Smriti
The Storehouse That Shapes the Present
Memory is strange. Unlike the other contents of consciousness, it presents itself as faithful record—as what actually happened, preserved for reference. We treat memories as evidence, as proof, as the foundation upon which we build our sense of self. But the yogic tradition sees something different: memory is not a passive archive but an active force, constantly filtering present perception through accumulated experience. Understanding how smriti (memory) functions is essential to understanding why we suffer and how we might become free.
Memory among the vrittis
The Yoga Sutras identify five types of mental fluctuations (vrittis): correct perception, misconception, imagination, sleep, and memory. This fifth vritti receives its own definition:
anubhuta vishaya asampramoshah smritih (I.11)
“Memory is the non-loss of experienced objects.”
The phrasing is precise. Memory is not simply recall but non-loss—the persistence of experience beyond its occurrence. What was perceived leaves an impression, and that impression remains available for future arising. The mind retains what it has encountered, and this retention constitutes the continuous substrate of personal identity.
Yet Patanjali places smriti among the vrittis for a reason. Like the other four, memory is a modification of chitta—the mind-stuff—and therefore a movement away from the stillness that is yoga’s goal. Even accurate memory is a fluctuation. Even useful recall disturbs the transparency through which pure awareness might shine. This may seem harsh, as if memory were being pathologized, but the tradition is making a subtler point: the problem is not that memory exists but that we do not see it for what it is.
The mechanism of retention
To understand how memory shapes experience, we must understand samskara—the impressions left by action and experience. Every perception, every thought, every deed creates a trace in chitta. These traces are not neutral recordings but active tendencies. A samskara is like a groove in soft earth: water encountering that groove will tend to flow along it. Experience encountering established samskaras will tend to follow familiar patterns.
Memory, in this view, is the arising of samskaras into conscious awareness. What we call “remembering” is a samskara becoming active enough to register as present content. But the influence of samskaras extends far beyond explicit recall. The accumulated impressions function as a lens through which we perceive everything new. We do not see the world fresh; we see it through the filter of everything we have seen before.
This is why two people witnessing the same event remember it differently. Their samskaras shape perception itself, not only its later recall. And this is why patterns repeat: the grooves are deep, worn by countless passings, and attention flows into them automatically. What we call personality, preference, tendency—these are samskara patterns operating, memory in its broadest sense determining what we notice, how we interpret, and how we respond.
Memory and the kleshas
The kleshas—the five afflictions that cause suffering—are perpetuated through memory. Consider how this works.
Avidya (ignorance) mistakes the impermanent for permanent, the not-self for self. But how does this mistake persist? Through memory. The false identification made yesterday becomes the unexamined assumption of today. The conclusion that “I am this body” or “I am these thoughts” hardens through repetition into apparent certainty. Memory stores the error and presents it as established fact.
Raga (attachment) and dvesha (aversion) depend entirely on memory. We are attracted to what memory associates with pleasure, repelled by what memory associates with pain. These associations may be accurate or distorted, recent or ancient, conscious or buried—but they operate through remembered connection. Without memory, the stimulus would lack valence; there would be no basis for attraction or repulsion.
Most strikingly, abhinivesha—the clinging to life, the fear of death—is described as persisting even in the wise because it operates through memory so deep that explicit recall cannot reach it. The tradition suggests that memories of death itself, carried across lifetimes, generate this universal fear. The body has died before, and though the conscious mind cannot remember, the impression remains, shaping behavior at the most fundamental level.
Memory, then, is not merely one content among others but the mechanism through which affliction perpetuates itself. The kleshas would have no grip without the storehouse of impressions that gives them material to work with.
Two edges of smriti
The tradition does not condemn memory. Like fire, it can serve or destroy depending on how it is used and whether the user understands its nature.
Memory in its problematic aspect operates through identification. When a painful memory arises and we take it to be present reality, we suffer now from what happened then. When accumulated associations color perception so thoroughly that we cannot see what is actually before us, we live in the past while believing we live in the present. Rumination—the repetitive replaying of memories—is smriti gone circular, the same samskaras activating again and again without resolution.
But memory also enables learning, tradition, and wisdom. Without memory, the teacher’s words would not persist beyond their utterance. Without the capacity to retain what works and what fails, growth would be impossible. The vast repository of Vedic knowledge depends on smriti—both the faculty and the category of texts (the Smritis, distinguished from Shruti) that preserve tradition.
The distinction is between memory that serves awareness and memory that obscures it. When memory provides useful context without capturing attention, it functions properly. When memory claims to be present reality rather than past trace, it becomes bondage.
Memory in meditation
Those who have sat in meditation know the parade of memories that arises when the mind begins to settle. Moments from childhood, fragments of conversation, images of places long departed—the repository opens as external stimulation decreases. This is smriti becoming visible.
The instruction is not to suppress these arisings but to recognize them for what they are. A memory is a present modification of chitta, not a window into the past. When the memory of an argument arises, there is no argument happening now; there is only an image, a trace, a vritti. Seeing this clearly loosens the grip that memory otherwise maintains.
