How to Memorize Anything (31 page)

In meditation, we not only create positive thoughts, but also visualize them and try to be in that state of mind, experiencing it at the same time. Thus our faculties—
mind and intellect—work together, yielding better concentration
.

Our mind is like a garden. It’s on us, whether we want to plant thorny bushes in it or beautiful fragrant flowers. Weeds and unwanted plants grow on their own. If we want flowers, then, we have to make effort to sow powerful, healthy seeds, take proper care of the plants, water them and take out the weeds on a regular basis. Similarly, if we want our mind to be powerful, we have to water it with good, powerful thoughts and clean the negative wasteful ones on a regular basis; Meditation helps us to do that, thus improving the quality of our thoughts, eventually leading to powerful mind.

If we consider ourselves stuck in the traffic of thoughts, then install a traffic signal of meditation and see the difference. The traffic signal can help you remember the above three steps of meditation as follows:

1. RED LIGHT—
   Reflecting the self
   : Stop everything outside and observe your thoughts inside.
   
2. YELLOW LIGHT—
   Relaxing the mind
   : Channelizing the thoughts: Check and Choose the right thoughts in the right way of thinking.
   
3. GREEN LIGHT—
   Recharging the mind
   : Conscious and continuous flow of positive thoughts
   

H
OW TO MEDITATE WHEN YOU DON
’
T HAVE TIME
?

In today’s fast life we are too busy to take out time for ourselves. There’s an easy way for that too. You don’t have to take out special time for meditation. Whenever you get stuck in the traffic JAM of your own thoughts, apply the rule of J-A-M (Just-A-Minute).

 ‘J-A-M’—a solution to distress and recharge your mind!
It takes just-a-minute to transform your world. For example, you are going for an interview and thousands of thoughts are coming in your mind about whether I will be asked difficult or easy questions? What if I am not selected? What if I won’t be able to answer something?, What will happen to my family? For how many more days I have to search for a good job? Am I capable of clearing the interview, etc. Instead of wasting your time and mental energy like this, take out a minute to
check, choose and change
your thoughts which empowers you and helps you to perform better. You can talk to yourself for a minute like this:

 
Like stars shine to bring light during the night, I am a spiritual being of radiant light, like a sparkling star in the night sky, reflecting and radiating spiritual light all around… I am a child of God, sent on this earth for a special purpose. The light which emanates from the heart of me is peaceful and loving… It touches each and everyone whomever I meet… Today I am going to appear for an interview. I am capable and will perform very well. I have no expectations, I know the best will happen to me… God has given me my own inner strengths and on the basis of that, I am going to perform very well today. Whatever the result is, I will accept it with grace and relaxed mind. I am happy and contented. I am going to remain happy… Happiness is my property and is going to remain with me no matter what… I know I can do it.

 These thoughts will replace any disturbing or negative thoughts which might be coming in your mind. But the most important thing is taking out this one minute for yourself.

Here are a few thoughts or themes for meditation to help you:

• I am just a tiny point of pure energy, of light, situated at the center of the forehead. And within that tiny point lie all my thoughts, feelings, emotions, attitudes, beliefs and my personality traits. Within the point of light that I am, lie all the qualities of spirit that I have. I am a source of love, peace, power and wisdom for others.
  
• I am a miniscule point of energy, at the centre of the forehead and I am instrumental in making this body work. This body may be heavy and big as compared to me, but I, the soul, am so light, and free that I can almost fly. I experience bliss as the soul releases itself from the bondage of matter.
  

Online website links for learning meditation:

Visit this website
http://www.just-a-minute.org
updated with many useful meditation commentaries both for adults and children. There is also an option (for ‘traffic-control’) at the right top corner to play meditation commentary every hour or a chime every hour.

Learn Online Rajyoga Meditation to Enhance your Life and Relationships
http://learnmeditationonline.org

Meditation for beginners: Essentials of Raja Yoga,
Discover the Spirit within
(28 mins)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJOk99Q1Kmk

For a
good memory
proper diet, relaxation and exercise are required. In the same way for a
powerful mind,
a nutritious diet of good, positive thoughts, minimizing the thoughts to relax and generation of positivity is required as mind exercise. Meditation helps to achieve this target. It’s the most important step to increase your concentration.

Answers to the brainteasers and puzzles:

1. M
   ATCHSTICK PUZZLES:
   

   1. 

   2. 

2. 1. Niagara Falls
      
   2. Middle-aged
      
   3. Too high
      
   4. Shut up sit down
      
   5. For instance
      
   6. Too funny for words
      
   7. Split personality
      
   8. Under World
      
3. Observation skills
   
   1. 6 F, our brains are trained to overlook the word OF
      
   2. Unique item is: pencil
      

CHAPTER AT A GLANCE

PART C

STUDENT SECTION

E
very now and then we see people coming up with various techniques to help students get rid of exam phobia. Even then, memorizing everything in the syllabus is a big problem for many students.

Memory techniques have been proved to help students a great deal to memorize simple and abstract information in all subjects.

In this section, we try to provide memory solutions for various topics like learning to memorize:

• short and long answers,
  
• chemistry periodic table,
  
• formulae for chemical compounds,
  
• history dates,
  
• maths formulae,
  
• values of constants,
  
• biological terms,
  
• diseases and their symptoms, etc.
  

Other topics like memorizing vocabulary, foreign language, and general knowledge data including country–capitals, spellings, etc. have already been discussed in detail in the earlier
chapters 6
,
7
,
10
and
11
in
Part B
of the book.

Though different chapters in this section provide memory solutions for different subjects, we recommend that irrespective of your subject of interest,
you must refer to all the topics so as to understand the usage of memory techniques in various forms.

You will notice that the techniques used to memorize history dates are the same as those being used to memorize chemistry periodic table or constants.

Our suggestion is you keep the earlier tricks in mind while reading this section so that you get the maximum exposure to different examples from different subjects. This will enable you to understand the application of memory techniques in your own studies in a better manner.

Memory techniques do not encourage rote-learning. Since these techniques are based on principles of association and visualization, it is important to understand the topic clearly, and only then will you be able to visualize it. Also understand that using memory techniques we do not memorize the answers word for word. Instead, these techniques work like clues to help you memorize and recall the keywords or the confusing part of the answers correctly. You can use different memory techniques for memorizing different topics as per your choice and comfort.

All the techniques and their uses are also tabulated
(in chapter 22—
Smart Study Skills
)
for your easy reference along with their direct application in different questions.

17

CHEMISTRY

A
Chemistry student is required to memorize names of various elements of the periodic table, their valencies, compounds and alloys made by them, cause and effects of different kinds of chemical reactions, scientific names, and much more by heart. And even after repeating it several times, we cannot guarantee a perfect recollection, and if we don’t repeat it, we become confused.

In this chapter, we will learn how memory techniques are useful in memorizing such difficult facts using the imagination and creativity of the brain.

MEMORIZING THE CHEMISTRY PERIODIC TABLE

There are 118 elements in the periodic table. I am yet to meet a Chemistry teacher who has memorized all the elements of the periodic table along with their atomic numbers.

But if you know the codes of the phonetic peg system well, you can memorize the complete periodic table in just a day or two. Sounds impossible? It’s possible! Hundreds of my students have mastered this.

Y
OU
C
AN
D
O
I
T
T
OO

My son Devansh achieved this seemingly impossible task at a young age of five, when he did not even know the C of Chemistry. His name got registered in
the India Book of Records
as
‘the youngest child to memorize
the complete periodic table’.