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Have you ever tried to create a new habit? Or break an old habit? Or caused a major life transformation and found yourself slipping?
It could be something very simple like wanting to start to learn how to meditate. Or form a running habit. Or something more profound, like spending more time with your family. Or being calmer at your work. And you start with that positive intention, you make some progress but then you find yourself regressing back to your old ways. And slowly you’re back to where you started out from. So today we’ll try to analyze why that happens. And talk about how to make changes permanent so that your life is transformed, for good. And I’ll use a Vedanta concept about learning And the three stages of learning.
So according to Vedanta, learning happens with three stages. Sravana, Manana and Nididhyana. That’s the foundation of the learning ladder. Sravana means learning through secondary sources. And that is hearing me talk for instance. Or consuming knowledge through podcasts and blogs and reading books. So all the knowledge that exists in the world, that is Sravana. Manana is contemplating on that knowledge, on that secondary knowledge and making it a part of your experience by actually thinking independently about it. And then the final stage of learning is experience. And that is actually experiencing the learning that you’ve been gathering so far. So let’s take a simple example.
You want to learn how to meditate. The secondary learning which is kind of the foundation of the learning experiences that you read in texts like the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali or Dhammapada. Or you listen to my YouTube videos on meditation. Or you go to a meditation retreat. These are all secondary sources.
You have to go to the next phase after that which is contemplation. So you have to think about why is meditation so important for you? What is the nature of the mind? Why do you need to silence the mind? At a very intellectual level you have to wrestle or grapple with these concepts on your own. And then slowly it will seep into your experience. And then the third and final stage is that you actually start to meditate.
You actually sit down on the mat and spend a half an hour everyday in the morning in the night and you’re actually doing these practices on your own. And then meditation will kind of sink into your experience. What I’ve seen with my own practice is, although I’ve been meditating for four or five years now but if I just get into the habit of meditating every day and I’m not reading my spiritual texts, I’m not reading Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. If I’m not reading those kind of spiritual texts and I’m not contemplating these truths, my meditation practice either starts to weaken or falls off completely. So it’s almost like it’s not a pyramid of learning as much as all three have to happen concurrently, simultaneously, regularly in order for this life change to creep into your every essence, into your full essence. Same way, let’s take running. You know you want to make a running or an exercise habit because you think that’ll make you healthier. So you start this concept that you’ve gained from secondary sources in the world. You’ve read some research or people have told you that it’s very important to exercise to be healthy and you start creating an exercise habit. Your first stage is that you’ve learnt about it from people. You’ve started to contemplate it, you’re not happy with the way you are health-wise and you start to think about what it would mean to be healthy again. So you’re contemplating this truth. And then you actually start getting into the exercise. So you start running a little bit. In order to make this a continuous habit for you you have to do all three simultaneously. So even after you’ve created a running habit, keep learning more about why is it important to exercise. And keep surrounding yourself with positive reinforcements around the benefits of exercise.
Whether that be through reading or the right people. Or through healthy food around you. You’re just surrounding yourself with the knowledge that this is important and you keep reflecting on it. And as a result you’ll find the stimuli to keep your running or exercise habit going. If any of the three rungs of the ladder fall, the whole ladder in a way collapses. So in a sense this is the essence of causing changes that truly become permanent and transform your life. Do all three together. Learn, reflect on the learning and make learning a part of your experience. Don’t do any one of the three or two of the three, you need all three together.
I hope this was helpful and I’ll see you next week.
This is Karan Bajaj and I want to offer you my free meditation video course today.
Subscribe to my channel for your free startup and meditation course and 3-5x weekly videos on startups, success models, and writing, https://www.youtube.
