How can we better recollect what we hear in classes?

From: Trivikrama Das

When  I do so much hearing of lectures from teachers, I often find that I cannot recollect all that has been heard by me. (infact many things). How to best engage in the hearing process so that it can be recollected and reproduced at all times. Does it mean that so  much hearing is of no use? Can you recommend a hearing process that can best benefit the student?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
okay question from Trivikram Prabhu when I do so much hearing of lectures from teachers I often find that I cannot recollect all that has been heard by me in fact many things how to best engage in the hearing process so that it can be recollected reproduced at all times does it mean that so much hearing is of no use can you recommend a hearing process that can best benefit the student answer recollection of actual information is not the only purpose of hearing we hear primarily because it enables us to serve Krishna when Krishna is manifesting as the sound vibration pravishtha karana randrena swanam bhava saroroham dhanoti shamalam krishna salilasya tha sharad so most of the times when we hear the glorification of the process of hearing in the shrimad bhagavatam the focus is not on how much the hearer is able to recollect the focus is on the opportunity to contact Krishna through sound vibration pravishtha karana randrena through the holes in the ears pravishtha Krishna enters swanam bhava saroroham so Krishna enters into the heart, the lotus of the heart blossoms by that dhanoti shamalam krishna by that and Krishna comes and sits on the lotus of the heart, the lotus of the heart blossoms, our consciousness blossoms and then dhanoti shamalam krishna shamalam all the mala from the heart gets washed away salilasya tha sharad just as sharad, when the autumnal rains come, the dirt that has been accumulated in the previous season because of the rain water washing away the soil, that dirt gets cleansed off the dirty water goes off and fresh water comes in so basically this example conveys the idea that just as fresh water cleanses off the dirty water similarly fresh devotional thoughts cleanse away the stale materialistic thoughts so the focus here is not on remembrance the focus is on purification, so of course purification does require some amount of remembrance but that remembrance doesn’t have to be centered on facts that remembrance is a more redirection of our heart’s affection towards krishna so when we turn towards krishna and offer our attentive hearing to him then gradually our heart becomes attracted to him so first and foremost we have to be clear that our objective primarily is not recollection it is purification so contact with krishna is purifying if we look at the srimad bhagavatam the sages are discussing and it is not that they do not know krishna’s past times at all, krishna was well known, he was the supreme lord who had descended and the sages were discussing his past times, but then they are still eager to hear because there is purification involved, now of course along with purification there are other objectives which are also served by our hearing process for example, our hearing enables us to become basically I have given a series of classes on the potency of the nine limbs of devotional service so in hearing I explained that they from analytical perspective the four different benefits that we can get is information comprehension realization and purification along with of course satisfaction so information this is the first level many people don’t even know that I am not the body, I am the soul especially people who are not born in the spiritual culture, so that itself is a revolutionary information then after information comes comprehension, there are some things which are not as informative we have to understand them so by hearing we comprehend things systematically because we find, ok this question is raised, this question is answered the analysis is done in a particular way so comprehension and then there is realization realization means that things become internalized, comprehension is more intellectual whereas realization is more the matter of the heart so at the level of information the whatever we are hearing enters the ears at the level of comprehension it enters the head and at the level of realization it enters the heart, we accept it the mind is the door to the heart and when the mind accepts something then essentially we say that I have realized it, so then the mind opens the door to the heart and that particular information enters into the heart, that’s another very important benefit of here, that is realization so of course there is satisfaction because we love Krishna or we aspire to love Krishna and because Krishna performs such wonderful pastimes, just hearing about Krishna satisfies us and in fact the greater our devotion to Krishna, the greater will be the satisfaction when we remember Him so the purification which we talked about earlier is for the sadhakas, the siddhas they don’t need purification but still they keep hearing, why? because for them, hearing leads to satisfaction and they feel supremely satisfied by hearing and so they want to go on hearing again and again Chaitanya Mahaprabhu exemplifies that when He wanted to hear the pastimes of Dhruv Maharaj and Prahlad Maharaj hundreds of times so information comprehension, realization purification and satisfaction, these can be summarized as the effects of hearing so now, still we would like to recollect, no doubt because then we can also use it for outreach most of us we hear seriously either if we have some serious philosophical doubts that are destabilizing our faith if that is not happening then if we have more or less accepted the precepts of Krishna consciousness, then the only reason we hear is that we want some good information that we can share with others of course, we do hear as a service but a prime motive of hearing is often just collecting information so that we can speak to others it’s not necessarily a wrong motive, but it shouldn’t be the only motive, the primary motive has to be for our own application, purification so, when I talk about realization, realization doesn’t come just by hearing, it comes by application also, so application is included in hearing in fact that is one of the most important aspects satisfaction also will result at a much deeper level when we apply things purification will also be more complete when we apply things so, for recollection, which we can use in our outreach as well as recollection that we can use for our own subsequent application we all will have to develop our own method of memorization, so some devotees like to make elaborate notes, some devotees just like to make brief point notes some devotees like to just hear attentively during the class, but generally no matter how attentive we are during the class, it is unlikely that we will be able to remember what we have heard for very long, if we want to remember then we do have to make some kind of notes, Srila Prabhupada in fact directly said one time that remembering means writing, that if we don’t remember we won’t, if we want to remember we need to write, if we don’t write we will not be able to remember for a very long time for most things now what kind of note should we make that will vary depending on person to person but generally if we make notes we can revisit those notes and see which part of the notes are useful, which other parts of the notes are not useful and that way we can learn how to continue our notes or how to redirect the notes making focus in the future so there is no universal method that will apply for everyone for hearing but essentially we hear as a service to Krishna and a service to his devotees and it is a limb of devotional service and that service has these results of information comprehension, realization purification satisfaction and it is largely centered on application generally one of the best ways to recollect is also to share so if we decide that whatever I have heard at least one point from it I will speak somewhere else so that actually shifts our position from merely being a passive student to an active student who is thinking of at least a small way become a teacher in future and that helps us to hear seriously so making notes and sharing with others are both ways in which we can reinforce our recollection of things another thing which we could do is try to connect that means whenever we are hearing some points our mind complacently says I have already heard this so we could turn the mind’s complacence around and say yes I have heard it but when have I heard it that very act of when have I heard it forces us to think more seriously and then when I say I heard that point in that class what was the context over there is the context the same over here what are the connections that is made by the speaker now what is the connection I am making this stimulates thought so one of the keys of recollection is connection generally whatever we hear it’s not that it gets permanently lost or deleted it just goes so deep into the vast stock of our memory that it’s like something is there in the brain but the address is lost so if we connect one thing that we have heard with other things that we have heard then that connection becomes an alternative retrieval track for us by which even if the direct address is forgotten we can reach that point place by an alternative retrieval track so trying to connect things is very helpful in not only aiding recollection but even in stimulating absorption when we start connecting then we really get deeply absorbed in what we are hearing and that also helps us to recollect it later in fact we see that connection is in many ways the essence of devotion Shaitanya Mahaprabhu would see a forest and immediately in his memory he would be able to connect it with Krishna in Vrindavan especially Vrindavan forest and that connection of whatever we hear with whatever we have heard in the past about Krishna happens spontaneously for advanced devotees and that can be made to happen conscientiously for us as sadhakas so by note making, by sharing and by connecting we can stimulate our we can improve our hearing quality thank you