Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation), We all spend some time now reading a book either suggested by someone or maybe something that appeals to our thought process and there can be many other reasons as well for reading. This week let me bring to your attention a very interesting and thought provoking work, ‘Learning How to Learn’. This work was an outcome of many questions posted to the author by some people in pursuit of Truth (Universal Truth) and mostly about one of the traditions (Sufi tradition) & pursuit of truth therein.
Excerpt:
Capacity comes before Opinion
Q: Some people say they can learn through studying books, others that there isn’t anything worthwhile in books and others that they haven’t found the right books yet. What are your reactions to this sort of thing?
A: I can’t do better that repeat an old story told by a Sufi. He described how at one time he looked for books and did not find them; then he found them and thought that everything was in them; then he decided that there was nothing in them. Finally, but only after going through all these phases – and phases they are – he realized which were the books useful to him, and what their use really was.
What had been wrong was his attitude of accepting or rejecting books before he himself attained the capacity to study the matter properly. He was forming opinions without first developing ordinary capacities further; and asking for things without being able to profit from them.
Why do people always wonder whether books are any good, without wondering whether they are themselves in a state to profit from them?
Concluding remark for the questioner: This person is concentrating on the idea of books, not the ideas in the books.
You can buy your copy from any of the bookstores near you or via any on-line portal selling books or also by clicking the following link:
Concluding today’s session.
Let us remember: Our life experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to. Attention: is important and most of the times we are so indifferent to it. It is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. We feed the hunger blindly. Once the mechanism is brought to our attention and we begin to study it, it is as if a veil has been stripped off ordinary life, and we become freer in our action and choices.
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