This recognition is itself a practice. Each time a memory is witnessed as arising phenomenon rather than absorbed into as reality, the identification weakens slightly. The samskara does not disappear, but its automatic power diminishes. Over time, the meditator develops what might be called a different relationship with memory—present to its arising, not captured by its content.
The practice of svadhyaya (self-study) applies here directly. Self-study includes observing how memory operates in one’s own mind: which memories arise repeatedly, what emotions they carry, how they shape current perception. This observation is not psychological analysis seeking causes but direct witnessing that reveals the mechanism. When you see clearly how a particular memory distorts your perception of a present person or situation, something shifts. The pattern may continue, but it continues with awareness rather than unconsciously.
Memory, time, and karma
The relationship between smriti and karma deserves attention. Karma—action and its consequences—depends on memory for its psychological manifestation. The past exists for us only as memory; the future exists only as projection based on memory. What we call “my life” is a narrative constructed from remembered fragments, organized by schemas that are themselves products of accumulated experience.
This is not to say that the past did not happen or that karma is merely subjective. Actions have objective consequences that unfold regardless of what we remember. But our experience of those consequences, our interpretation of present circumstances as karmic fruit, our very sense of being someone who has a past—all of this operates through smriti.
The present moment is the only point where karma can be met consciously. Memory presents the past as if it were present; anticipation presents the future as if it were certain. Between these projections, actual contact with what is becomes difficult. The practice of presence—which all the limbs of yoga ultimately support—requires recognizing when smriti has captured attention and mistaken itself for current reality.
Creating new samskaras
The tradition offers a practical approach: since samskaras shape experience through their accumulated weight, new samskaras can be created that point toward freedom rather than bondage. This is the logic behind sankalpa (resolve), mantra repetition, and consistent practice.
Each time awareness recognizes a memory as memory, a new impression is created—an impression of witnessing rather than identification. Each time a constructive thought is deliberately cultivated, it leaves its trace. The grooves of old patterns are deep, but they are not infinitely deep. With patient repetition over years, new patterns can become strong enough to change the default flow of attention.
This is slow work. The tradition speaks honestly about the timeframe required. Patterns established over lifetimes do not dissolve in a weekend workshop. But the possibility of change is real, and the method is clear: practice that creates new impressions while weakening identification with old ones.
Abhyasa (persistent practice) and vairagyam (non-attachment) work together here. Practice creates beneficial samskaras; non-attachment prevents new bondage from forming around the practice itself. Without persistence, no new patterns develop. Without non-attachment, practice becomes another source of grasping.
The witness beyond memory
Ultimately, the recognition that memory is vritti points toward what is not vritti. If smriti is a modification of chitta, what observes that modification? If memory is content of consciousness, what is the consciousness that contains it?
The Yoga Sutras answer clearly: Purusha, the Seer, pure awareness distinct from all that is seen. This awareness does not remember because it does not change. It does not accumulate impressions because it is not part of prakriti (nature). It simply is—the unchanging witness in whose light all memories arise and pass.
This is not a philosophical abstraction but a pointer toward direct experience. In meditation, there are moments when a memory is clearly seen as arising phenomenon—not suppressed, not indulged, simply witnessed. In that witnessing, something becomes apparent: the witness is not touched by what is witnessed. The memory has its character, its emotion, its pull—but awareness itself remains unstained.
These glimpses do not constitute liberation. The samskaras remain; the patterns continue. But they suggest what liberation would be: not the elimination of memory but freedom from bondage to it. The mind continues to function; memories arise; the Seer remains unmoved.
Working with memory
For the practitioner, several approaches support skillful relationship with smriti.
Regular meditation creates the conditions for recognizing memory as memory. Without periods of relative stillness, the flow of mental content moves too quickly for clear seeing. Even brief daily practice begins to develop the witness capacity.
Studying the tradition—particularly the Yoga Sutras—provides the framework for understanding what is observed. The concepts of vritti, samskara, and the distinction between Purusha and Prakriti are maps that make the territory navigable. Without such maps, self-observation can become confused self-absorption.
Svadhyaya in both senses—studying sacred texts and studying one’s own patterns—reveals how memory operates specifically in this particular mind. Generic teaching about smriti becomes personal knowledge when you see exactly how your own memories shape your own perception.
Non-reactive witnessing of whatever arises—painful memory, pleasant memory, neutral memory—strengthens the capacity to remain present without being captured. Each instance of witnessing rather than identifying creates its impression, gradually shifting the balance.
And patience, always patience. The storehouse of memory accumulated over a lifetime (or, as the tradition holds, lifetimes) will not empty in a season. The work is measured in years. But each moment of clear seeing is its own reward, and the cumulative effect, while slow, is real.
Memory is one of five vrittis described in the Yoga Sutras. Understanding how it operates within chitta illuminates why patterns persist despite our intention to change. The practice of svadhyaya provides the method for observing memory’s influence, while meditation develops the witness capacity that brings freedom from identification.