​What to do if our conviction doesn’t increase after studying scripture?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
If we say that after reading scripture our conviction, our commitment increases, but what to do if after reading that is not happening? Yes, then we have to actually see introspect and find out how we are studying scripture. Just like when I eat food, the natural result of eating food is that I get energy.
But sometimes it may happen that there may be some germs in the stomach because of which I eat the food and the germs eat all the food and I don’t get any energy. Or sometimes I’ve been eating certain kinds of foods which are not digestible for me. So, they don’t give me the energy.
So, we have to observe what exactly are we doing. So, reading is not a stereotype activity. Now, some devotees may read a lot and they feel, oh, I read 50 pages, I read 100 pages and then I had this, I didn’t have this before.
Some other devotees may spend one hour reading just three, four pages. They go deep and they analyze, we read something and then we write something based on it or we read one concept and then we try to understand this concept, maybe I read some other purpose somewhere else or maybe some other articles on based on that. And I try to not just complete the pages just to keep a number count of how many pages I have read, but we actually move towards comprehending what is taking place.
So, different people have different kinds of intellectual needs. So, we have to find out what nourishes us. So, in the earliest years of our life, quite often, we find that our inspiration, comprehension and conviction all come much more through hearing than through reading.
Reading, we do as a service to Srila Prabhupada and to the Shastra, but we see the relevance of Shastra to our lives primarily through glasses. So, if we find that our Shastric study is not so nourishing, then we can try to more correlate our Shastric study with our hearing. That means, if you are reading Bhagavad Gita, find out if somebody has, there are many devotees who have done this, find out some classes on that same section of the Bhagavad Gita.
So, if you are reading one chapter, no need to just rush to the chapter and go to the next chapter, read the chapter and hear some classes on that chapter and then hear the class and then again come back and read and then you get much more comprehension. So, harmonizing our reading and hearing is a very powerful way of increasing our absorption in that, to become synergistic. We hear and then we read, oh, I didn’t notice this when I was reading this and I read that, oh, when I hear this, oh, now this becomes clear.
It’s a nice way of experience. So, that way, we can find out what are the ways in which we can make our scriptural study more nourishing for ourselves and we also have to know that not everybody will find the same things equally inspiring. So, sometimes for some devotees, scriptural study may not be their primary source of inspiration.
It may be certain services, certain other limbs of bhakti which may inspire. So, scriptural study is one limb of bhakti, it’s very important, but it is not the only activity in bhakti. So, when we harmonize our scriptural study with other activities in bhakti, so someday we will find practical services more inspiring.
So, then what we could do is, service that we find inspiring, we read something in scripture which is connected with bhakti. So, for example, if we like to read books, then we read something about our preaching, about our distribution and that way we try to bring a sense of connectedness between what attracts us and what we are studying and that way we can make our scriptural study more nourishing. So, if someone has some doubts which prevent us from loving Krishna,