We cherish memories, don’t we? The mind loves to behave like a library by collecting, storing, and cataloguing every experience. It wants to be a photo album of our travels, festivals, school days, college days, birthdays, weddings, and countless other moments. These are fragments of time we revisit whenever nostalgia calls. We often say, “If only I could go back and relive those days.” But even if time travel were possible, would the past feel the same? Would we enjoy it again, or would it simply be a shadow of what once was?

The mind holds an enormous archive of memories, yet we remember only a sliver of this life. If we accept reincarnation, imagine the sheer volume of impressions accumulated across lifetimes. Where did the first memory begin? Where will the last memory end? Both ends are unfathomable. Memory is Anaadi, beginningless. And this is another doorway to understanding Maayaa, which is also Anaadi. Memory is always about the past. But for the past to be remembered, it must appear now, in the present moment. Even the past experiences happened only in the present. If everything is experienced in the present, does the past truly exist? The present alone stands as truth.

The Skanda Puraaṇa speaks of Bhairavi Yaatanaa. People go to Kaashi (Varanasi) with the wish to die there, for it is considered a profound blessing. Kaalabhairava is the guardian of Kaashi, and without his grace, no one can die there. A person may move to Kaashi to await death, yet life may compel him to travel briefly elsewhere. If he dies outside Kaashi, it is said that Kaalabhairava did not grant him the grace to die in the sacred city.

The Skanda Puraaṇa says: पापानि भस्मसात्कृत्य भैरवीम् यातनाम् ततः । निर्मलः प्राप्नुयान्मुक्तिं विश्वनाथप्रसादतः When one is graced to die in Kaashi, at the moment of death, all memories across lifetimes flash before the eye, compressed into less than a minute. Imagine millions of impressions playing like an intense, overwhelming cinema. This is Bhairavi Yaatanaa.  Yaatana means intense burning. The experiences that a person undergoes in the hells governed by Lord Yama is known as Yaatana.  At the end of this intense burning, Bhairava reduces all past impressions to ash, and the soul becomes forever free by the grace of Lord Vishvanaatha.

The teaching in Skanda Puraaṇa is simple and profound. The past is only worthy of being burnt. Memory is fuel for the fire of liberation. What remains after the burning is the silent, stainless witness. Here, the individual soul recognises itself as Shiva.

The message is uncomplicated. Do not cling to the past. Even a glorious past is only ash waiting to happen.

This is what Vibhuuti reminds you every time you wear it. It whispers “You exist only in the present. The present alone is real. Neither past nor future has any independent existence.” Even if they appear, they appear in the now. The present is the only truth beyond time, beyond place, beyond memory.