention or the mind takes a route through this, producing a history of events.

The only difference between the film strip and memory locations is that film strip is already made, it cannot change, you cannot have a different timeline of movie unless you create another movie, another film strip. But in the case of memory locations, there are almost infinite possibilities. The attention can take any route.

But usually that does not happen because the attention or the mind is bound by knowledge, which means it is bound by whatever exists already in the history. So it is biased to follow that timeline. So the balloons will not suddenly become footballs or rocks. It's not possible, because of the previous knowledge that is stored in the memory.

Now this is becoming a really complicated matter, and also boring, because our point is to study the law of relativity. Just remember that the change is also relative.

Change can be perceived as quick, or fast, or slow. But if the same change happens at a different speed, comparison will be made, and now the conclusion will be: this is changing really slowly today.

So nothing changes fast, nothing changes slow. It is all relative, because change itself is false, an illusion.

This is something very basic, but the law of relativity applies here also. A vibrating pattern consists of vibration, two-state change, but they are different. One can be of smaller amplitude, the other can be of bigger amplitude, but still the changes in amplitude are relative. There is no standard amplitude of it, and that is because the range of these amplitudes is infinite. So whatever can be detected can only be relative. In the infinite range, you cannot detect anything absolute. You will always find something which is bigger than your existing amplitude, and if you go and search again, you will always find something which is much bigger, let us say, because there is no end.

So that applies to the size of physical objects. You will always find a bigger thing than the one you have, and there is always a chance that something even bigger will show up.

## Irreducibles

So all perception is comparison. There is no absolute perception. This we checked for vision: sizes and objects, changes in objects. But you can use logic and see that it is applicable to all the senses, which means it is applicable to all the irreducibles, because all these irreducibles are nothing but memory patterns. They are different formats of vibrations produced by different kinds of senses.

So a voice is louder only when compared to a soft voice. You can recognize a tone, whether it is higher or lower, only when you compare it with another tone, another note, let's say in music. Without comparison, there is no music. So the comparison here is happening in time.

Same about other irreducibles like smell and so on, taste. If you taste something sweet, it is sweet only in comparison to something which is not sweet. There is no absolute sweetness.

So all the sensations are relative.

It is well-known heat and cold is relative. Something is hot only in comparison with something which is not so hot. A very good experiment is to take three bowls of water: one with ice-cold water, one with room temperature water, and one with warm water. If you dip your hand in ice-cold water, and after a minute you you dip the same hand in room temperature water, the sensation will be of warmth. It will feel warmer. But if you dip your hand in hot water, and after a minute you dip it in the room temperature water, the sensation will be of coolness. It will feel cold.

So all these senses, they are simply lying. The room temperature water was warm when compared to ice-cold, but it was cold when compared to hot water. Is it really warm, or is it really cold? Whatever the sense of touch is telling you is simply comparative information. It is not telling you anything absolute. So the room temperature water is not absolutely cold or absolutely warm. There is no temperature. That is an illusion produced by the sense of touch. The sense of touch also senses temperature or heat, same skin.

Same about pain, pleasure, things that are important for you. They are all comparative, relative, and they are not real. It is all a lie. It's all false.

Same about brightness, darkness, colors. One color can appear anything if surrounded by a different colorwell-known optical illusion. And same is true for motion and many, many physical quantities. You can do the homework. So probably you got the idea and I need not go on explaining it.

## Human Centric Illusions

So we'll go to the important part: what about the mental experiences, such as happiness? And yes, the law of relativity applies there also.

You are very hungry, so there is no happiness, it is suffering that is sensed. You get an ice cream. Now desires are fulfilled, happiness is produced, some reward is produced in the mind. Remember, there is nothing in the ice cream. It is a pile of organic matter; there is no happiness there. So the mind produces a reward because you fulfilled the desire, you obeyed the command, so reward is given. That is felt as happiness: different kind of sensations.

But then you are given chocolate ice cream, big cone, more happiness! Now the first happiness: gone. But that somebody owns a factory of ice cream, they keep giving you the same ice cream every day, every hour, every minute. Now a comparison is made in the memory: what happened to this happiness? Is it better than yesterday's, or is it better than last minute's happiness? And no difference is seen. So the sensation that is produced, or the perception now is: "I'm not happy. Please give me something else. Give me something spicy, something bitter, like coffee. I don't want your ice cream now."

