Why we shouldn’t read books
There are a series of factors that can influence how much we absorb when we study the books. How can we really understand and remember what we are reading?
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“As devotees, we understand that studying śāstra is very important, but sometimes it can become mechanical and boring, like, ‘I just have to read Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.’ At the same time, we also hear how Śrīla Prabhupāda says that the solutions to life’s problems are found in these books. So, at what pace, or in what way should we read śāstra so that it feels nourishing and helpful for our spiritual life? For example, should we read for about 25 minutes daily, then reflect and write in a journal about what we learned? What would be the best strategy?”
There are a series of factors that can influence how much we absorb when studying the books. We can start by examining the way scriptures were traditionally studied, and see how we can try to bring it to our practical lives.
The Vedas are also called Śruti, which means “that what is heard”. There was a whole process for the transmission of knowledge, in which the disciples would live with the spiritual master for several years. During this time, the guru would teach a few verses daily, explain their meaning and application, the disciples would ask questions, the guru would check if they understood, and so on. This would guarantee that by the time they would conclude their studies, they would have effectively understood the relevant scriptures.
The two key components of this process were:
a) Trust, or what we may also call surrender. The disciples would trust the guru and thus really absorb what he was teaching, seeing him as a source of perfect knowledge, and the guru would fit the role, transmitting knowledge the way he received from his own spiritual master.
b) The second was the process of questions and answers. This is the component that would make the study practical and dynamic. The disciples would not just hear blocks of information. They would learn how this knowledge is applicable in practical life.
This process is summarized in the Gītā as: “Just try to learn the truth by approaching a spiritual master. Inquire from him submissively and render service unto him. The self-realized souls can impart knowledge unto you because they have seen the truth.”
We can see that here Kṛṣṇa gives a few requisites:
a) To approach a spiritual master with a humble heart.
b) To offer some service (this part is important, because service gives the spiritual qualification necessary for understanding the knowledge)
c) To ask relevant questions on the practical application of the knowledge and other topics.
This process, however, is very rare in the age we live in. Nowadays, everyone is very busy just fighting for survival, and have no opportunity for sitting for years to learn, and on the other side, qualified spiritual masters are often busy with thousands of disciples.
The answer Prabhupāda found for this problem was to make all the explanations public in the form of his books. Not only does he give all the correct meanings for the verses, but he also gives complete explanations for each, just like gurus in previous ages would give individually to their disciples. Just because he made the knowledge available, however, does not mean we can get everything automatically just by reading a few books.
Anyone can benefit by reading even just one page, or even a single line of any of his books, but to go deep into the spiritual knowledge, reading is not enough. We need to go through the whole process, or at least follow it as closely as possible.
The first point is that we need to accept the knowledge that he transmits in his books as the absolute truth, understanding that this is a knowledge that comes from Kṛṣṇa and is reaching us through the medium of the paramparā. It may sound like fanaticism at first, but it is the basic prerequisite to receiving spiritual knowledge.
We can argue and discuss in the beginning, we may even challenge, finding devotees who can answer our questions on Prabhupāda’s teachings, and giving them a hard time. It’s not about accepting anything blindly. The point is that after exhausting this process, we should come to the point where we see that this knowledge really came from Kṛṣṇa. That’s the point where our study begins. That’s the moment we enter the university, so to speak. Before that, it was just like just watching videos on YouTube.
We can see that many, if not most, devotees nowadays fail already at this point. They just read many different books on all kinds of topics, mixing different lines and taking Prabhupāda as just another opinion. This means the process of inquiry didn’t even begin. On this level, one may study the whole life without understanding even basic points.
If one can get past this phase and take this knowledge seriously, there is then the next point: we shouldn’t read.
Just reading books is more or less like chanting japa just to complete our 16 rounds. It has some utility, but it is less than we may think. We will also probably not go very far by just that. What we need to do is study them in detail, going verse by verse, and trying to understand each idea, why it is relevant, how it can be applied, solving apparent contradictions, and so on. This is a much longer process that usually takes our whole life. There are many strategies that can work here, including writing summaries of what we are studying, writing articles on particular points (even if just for ourselves), keeping a diary, and so on. We need to find what works for us.
There is no harm in taking a book and just reading it, but to master any book, we need to go through this minute process.
For this process to work, another component is necessary: sevayā. We need to offer some kind of service to Prabhupāda and his mission, directly or indirectly. As we saw previously, this component is also essential, because without at least a little service, we can’t obtain the spiritual qualification necessary for understanding this knowledge.
As we go through this process, we will come up with many questions, and that’s also an important part of the process. We should take note of these questions and go after devotees who can answer them. Ideally, we should have a mentor whom we trust and who can help us, but if this is not possible, we can just do what we can, beg, borrow, or steal. When we are sincere, Kṛṣṇa can connect us with devotees who can help us to grow.
As we go through life, going through different situations and observing others, this knowledge gradually matures into spiritual realization (vijñāna), as we gradually learn to apply all this philosophical knowledge we have got.
The final part of the process is to teach others. As we repeat what we learned and help others to go through the same process, we realize this knowledge even more deeply, reaching a level of understanding that can go well beyond what we had before.
This is what I also try to do here in the website, trying to explain the teachings of Prabhupāda in a way that can help others who are still in the process of questioning to gradually find answers to their questions and gradually come to the point of trust, and then offering curses and other more in-dept materials that can help on the process of deeply studying. Many other devotees do the same, and that’s the way we try to serve Śrīla Prabhupāda, by broadcasting his teachings.
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