I think Yoga has made me an idiot

[Maximus]

It's not as if memory of skills and events goes away but on several occassions they don't trigger the reaction on time. And I easily get fooled. For example,
1. At work it was told to me that a certain thing doesn't work this way, but the very next day I was stuck the whole day and wasting time on the very same thing, and only in the evening the memory came to me, Oh, they already told me this is not the way. I had been following an obsolete document and it did not get triggered in my memory that this is not what they said yesterday.
  These kind of events have repeated several times so far, making me spend several long hours at work to compensate for the mistakes, and also make me feel guilty that I'm wasting time at work.

2. When someone asks what I was doing yesterday, sometimes it just goes blank and I take several seconds to recall what I was doing yesterday. Or sometimes someone just talking about something without giving context because it was discussed so recently, and I go blank "querying my database" what they are referring to.

3. On one occassion went to a particular city for an interview and was dropped back at the airport 6 hours early as the interview happened to be much shorter. I was idling at the aiport all that time and it did not occur to me once to reschedule to an earlier flight. Realized I should have done that only after someone indicated this  after I flew back.

I'm thinking this is (unfortunately) due to Yoga because yoga is about minimizing the impact of deep impressions, and all skills and memory are nothing but impressions, and it seems logical that the problems I mentioned could be arising from that.

[Jo-self]

Could be for many other reasons of course, like aging, and so forth.   Now not to be cynical or negative, but there have been many stories of Yoga having negative effects, besides, most of Yoga was a "forest" thing.  Very easy to be unattached when you don't have a mortage payment, or when your job is simply helping an ox churn up the ground.  

In my case, I am very atemporal.  In the now.  Doesn't help me with moving up in the corporate ladder when things that happened years ago could have happened yesterday for all I know.  

[newpov]

quote:yoga is about minimizing the impact of deep impressions, and all skills and memory are nothing but impressions..

maximums,

I submit this most cautiously since I know nothing about you.

Are you talking about samskaras? These are deep ruts in our body/mind that make for automatic, inflexible responses to life situations. Yoga makes for flexibility and new power of choice when these things weren't there before. So far as I know, yoga does not shut you down in any respect. Actually it tends to increase all aspects of human functioning. My understanding is that yoga will energize you and make for greater adaptability in your life.

How old are you? Early-onset dementia is not unheard of. Or, could you be preoccupied with some emotional conflict that has been sapping your energy? Why not continue AYP practice, whatever it is (what have you been doing, exactly?), but at the same time consult a psychiatrist? Get a diagnosis but DO NOT begin taking pills right away--first consider reporting back here what you have found out.

Be aware that a psychiatrist, at least in the USA, tends to give out a pill as an appropriate trial response to almost any problem that walks into his office. I am 66 and an experienced consumer of psychiatric services. You may email me privately if you wish.

newpov

[tadeas]

Hi Maximus,

I think this is typical for one of the stages of purification that we naturally go through. I'm sure it will resolve itself with time and practice. However, it wouldn't be wise to stop practices at this point, in my opinion.

There's a book called "Transformations of consciousness" (Wilber, Engler, Brown, can be found on amazon) which maps stages in meditation over traditions. There's a brief summary here: http://www.serve.com/cmtan/buddhism/Misc/psybudd1.html
Quote:
"The Rorschach tests from Group 2 had as their most outstanding characteristics "unproductivity" and a "paucity of associative elaborations." (Wilber, Engler, and Brown, pg. 177). The Rorschach test requires the subject to describe what an inkblot looks like, and meditators who exhibited deepened samadhi complained that it "took too much energy" to produce any images or associations of the inkblot."

While you of course may or may not be in this stage right now, it is at least a motivation
I've gone through a period like that, but it eventually resolved itself. I just waited, meditated and gave myself to the process... what else is there to do anyway

Btw. memories and skills won't go away, only the identification with them will.

[NagoyaSea]

Hi Jo-Self and welcome to the AYP forum.  We're glad you're here.  Thank you for your post!

light and love,

Kathy

[emc]

Hi Maximus, I experienced this some time ago. I now see it was a phase I was going through. The whole thread might be of interest to read

http://www.aypsite.com/plus-forum/index.php?topic=1673&whichpage=2#13012

[CarsonZi]

Namaste Maximus,

My experience is very similair to yours.  Lately I have a hard time even WANTING to remember trivial things.  Most people who know me say that this is due to me and my pot smoking habits.  But realistically I have never smoked as little pot as I am right now, and my memory (or desire to remember unimportant details) is getting "worse", for lack of a better word.  Not really worse, as I can remember things that are important to me, (mostly yoga stuff) but worse as in I care very little about remembering things that seem unimportant in the GRAND scheme of things.  The people around me call this absentmindedness, but I call it lack of attachment.  Maybe I DO smoke too much pot?
In Love,
CarsonZi