When I study scriptures I am unable to concentrate. What should I do?

Transcript

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question whenever I try to study scriptures I find my mind distracted by many different thoughts about various things that have to be done and I don’t I find it difficult to concentrate on what I am reading what can I do to improve my concentration while studying scriptures answer answer we need to make our reading more active to increase our concentration at the sadhaka level in a broad generic sense the purpose of knowledge is envisioned differently depending on the modes in which we are situated at the transcendental pure devotional level pure goodness we are interested primarily in love of Krishna and we seek knowledge for the sake of love at the level of goodness we seek knowledge for the sake of truth wisdom understanding, learning passion at the level of passion we primarily seek knowledge for action for control for implement for bringing about change so much of scientific knowledge technological knowledge is in the mode of passion because it is explicitly the objective of trying to control material nature and in mode of ignorance we seek information or knowledge that just perpetuates our illusion it’s like people are often mindlessly curious seeking to know what is there on this channel and that channel so it is a passive reception of unprocessed information so in the mode of ignorance we definitely cannot study scripture in the mode of passion we feel scripture study useful to the extent that it helps us to get some things done that’s why if we have a class and before that we have to study scriptures we are able to study very attentively because we are doing something with that study we are going to speak a class on it so that is one way to motivate ourselves to study to increase our constitutional studies to always plan that whatever we study we will eventually be speaking along with that we can also make our reading active in various other ways the simplest could be that we could underline or highlight important points in what we are writing or we could even mark some headlines in the books which we are writing on different devotees have different opinions about whether to mark on scriptures or not some devotees feel that their books are like deities and so they should not be marked on others feel that the markings are like decorations on the deities and they are perfectly ok in fact they beautify they say the decorations beautify increase to our vision the beauty of the deities similarly the markings in the books they increase to our understanding the accessibility of the knowledge that is there so apart from that we could reword what we have written what we have read in the scriptures that means we could select the most striking theme that is given that we find in a particular section of reading and try to put it in our own words that itself will force us to make our reading active so if we are planning to read for say one hour we plan in advance in the last 10 minutes I will be writing something down based on what I have read so rewording means that we select a theme from the scriptures from what we have read in the scriptures and then phrase it in our own words this forces us to think and this act of writing deepens our understanding also similarly we could comment comment does not mean in a negative sense pass comments about someone but comment means write our own responses where if Srila Prabhupada is making a particular strong statement we can highlight this is assertive what does this mean this is a very striking statement something like that where we write down words so essentially when we make our reading more active then that helps us a lot in increasing our absorption another way to make our reading active could be to discuss we plan that everyday I read something whatever I read I discuss with somebody else another way could be compile so whatever we are reading if we make our own sections of our own sort of computer files or physical files or at least mental files where we compile information about specific topics if we are reading something on three modes and we know already there is a 14th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita which talks about the three modes there is a chapter in the 11th canto talks about three modes whatever we read we just file it of course it has to be substantial enough to be filed that way if it’s just one purport then noting down the number of the purport may not be so helpful but if there is a section on a particular theme then surely it will be additional valuable reference for us in the future when we want to study and prepare on a subject systematically over a period of time as our connection with Krishna increases more and more then we will start relishing the study of scripture out of a sense of devotion but right now we often focus on doing practical action in service to Krishna and that’s why scripture seems to be not so interesting but even if we are in passion we cannot artificially suddenly jump to goodness nor can we use our current state of passion to justify not studying scriptures so the way to bring about an intersection between the goodness activity of scriptural study and the passionate state of our consciousness is to find out the way that works best for us to make our reading active so I gave a few alternatives but each devotee can think among these alternatives and beyond these alternatives to find out how we can make our reading active and that way we can increase our absorption while studying scriptures