"After reading the book, I still can't grasp the main concept in the book! Why is the idea in the book so hard to grasp? Or is it that I am dumb!?"
Questions like these have arisen on many a reader's mind. Finding answers to these questions can lead to interesting conclusions.
First off, one needs to be open to receiving new ideas without being prejudiced by existing old ones seared into our minds during past decades of our growing up.
Keeping 'open mind' shouldn't mean allowing in and accepting any and all ideas uncritically. Having become conditioned by years of our past trainings and learnings, we do tend to resist change of our age-old habits, customs and beliefs. Our grandparents did not like our 'modern' ways when we as children were exposed to the 20th Century western culture; now we the 20th Century parents are dumfounded by the new generation, the 'Millennials', who are our own 21st Century children! Such non-acceptance of change, or resistance to new ideas that challenge our entrenched old convictions and beliefs, generated conflicts in individual relationships which are resolved only after compromises were made between the generations.
So the first big thing to keep in mind is that we are creatures of entrenched habits, beliefs and customs. One has to bring up the native courage within to overcome, or remain unaffected by, these old traits, and to allow new ideas to 'float' in, and subject them to critical examination.
This critical examination involves paying attention to the new idea being presented, and checking to see first whether it stands up to basic commonsense that we already are endowed with. In case this is not so, then we have more work to do!
New ideas that contradict our commonsense need to be examined more closely: what are the proofs offered by these new ideas, are they logical or do they contradict logic as we understand the word 'logic'?
To sum up:
Keep open mind, rise above our entrenched traits of many decades;
Examine if new idea stands up to commonsense;
Test the logic of arguments in cases that are outside commonsense.
One may have to re-read the arguments more number of times to prevent over-looking of any idea or insights.
Remember! It is never a question of blindly believing! The logic of arguments must be convincing, and stand up to rigorous questioning (Guru or God notwithstanding!)
There might be some critical passage or statement or idea somewhere in the book that may have been overlooked or passed over without fully imbibing its significance. Re-reading helps to catch such overlooked ideas or passages.
For example: In 'The God Concept' there is a passage on page-56 which says as follows: "Words like God, Awareness, Consciousness, Aatma, Paramaatma, Chaitanyam (Energy) Ishwara, Satyam, etc., all describe the same thing: the Brahmam, and these words are used interchangeably with Brahmam or God in the ... discussions."
The importance of the above passage arises for the following reasons:
First, it says these are all 'words' in use, we don't need to treat them as anything more than that;
Any of these 'words' can stand in for any of the other words in that list: you can replace the word 'God' with the word 'Aatma' (Self); etc. That idea of interchangeability of all those 'words' with each other results in dramatic improvement in understanding the concepts as you dive deeper into the book.
Ultimately, even the word 'Brahmam' loses its mystery or awe, because it is simply another word for Infinity. When all those words, like God, Awareness, Consciousness, Aatma, Paramaatma, Chaitanyam (Energy) Ishwara, Satyam, etc, are all same as the word Brahmam the infinity, the ideas in all those 200-plus pages of the book get simplified in the most unexpected (and welcome) fashion.
So let us be reassured: WE ARE NOT DUMB! We just need to persist in re-reading, without giving up after a single read-through.
Remember! What we are reading above is not a who-dun-it novel. It is truly to be thought of as BRAHMAVIDYA, the knowledge of the principles of our being Infinite Beings, no less!
Can there be anything more important than this in our lives!? Can we ever say that we don't have time for this education?!
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