What happened to the happiness which you felt when you ate that ice cream after many hours of hunger? Why can't you get the same happiness now with the same ice cream, even with two or three or 40 ice creams? Why? The comparison comes out to be zero, that's why. Happiness is relative.

If you get something after suffering for it, there is more happiness. The mind is simply fooling you. Actually the mind is fooling everybody. That is why it is called illusion. There is no real happiness. You can say in short, there is no happiness.

Same about suffering or sadness. One day it happens that you fail in the exam. You're very sad, you're depressed. But somebody calls you and says, "One of your relativesmother, father, brother, sisterdied, unfortunately." Now you forget the exam. Now this suffering is too much compared to that. Now you start crying, you're not merely depressed.

So what happened to the suffering of failing in exam? It's meaningless. There was no suffering, something bigger came up. And that suffering is also relative. No happiness, no suffering, no sadness, no joy, no pleasure, no pain.

Same for satisfaction. What satisfies you is comparative.

A good example is: you pay 100 rupees to a beggar. He will be very satisfied, very happy. Even if you keep paying him 100 rupees per day, he will be satisfied. Not very happy, but "Yes, I'm getting it."

What happens if you pay 100 rupees to a millionaire? Probably on first day he will take it: "Oh, somebody's gifting me something, seems to be a good fellow." Next day he will laugh, but probably will still take it. But if you keep doing it, he will get irritated: "I'm a millionaire! There's no value of your 100 rupees for me." He will be insulted.

You say, "I'm paying you 100 rupees, do this thing for me. Do this job for me." The millionaire will beat you up! He will call security. And the beggar will be so happy that he will come to your house every day to do that job, whatever hard work that you are giving him.

Satisfaction is relative to whatever has already satisfied you. You will not get more satisfaction by repeating the same thing. So now you understand why nobody's satisfied in their life. They want change.

So if you have an ordinary-looking girlfriend, you are very happy, you are satisfied. But if by chance you meet a very beautiful girlfriend, you get her, now the first girlfriend is not satisfactory. You will not perceive so much jump in happiness, because you are getting the same love, but you will perceive a big difference in satisfaction. Probably your ordinary girlfriend loved you more than this one, because she's beautiful, she has more options. So you got 50% love, but you got 100% satisfaction. So life is complicated, you can see. That is because of law of relativity.

Now something which is very useful for spiritual people or intellectual people: our knowledge is also relative. The amount you know is relative.

If you consider yourself very knowledgeable, you will find somebody who will prove you that you know absolutely nothing, or whatever you know was ignorance. It happens many times. You cannot estimate or measure your knowledge. There is always something more to know.

How much you know depends on your previous knowledge or previous ignorance. If there was too much ignorance, if you know a little bit, it gives an impression that "I came to know a lot." If you have too much knowledge, and if you know one book worth of knowledge, probably you will forget that in one day, or you'll keep only the summary of it, essence of it.

So, since we are coming from the path of knowledge, it is directly applicable: your knowledge is relative. There is no absolute knowledge.

Now that explains that why less-educated people and less-intelligent people with less knowledge think they that they know everything. If they know a few facts, or one or two wisdom quotes from here and there, they listen to one or two sentences, declare themselves the the wisest men in the history. Why? Because their perceived knowledge is now too much, relatively. They were at zero, ignorance. Now it is 100, let us say, the amount of knowledge. It's a big jump.

But somebody who is very intelligent, very wise, has a lot of knowledgelet us say he has a 10,000 unit of knowledge. Somebody tells him one or two sentences, he gets 10,100 unit of knowledge. But comparatively, if you take a ratio, it is 0.0001% jump, roughly. So he will say, "I came to know nothing." So all your knowledge is illusion, there is nothing to know. So only illusion can be produced.

Now these things don't matter that much. Let us take something serious which any serious person will say matters. "That is absolute," they will say. For example, the good and bad. And I have a good and bad news for you, that they are also relative.

It is called ethics, and there are standards of ethics. What is good, what is bad, is never absolute; it is always relative.

