Three Methods of Learning

There are three methods of learning namely sravana (listening), manana (constant contemplation) and nididhyasana (to assimilate). Truly, what you have listened to cannot be easily grasped and assimilated just by listening. You have to do some manana or think it over again and again and then absorb what you have listened to. This is nididhyasana. If you do all three then only can you enjoy the fruits of what you have listened to. Will your hunger be relieved merely by looking at what has been cooked? Even if you just eat what has been cooked, will you be able to derive the necessary strength from the nourishment? Only if you digest the food that you have eaten, can you get the nourishment. As cooking, eating and then digesting are three essential processes to get the ultimate result, so also, sravana, manana, and nididhyasana must follow one another in that order, only then can you acquire some aspects of the Atma Vidya.

So that is actually what is happening in writing, it is part of that process of learning. The first is sravana (listening), the second is manana, constant contemplation or seeing it in our own life and nididhyasana, means to assimilate.

Listen, think it over, absorb.

He is explaining nicely here how we have to do manana or think it over again and again and that is just what is happening if we think it over again and again, it sometimes seems always the same, but it changes the aspect and in time it begins to make more sense. 

We have to think it over again and again and then absorb what we have been listening to.

And how is it done?

Baba was once in my dream and asked, 'I am hungry and you?' And in this thought for the day I find the answer. 

That is the level of hunger he was in the insight talking about. If we look at it the way when we cook and there is the food and we will still be hungry if we do not eat it. And it has to be digested as well or we don't get the strength from the nurishment. 

Thus he explains that process how we get by those methods to Atma Vidya. We have to listen, sravana, think it over again and again (seing it in our own life) manana and nidihysana, we have to digest and absorb the wisdom in our own self. And it has to be in that order and only like that we can acquire some aspects of Atma Vidya.

Vidya is wisdom, knowledge, so only like that we can get some knowledge about Atma.

But it is also interesting that in cooking that food in listening and thinking it over today I get aware of it that I avoided certain things in the past, because I didn't know, I left it more or less open. It was not possible with my family to look at it as the also avoided it, but out of another reason. In the end it resulted kind of in the same pattern, even if I was looking for truth, I avoided it because I had been let down by my mother and that means she was about avoiding everything.  

Somewhere in the past the experience got lost and made no sense anymore.

Baba asked us always, 'where is your husband?' He never asked me that, but he asked another devotee I had to translate for, 'who I was and to whom I belonged and what our relationship was.' At the time I had no idea what to do with those questions as I didn't know the answer and it felt far away and I began to talk about it and in no time I had someone who said, 'but you belong to me', only that was not the right answer and later Baba said, that he took only advantage of it. 

Seeing it in my own life I went again and again through all that and often there were other insights and in time it began to make sense, not only on the intellectual level, but on the feeling level. 

It is not searching, we do not search for something, we do think it over and see it in our own life, the answer is already given, the answer is in him, we just have to get aware of it and it is a kind of awakening.  

I noticed I had avoided certain things in the past and today as I see the parent's house in a different way I don't need to avoid it anymore and that can become like a storm in my dream as it seems all demons come up at the same time.
But whatever, we hope later it will be better and different. 

Also with people I had known in the past I went usually on without saying anything and leaving it open in the hope I will now better one day and that went on in my life for a long time. I wanted to live out of a suitcase and always be ready to leave. 

There have been insights before, but it seemed to make no sense and after trying for years in vain to get answers, we know we have to listen and think it over and absorb. That is how some aspects of the wisdom of Atma will be there. 

There are three methods of learning namely sravana (listening), manana (constant contemplation) and nididhyasana (to assimilate). Truly, what you have listened to cannot be easily grasped and assimilated just by listening. You have to do some manana or think it over again and again and then absorb what you have listened to. This is nididhyasana. If you do all three then only can you enjoy the fruits of what you have listened to. Will your hunger be relieved merely by looking at what has been cooked? Even if you just eat what has been cooked, will you be able to derive the necessary strength from the nourishment? Only if you digest the food that you have eaten, can you get the nourishment. As cooking, eating and then digesting are three essential processes to get the ultimate result, so also, sravana, manana, and nididhyasana must follow one another in that order, only then can you acquire some aspects of the Atma Vidya.

We have to recognize the method of learning in listening. We don't just write, we think it over and he is guiding from the inside, so we turn it around and look at it in different ways and with time we get aware of it that it does make much more sense. 

So when Baba asked 'where is your husband'? He got us into that inside questioning we need to be able to think it over …

First it had to be cooked and it is about eating and also sharing and digesting it. The nourishment of it and the strength will be present as the he aspect of Atma, Atma Vidya.  
So I had in the past two weeks to digest stuff which has been old and I had to tell things I never said when I should have, but now I tell because it has changed. 
In that sense is nididhyasana not just beautiful and great, the digestion depends on what we ate.

But the strength we get from it is beyond that and that is the main thing. So we have to eat the right type of food.