“Svadhyaya is daily study of religious scriptures and books written by realized sages. Svadhyaya is the study of scriptures such as Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads, Ramayana, Bhagavata, etc. The study should be done with concentration. You should understand what you have studied and try to put in your everyday life all that you have learnt.
Svadhyaya clears doubts. It strengthens the flickering faith. It induces strong yearning for liberation or aspiration. It gives encouragement and illumination. It places before you a list of saints who trod the path, encountered and removed difficulties and thus cheers you with hope and vigour. It fills the mind with Sattva or purity; it inspires and elevates the mind. It helps concentration and meditation. It cuts new Sattvic grooves and makes the mind run in these new grooves.
Spiritual books act as consoling companions under all vexing circumstances, ideal teachers in all difficulties, as guiding lights in the nights of nescience and folly, as panacea for evils, and as shapers of destiny.
Scriptures contain the wisdom of sages and saints, philosophers and mystics. Wisdom is the key to the plenitude of power and joy. Be forever a thirsting aspirant after spiritual knowledge. Be forever a student. You can stave off old age and even death itself by preserving within you the youthful zeal and a devout eagerness to learn more, to practice more and to realize more deeply, the great spiritual Truth, which is inexhaustible, in spite of having been extolled and expounded by millions of saints, sages, and seers from time immemorial.”
Swami Sivananda
Bliss Divine
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