So it is very bad to kill an animal. But a family of humans is dying, there is nothing to eat, it is a desert, or a snow-covered area, mountain. The death of a whole family, human family, is worse than killing one animal. There are thousands of animals, they keep reproducing, so, "Okay, let's kill it." Now the same action is a good action. Why? Because there is no absolute good and there is no absolute bad; it is all relative.

This is a very simple example, but the situation is more complicated because of law of relativity. One person's good is another person's bad. One person's bad is another person's good. You will find many examples.

For example, two countries are fighting, war. One soldier is killed. It is good for the other country, people of the other country. It is very bad for this country to to whom that soldier belongs. So keeps changing. It is relative who is talking about good and bad.

The ethics is cooked up on the spot. There is no ethics in the existence. It is not also unethical. These divisions are product of human imagination, false illusions.

The corresponding side of ethics is aesthetics or beauty. There is no beauty in existence, and there is no ugliness. It is all relative. One thing is beautiful compared to only something else. Otherwise you won't be able to tell what is beautiful, what is ugly.

Same for values, principles, ideals, and thousand other purely imaginary, illusory things which humans think are important. There the law of relativity destroys everything, actually.

In the beginning I said it is a very simple law. It will be over in 10 minutes, but but I can go on explaining like this. But we covered many important domains, starting from the irreducible, the basic change, and the attributes of the objects, and the quantities or qualities that are mental, and something which is considered spiritual, divine, what not. Everything is relative.

## Rising Above Relativity

Now the question is: how to rise above the law of relativity? How to reach the absoluteness?

And as usual, you cannot break this law. Everything that is perceived, everything that exists, or seems to exist, will be relative. But we can rise above the law of relativity by knowing that nothing is absolute. And that produces something which is not so relative. It is called equanimity. In Sanskrit you can call *sambhava* or *samadhi*, some kind. Which means you do not deviate too much because of relativity. Your mind is mostly stable. Although everything around it is changing, and there is almost insane amount of relativity out there, but you will remain steady, because you know this law.

Whenever you see too much, you know that it is not too much, even more can happen, so you become a little bit quiet, calm, equanimous. You see a very bad situation, but you know that something worse can happen, so you come back in the middle.

You will find this quality in a master. They are not moved too much by happiness, suffering. Too much happiness, too much suffering does not matter to them. They almost look like a stone sitting there in meditation. Does not matter what is happening around them.

You pay them 1 million, they smile. You pay them 1,000, they laugh. There is no difference. You call them heartless, and they smile. You call them evil, they laugh. No difference. Fame and humiliation, they are all equal. They are not swayed by greed, beauty, values, ethics, nothing. Why? Because they know it's all relative, all illusion. "This much beauty, very good, I'll enjoy it, but I cannot get attached to it because there is more beauty, or it turns into ugliness. It's all relative. It's all perception, illusion, experience, changing superpositions in the memory locations."

What are you going to do with it? Do you want happiness? It's all relative. It will not last. So all this mad rush stops for the master, for the one who has risen above the law of relativity. Equanimity, peace, bliss remains.

And I can guarantee you that once you reach this condition, *sambhava*, *samadhi*, you will never let it go. Even if somebody pays you in gold, you will reject that offer. You will say, "No, I want this equanimity. Enjoy your gold. Enjoy your kingdom. The gold and dirt, same thing." Just like hot and cold was same thing.

So a real wise person says, "I don't know anything," because obviously, all knowledge is ignorance, all knowledge is illusory knowledge. So the wisest person will say, "I'm agnostic." And they are easily satisfied with even small things, because they know that the small is better than nothing. It's too much, actually.

So all these qualities of humbleness, equanimity, satisfaction, contentness, stability, they will start manifesting in you, in this body-mind instrument. For that, you need to start studying what is appearing around you and your states of your mind. Use your direct experience. Look closely. Use your intelligencethe superior, the higher intelligence, spiritual intelligence, not your street smartness. And you will start seeing these things clearly.

It is a law, because it is never broken, but still, you can utilize this law to rise above it. Mostly this will be called progress, although the progress is also relative.

So we'll continue our discussion on laws of memory. There are many more laws. Thank you for listening to Pure Experiences.

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This article is a formatted transcript of a video in the series of videos on my YouTube channel **Pure Experiences**.
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Wise Words

Laws Of Memory : Part 11 : Law Of Relativity

Tarun Pradhaan